After the fall of the last Overlord, the world has begun healing from the carnage and ruin caused by his reign, much to the concern of Gnarl and the Minions. Seeking a new Overlord, they decide to revive four dark champions as Netherghúls and put them through the Trials of Evil as they rampage through the lands and stop The Golden from cleansing the lands:
- Inferna: Brutal Ruborian warrior who fell to rock trolls and the most straightforward melee fighter.
- Malady: A necromancer who sacrificed her life for a final curse. A ranged attacker with focused attacks.
- Cryos: A Nordbergian Dark Elf Prince who was killed by Hakon in a Mutual Kill. A ranged attacker who specializes in crowd control.
- Hakon: A Dwarf who lead the bandit gang "The Utter Bastards" who met his fate at the spear of Cryos. A melee crowd-control specialist.
The game takes a Genre Shift towards co-op multiplayer RPG gameplay, though Minion control returns in a limited fashion.
The game features examples of:
- Action Bomb: Rather than throwing fire, red minions carry bombs and can be ordered to suicide-bomb enemies.
- Artificial Stupidity: The pathfinding of Minions is utterly broken, which regularly ends up with them getting stuck on scenery, or worse, running straight into the Golden in an attempt to hit enemies, and thus turning good to fight you.
- Damage Sponge: The champion enemies are particularly tiresome to fight.
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: Two females (Inferna, Malady) and two males (Cryos, Hakon).
- Genre Shift: Rather than a third-person Action RPG/RTS mix, the game is more of a Diablo clone with minion control being largely simplified.
- Good Hurts Evil: The Golden is a constant obstacle since just being in it makes you take damage while Minions are immediately "cutified" and become enemies. At least, until the final stage, where the characters become Walking Wastelands and are able to poison the land with their very presence.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Averted, in that there's a ranged specialist and a melee specialist for each gender.
- An Ice Person: Cryos' attacks are all ice-based and focused on slowing the enemies down.
- Knockback: Averted. The player character and the enemies can slice at each other indefinitely, never getting knocked back or stunned.
- Malevolent Architecture: There are quite a few dungeons littered with cumbersome traps like person-sized buzzsaw blades.
- Mook Medic: The blue Minions, summoned through picking up blue orbs in battle. Since you're the evil one, they're fighting on your side. Unless, of course, they happen to run into the Golden...
- Shields Are Useless: Two of the characters have shields, but since the game is based all around battles against large swarms of low-damage enemies, it's more efficient to just mash attack until everyone is dead, instead of trying to block against constant attacks.
- Shoulders of Doom: Inferna's pauldrons are stupidly massive even compared to previous protagonists.
- The Smurfette Principle: Ricket the Blacksmith is the first female minion in the series and seems to be the only one in the game.
- Suddenly Voiced: Unlike previous protagonists, the Netherghúls do have in-game dialog in the form of commands and battlecries.
- World-Healing Wave: The Golden, which is some sort of magical manifestation of good that can make Minions good and is downright lethal to the protagonists.
