HOARD puts you and up to three friends in control of greedy dragons, swooping over tiny kingdoms to burn, steal, and carry treasure back to your lairs. Its online modes support up to four players on separate computers, with both a shared-hoard co-op mode and competitive matches where every dragon wants the richest pile. The Steam/PC release requires an internet connection for multiplayer. Most rounds take about ten minutes, so you get a complete score attack without signing up for a campaign that will still be waiting next month.
A kingdom becomes your treasure route
The camera looks down on a little landscape arranged like a board game on a wooden table. Villages, fields, castles, roads, mills, and dragon lairs are spread around the map. You fly from above, breathe fire at things worth stealing from, and carry the resulting gold home. That return trip matters: treasure only becomes part of your score after you bring it to the lair.
The kingdom is busy even when no rival dragon is nearby. Wagons carry grain and gold; princesses ride between buildings; knights and archers patrol their settlements; thieves sneak toward piles of treasure; and a wizard tower can take aim at you from across the map. Giants and towers are dangerous targets that can also reward a sizeable haul. Your flight path crosses these moving threats, and a dragon at low health has to recover at its lair before returning to work.
The towns respond to your presence. If you leave a settlement alone for a while, it can prosper and start moving more valuable cargo. That prosperity gives you better targets, but towns also raise defenses. You can burn crops and buildings outright, or frighten a town into paying you tribute while it stays intact. The choice changes what you can collect and which defenders you face. A peaceful-looking village can turn into an income source or a future pile of embers, depending on what happens around it.
Princesses create a longer delivery run than loose gold. You can capture one from a royal carriage and carry her back to your lair, where knights may try to rescue her before you collect ransom. The castle and its defenses become part of that trip. It is a simple comic premise, but mechanically it gives you a reason to pass through contested space rather than just circle the nearest burning village.
Co-op shares the hoard; competition shares the map
Some round awards still distinguish each dragon’s contribution within the shared co-op goal. One player can tackle a dangerous target while another makes quick trips from a nearby village, so different routes contribute to the same hoard.
HOARD’s co-op mode turns the treasure chase into a common project. You and your friends fly as separate dragons, but work toward building a shared hoard rather than trying to beat one another to the richest pile. That leaves the kingdom as a shared set of objectives: towns need time to grow, dangerous structures can draw attention, and each dragon can bring home a different part of the loot. The match still asks you to handle threats and deliveries, but your friends’ haul contributes to the same broad goal.
Competitive play uses the same kingdom for a different kind of pressure. Every dragon has its own hoard and score. You can ignore the other players and focus on burning settlements, or cross paths and attack. A dragon reduced to zero health loses its carried gold and returns to its lair; an opponent can scoop up that dropped treasure. Thieves can also sneak into an unguarded pile. The map is not a team arena with fixed roles: it is a small economy where other dragons can be obstacles, targets, or temporary distractions from the next profitable trip.
The gold multiplier adds another reason to make it safely home. A string of successful actions can raise the value of a haul, while getting knocked out or losing treasure can break that streak. When a dragon’s bag is full, the next decision is whether to fly back or risk one more target. You can head for a quiet route, chase another player who is carrying a rich load, or turn back to defend your own stash. The same handful of controls supports these small decisions, and they matter because the match clock keeps moving.
Power-ups add temporary twists. A burst of speed helps you cross the board; stronger fire or ice breath changes how you deal with nearby enemies; and a hoard-stealing effect can turn an opponent’s banked gold into your problem to carry home. These are short-lived advantages, not a permanent build. Dragon levels within a match let you spend earned experience on flight speed, firepower, armor, or carrying capacity. A faster dragon reaches targets sooner, while a larger capacity can mean fewer trips to the lair. Those upgrades disappear when the next match starts, so each round begins with a clean slate.
In co-op, that reset keeps the group focused on one match at a time. In competitive play, it means a player who lost badly last round can begin the next with the same basic dragon as everyone else. Your choices still affect how the current raid unfolds, but the game does not turn those choices into a long character progression that locks friends into different power levels.
Four modes change the score you chase
Treasure Collect is the central multiplayer mode: gather as much gold as possible before time runs out. Its co-op and competitive versions share the map’s settlements and moving carts, turning the objective into a sequence of short trips. Burn, collect, deposit, upgrade, then decide whether the next run is worth the risk.
Princess Rush changes the scoring target. Instead of ranking dragons by the size of their gold piles, the match is a race to capture princesses. You still have to deal with carriages, defenders, and the route back to your lair, while other dragons can interfere with your attempt. That makes the objective easier to read at a glance: the prize is a person to ransom, and every detour gives another player time to get there first.
HOARD mode is a survival challenge built around waves of enemies and high scores. It puts more pressure on staying alive as attacks intensify, rather than balancing a race against other human dragons. Steam describes it as a survival mode, and older PC reviews characterize it as a tougher endurance mode. It is a change of pace when your group wants to compare scores against the hazards instead of attacking one another.
The separate Co-op mode focuses on filling a shared treasure pile. In each mode, the dragon still flies, attacks, and transports loot; what changes is the goal and whether the other players are helping or competing.
Short rounds, small maps, repeatable objectives
The game lists more than 35 kingdoms, and the maps shift where lairs, villages, castles, towers, and roads appear. Objectives and layouts give repeated matches different routes to chase. The visual style reinforces the playful scale: forests, cliffs, and little stone towns sit inside a wooden tabletop border, while small dragons and defenders bustle across the surface. Fire and gold are the main visual signals as you move through the map, with score panels keeping the race visible.
There is no story campaign that carries a party through a sequence of missions. Instead, the structure is a collection of short matches, medals, achievements, and leaderboards. More than 100 achievements give your group goals to pursue beyond the matches. You can work through the available kingdoms and improve your results, but you do not keep the speed, armor, firepower, or capacity upgrades from one match to the next. The core loop remains consistent across a large share of the content: take a risk, collect a reward, get it home, and see how the score compares.
That focus is part of the appeal for a group that likes compact arcade rounds, and also the main limit. The mode names change the objective, but your dragon keeps doing the same basic actions. Maps rearrange familiar buildings and threats rather than introducing a new campaign system. If you want a long story, persistent gear, or a large set of separate abilities to master, HOARD offers a narrower kind of replayability. Its rewards come from learning the layouts and timing your runs, not from unlocking an elaborate roster.
Controls and platform support
A controller is the recommended input, with the classic twin-stick setup moving the dragon on one stick and aiming its breath on the other. Keyboard and mouse are also supported, using WASD for movement and the mouse to aim and attack. HOARD is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux; minimum system requirements vary by operating system. A gamepad is helpful if you prefer twin-stick movement, but you do not need a special accessory to play.
HOARD fits a group that wants compact arcade rounds with either one shared target or a score worth protecting from rivals. Friends who want to build a common pile can choose co-op; those who enjoy disrupting one another can compete for the same villages, princesses, and loose treasure. Its short matches and limited between-round progression make it a focused party game rather than a campaign commitment.