Occasionally, as a new wave of orcs rushes in and crashes into the fort, we hear the groan of a despondent greenskin on the wind: "I feel like I'll never get there." It seems like a moment of realization of the doom of their role in tower defense, but invariably, they do not fulfill that thought. They are smashed into rocks, tarred and burned, or electrified so that their skeletons flash.

Recently released from the shackles of stadia, Orcs Must Die. 3 is not usually a thoughtful fantasy game. There is little effort to explain the background of the infamous title character or to ponder where they came from or why they do what they do. But the game is a strategic siege simulator that responds to careful placement, inspired solutions, and a willingness to leave behind past assumptions and approach problems from new angles. It's a game that makes you feel smart, even if you're frantically waving your mouse around, trying to punch the kobold's eyes out with a magic bolt of lightning.

Imagine you are an interior designer, but in a universe where one of the tenets of feng shui is murder. Using a pre-allocated budget, you begin each level by buying, rotating, and placing your favorite traps in small dungeons (or, less frequently, large fields).

Then it's open houses, doors shatter inward, and enemies come running down the hallways and stairs. The traps they set off are Tom and Jerry-style slapstick comedy, hanging orcs in midair or stinging them with beehives. Then, with all the orcs dead or fleeing the portal you are supposed to protect, you build up your design again until the final wave arrives.

In traditional tower defense games, when the action phase arrives, you are prompted to sit back, take in the scene, grit your teeth, pray that the walls will hold, and drop an extra turret or two as funds allow. in Orcs Must Die. 3, the gown sleeve It's the moment to roll up your sleeves and dive in.

Like playing whack-a-mole, the fun is in finding headshots among enemies of varying sizes and firing into the hordes. The best secondary fire options include both freeze bombs and sweeping knockbacks that trigger the nostalgic ragdoll rounds. Overall, though, the combat is best described as mash and pease, with mainly button-mashing melee attacks and peashooter projectiles to be enjoyed. There is no need to master parry or active reloading as in Souls.

This is for the best, and perhaps intentional. While it is possible to build a playstyle around powered-up fighting, the combat is there to allow the dynamic to fill in the gaps left open by traps. Veterans of the series will know that there is a panicky pleasure in personally sniping a Kobold runner as he slips between the blades of a pneumatic machine.

Any more combat involved would be too much of a distraction and would upset the balance of this classic genre hybrid game. Robot Entertainment has been making "Orcs Must Die." for a long time. because the last time the studio attempted it was in 2017 with "Orcs Must Die. Unchained," the mixture was an explosive success.

Yes, "Orcs Must Die. 3" is a cautious sequel, and even its larger war scenarios feel familiar, albeit expanded. However, it has become more experimental over time as Robot has pursued a tower defense strategy in its development. The game effectively soft-launched last year on Stadia, and having survived that initial wave, the studio has built from the ground up with a second story campaign and a new endgame mode, Scramble.

The latter is an ironic variant, reminiscent of COD's Outbreak. The goal is to use one set of rift points (a pool that determines how many monsters can be allowed to pass through the portal before failing) to get through five levels of escalating difficulty. In between each stage, a new debuff awaits. For example, hordes of orc archers who will target us rather than the rift. The effect of implementing such a metagame is to push tactics beyond one's comfort zone, making scrambling a rewarding way to revisit the best maps.

Frustratingly, both the second campaign and scramble are locked until you have advanced well into the story.

Nevertheless, fans will be happy with the new acid geyser trap that melts orcs into a soggy mess and allows them to be chased with darts and arrows. After all, in "Orcs Must Die." as before, the maximum score combos due to the complex sequence of traps will keep top players occupied for hundreds of hours.

Newcomers should incorporate the new saw-blade launcher. Not only does this launcher have an interesting ricochet, but if fired inside an enclosed archway, it can shred a troll in seconds. With experience, you can anticipate the ricochet of a 45-degree wall and fill an entire hallway with bladed boomerangs. This is the best part of "Orcs Must Die.": comedy on a square piece of paper.

We may not know much about orcs, and they themselves may not know much about us. But even after years in the wilderness, Robot Entertainment has shown that they know how to make "Orcs Must Die." What a joy it is to have those pea-brain boys back.