Beginner's Guide - Halls of Torment Guide - IGN (2024)

With bloodthirsty hellspawn rushing toward you the moment you enter a stage, Halls of Torment can be intimidating to even the most experienced survival horror fans. As if the onslaught of devilish creatures weren't enough of a challenge to manage, newcomers must quickly master the ins and outs of Blessings, Traits, Abilities, and more if they hope to make it out alive.

In this beginner's guide, you'll learn the basics about Halls of Torment's various gameplay mechanics, and you'll be provided several tips and tricks to help transform you from prey to predator.

Halls of Torment Beginner's Guide

Continue reading or click one of the links below to learn more about a specific section of this guide:

• Halls of Torment Basics
  • Abilities, Traits, and Power-Ups Explained
  • Blessings and Equipment Explained
• Beginner's Tips and Tricks
  • Understanding the HUD
  • Stay on the Move
  • Rescue the Wellkeeper ASAP
  • Prioritize Enemies with Projectile Attacks
  • Aim for Masses of Enemies
  • Familiarize Yourself with Weak and Passive Enemies
  • Enter Halls with a Goal in Mind

Halls of Torment Basics

When you enter your selected Hall, you'll immediately get swarmed by monsters, and to escape with your life, you'll need to outlast the horde for 30 minutes and defeat the stage's corresponding final boss.

As you fight back the horde, slain enemies will drop XP Gems, and once you've collected enough XP, you'll Level Up and get rewarded with your choice of one of four Traits that can either improve your Hero's unique Main Weapon or boost their base Attributes. The more enemies you defeat and the longer you endure the unrelenting attacks, the more powerful you'll become. Unfortunately, the same can be said for your enemies, so you'll need to be calculating with your upgrade selection and playstyle.

Abilities, Traits, and Power-Ups Explained

Abilities, Traits, and Power-Ups are all gameplay elements that help boost your character's Attributes and damage output during your current run. In other words, these up upgrades do not carry over long-term and will not impact your Hero after a death or successful stage completion.

While these terms may sound relatively straightforward, they can be easily mixed up when you're just getting started. With that in mind, here's a brief rundown of each of these mechanics and details on how they're collected:

Blessings and Equipment Explained

While Abilities, Traits, and Power-Ups reset once your run ends, Blessings and Equipment are upgrades that can carry over from run to run. However, you'll only be able to take advantage of these upgrades after completing some Milestones and spending a little Gold.

Blessings are essentially the permanent version of Traits, and once unlocked, you can purchase Blessings to improve your character's Attributes, such as their Damage, Attack Speed, Pickup Range, and more. Blessings purchased will improve the stats of all your Heroes, and they can be refunded from the Shrine of Blessings to recoup your full spend. The Shrine of Blessings will not become available until you've collected a total of 300 Gold to complete the Obolus Milestone/Achievement.

Meanwhile, Equipment are clothing items that can be worn to increase your character's Attributes. At any given time, you can wear up to seven pieces of Equipment including one Garment, one Headwear, one pair of Gloves, one Footwear, one Necklace, and two Rings.

You'll likely discover your first piece of Equipment after looting a Treasure Chest dropped by a slain elite enemy, but unless you've unlocked the Wellkeeper, the Equipment will disappear at the end of your run.

To permanently unlock Equipment, start by defeating the Imp Chieftain in the Haunted Caverns to unlock the Ember Grounds stage. Enter the Ember Grounds to rescue the Wellkeeper, and after being freed, the Wellkeeper will appear in your camp, alongside the Item Stash.

Freeing the Wellkeeper will also place a well in the various Halls, which allows you to retrieve and purchase new Equipment. If you find a new piece of Equipment during your run, take it to the well, and when you return to camp, the new item can be purchased from the Wellkeeper to permanently add it to your Item Stash.

Beginner's Tips and Tricks

Understanding the HUD

Though you'll undoubtedly quickly familiarize yourself with the Halls of Torment UI and its various elements, here are some notes that can help you during your initial runs:

Stay on the Move

Unless you're an experienced player with an incredibly stacked build of Equipment, Blessings, and Traits, your Weapons, and Abilities will never be able to outpace the horde. To avoid taking unnecessary damage, constantly reposition to dodge incoming blows but don't stray outside of your effective attack radius.

Staying on the move will also enable you to farm weaker enemies, loot crates, and use environmental traps to deal burn damage.

The few exceptions to this rule are the Pace Setter Footwear and Hunter's Garb Garment, which are pieces of Equipment that incentivize you to remain still for a limited time.

Rescue the Wellkeeper ASAP

One of the most straightforward ways to immediately improve your stats is to rescue the Wellkeeper to gain permanent access to Equipment in your camp. Though most pieces of Equipment must be retrieved and purchased, immediately after freeing the Wellkeeper, you'll unlock and be able to equip the following items for free:

• Chain Mail: +10% Health Capacity | +3 Defense
• Plate Armor: +6 Block Strength
• Plated Boots: +3 Defense | +3 Block Strength
• Runner Shoes: +15% Movement Speed
• Longfinger Gloves: +80% Pickup Range

To rescue the Wellkeeper and unlock the ability to permanently obtain Equipment, start by defeating the Imp Chieftain in the Haunted Caverns to earn the Ember Grounds Hall. Next, jump into the Ember Grounds and rescue the Wellkeeper by retrieving his cage's key. Once freed, the Wellkeeper will set up shop in the camp, and you'll gain access to the Item Stash, where you can equip or remove the Equipment of your choosing.

As you enter subsequent runs, you'll discover that a dried-up well has been added to all the stages. To add new Equipment to your inventory, defeat elite enemies or above, loot the Treasure Chest they drop upon death, then drop the Equipment into the well. When you finish your run, the retrieved piece of Equipment can be purchased from the Wellkeeper to permanently add it to the Item Stash.

Prioritize Enemies with Projectile Attacks

As the horde increases in number and strength, you'll quickly find yourself mashing keys to weave through an indistinguishable mass of monsters. Dodging the devilish creatures without taking damage is tough enough as it is, and it only becomes more difficult when enemies with ranged attacks get introduced.

To avoid having to dodge projectiles being shot from all directions, keep your aim fixed in the direction of nearby ranged enemies to promptly take them out. Bosses and elite-level monsters also typically employ at least one projectile-based attack, and because of their increased strength, defeating them should be an even bigger priority.

Aim for Masses of Enemies

Every Hero in Halls of Torment has a base Piercing and Area/Size Attribute that allows you to damage several enemies at once and these stats can be improved with select Blessings, Equipment, and Traits. Because thinning the horde is of the utmost importance, you should primarily aim your Main Weapon and any directional Abilities toward large clusters of enemies.

This way, you can weaken large numbers of monsters at once without having to frequently move your mouse. To fully maximize your Piercing damage, try circling a large group of creatures while continually aiming toward the center of the cluster. Piercing damage also enables you to damage grunts while dealing consistent damage to any elite enemies in the horde.

Familiarize Yourself with Weak and Passive Enemies

When your life is on the line, you'll inevitably become preoccupied with the many powerful threats stomping your way. As important as it is to keep tabs on these fearsome foes, it's also vital that you keep an eye out for weaker enemies like the skeletons pictured above. Once you've earned a few Traits and Abilities, the weaker enemies that you battled at the beginning of your run can be farmed to quickly collect XP, Level Up, and select additional Traits.

Secondly, if you're even in a jam, carve a path through weaker enemies to reposition to a safer location or to beeline toward a Potion, Food Item, or Power-Up.

Because Halls of Torment features a huge enemy variety, you may notice that some monsters are more passive than their charging allies. Like the weaker enemies, the passive creatures can be to your benefit because you can get very close to them without them lunging to attack.

Enter Halls with a Goal in Mind

When you start playing Halls of Torment, you'll inevitably struggle to make deep runs but that's largely by design. Because you're under-leveled from the outset, instead of blindly attempting to clear Halls straight out of the gate, try choosing Quests or Achievements to complete.

Each Quest is directly tied to a reward which can range from Gold to new Traits to Playable Characters. Entering a Hall with a specific goal in mind such as "Survive until there are only 26 minutes left" will allow you to adapt your strategy to complete that goal with your current build. Completing Quests also increases your XP Gain, which will exponentially increase your Level Up rate.