Thank you to 1C Game Studios for sending us this code!

In the last decade, we have seen many flagship titles in the indie scene create entire new genres to themselves. Titles like Hyper Light Drifter and Undertale released around the same time introduced audiences to two different methods of strong narrative story-telling that have been iterated upon by other games like Death’s Door and OMORI, while games such as Stardew Valley and Factorio have brought with them a legion of farming and factory titles. Now, it seems that time has come for Slay the Spire. Originally released in 2017 in Early Access, Slay the Spire was a unique game that centered around building a deck of cards using one of three characters, each with their own flavor of attacks and abilities, and attempting to conquer the Spire as you moved between different floors with different enemies and bosses. Its primary draw was its rogue-like mechanics that kept every run interesting and unique, and in the five years since its release, we have seen illegitimate heirs to the throne hailing from the depths of Steam’s Recommended, all eyeing the prestige of the king. What most people always ask is: “Well… Is it as good as Slay the Spire?”

Now for those unaware, what exactly is a rogue-like deckbuilder? In the context of Deathless, it resembles a turn-based RPG played with a random set of cards. You play as one of four heroes going on a quest to accomplish an objective or slay a foe. You have a set amount of health and a form of defense or shielding, along with a pool of energy limiting the amount of actions you can perform in a turn, and you’ll be facing 2-5 enemies at once. Your chosen character is given a predetermined set of cards with attacks or abilities, and all characters have their own cards with unique designs and mechanics meant to match their play styles. At the start of your turn, you draw five cards, and are given a little bit of armor dependent on your Base Armor value (unless you’re playing Vasilisa). Enemies approach single-file in a lane and attack from the first spot, but can sometimes skip the line if they’re using magic or a projectile weapon. Once they take damage above their HP, they’ll enter a dying state where they take up a spot and slowly decay before disappearing, though the process can be sped up by attacking them further. Your opponents will telegraph what they will do at the end of your turn, leaving you to figure out what move is best. Will you spend some of your limited energy points on attacking, gathering armor to defend yourself, working to improve yourself for a future turn, or weaken your enemies before they can attack? At the end of your turn, all of your cards will go back into the discard pile until they’re all used up and shuffled back to the draw pile, so you should always think one or two turns ahead. Deathless leaves everything in your hands, giving you full control over how you shape and choose your deck.

At the start of a run, you’re probably going to feel rather weak. You only have a limited number of cards that aren’t particularly good at killing or protecting you. However, once you’ve completed the initial tutorial, the game opens up and lets you choose your path. You’re always given three options for moving forward that lead to a battle, and each battle resolves in some sort of reward. However, each option can have completely different rewards, as well as passive buffs and debuffs to both the player and the enemies. Some paths might reward you with a health increase, but you might have to fight through enemies with higher armor and health regen. Others will reward you with a selection of new cards with new attacks or abilities you can pick between in order to further your adventure in the way you like to play, and some let you upgrade your cards, increasing the effects of them or decreasing the amount of energy required to play them. You’ll pick dozens of options, some leading to bosses with grand rewards, until your journey finally reaches an end. But the more interesting routes are the ones that reward you with items.

Relics and consumables are the two different types of items in Deathless. Relics are passive items that give you a boon for your journey, but whether it is with or without a catch depends on the item. Relics can increase the amount of energy points you have per turn, give you permanent status effects that increase the amount of armor you gain or your attack power, permanently debuff enemies at the start of a battle, change how you draw and expel cards, and much more. However, they do come with their own quirks. For example, one relic prevents you from discarding cards you don’t use at the end of your turn, allowing you to build up a perfect counterattack deck. “This is great!” I thought, until a boss that inflicts poison by placing a card in your inventory that damages you cost me a run at the very end, since I couldn’t discard the poison at the end of my turn. Besides relics, you can also earn consumable items that do temporary things in-battle. Some of these can grant you a little more base armor until the end of the battle, give you thorns that damage enemies when they attack you, give you more energy points until the end of your turn, upgrade the cards in your hand, restore a portion of your max health, and more.

Each of the four characters–Varvara, Vasilisa, Dobrynya, and Alyosha–are given different quests at the start of your run depending on who you pick. These can involve tracking down a missing son, finding and killing a murderous beast, or just trying to learn what’s going down. Each hero has five quests on their Hero’s Path before they can unlock access to the Southern Gate, which is the endgame for most characters until you’ve unlocked it. Varvara wields a whip and axe, allowing her to have high mobility and reach across the entire lane, manipulating dead enemies to shield herself. Vasilisa uses magic to build up "nursemaids", fairy-like creatures she exchanges for defensive and offensive capabilities in addition to the usual shielding and attacking cards. Dobrynya is a legendary knight who specializes in immense defense and offensive capability, but it requires several turns to build up to. Alyosha has a gun. Well, there’s a bit more to it than that, but Alyosha is an odd case allowing you to jump between defense and attack while having some unique mechanics thanks to his Spellbane (gun). Every character feels incredibly well-rounded and unique in how they play, with each requiring different approaches to find success.

What about the rest of the package? Visually, Deathless is a beautiful game. Character and enemy design is refreshingly interesting and appealing to the eyes, drawing from well-known beasts and monsters from Slavic folklore such as changelings, hags, the yaga, werewolves, wizards, spirits, and ghouls, to name a few. All of their designs feel unique from one another, and though some are obviously inspired by popular depictions, they manage to have such a consistency in their design that everything feels connected, natural, and grounded to this fantasy world. Clothing is detailed and intricate while not being complex for the sake of it and the color choice is delightful, leaving you with a strong sense of visual design that makes characters pop out of the detailed backgrounds and draw your attention. Speaking of the backgrounds, they’re absolutely gorgeous. The game features beautiful hand-drawn backgrounds that perfectly capture a medieval landscape, with fantastic animated assets depending on the scene you’re in such as flowers and grass. Character models are incredibly charming and despite (assumedly) being 3D, look almost like 2D rigged or cut-out animations. All of the cards have unique, hand-drawn depictions for each character performing each action. The UI is simple, vibrant, and smooth, but not oversimplified and everything feels like it fits. It feels like a child’s picture book and board game mangled together and brought to life. It looks great when paused, when in motion, and even just exploring the menus. It’s incredibly charming and very aesthetically pleasing, which is something I genuinely have to applaud in today’s market. So many games, both in the AAA and indie space, have developed a subtle (or blatant) hatred of natural simplicity and beauty. Deathless embraces that natural beauty and embellishes it with many little touches, visual effects, and flare, and the game oozes polish.

The music also draws from this Slavic aesthetic to create its fantasy soundscape, utilizing stringed instruments, chanting choirs, woodwinds, and strong percussion to create a driving melody as you vanquish monsters from the depths of traditional folklore and fairy tales. The compositions are very detailed with many layers giving you a feeling of a wide, grand scene no matter the scenario. They’re very nice pieces that, while not the best I’ve ever heard, really immerse you into the adventure and help you feel like a true hero. The sound design, however, is where the game really starts to come into its own. Every little interaction, from cards swishing out from the draw pile into your hand, to UI buttons satisfyingly clinking as you press them, to the resounding thud that gaining armor creates, to the tensing of bowstring as your enemies reload, is delightfully and perfectly… right. Everything just sounds exactly as it should. I’m a particularly difficult person to please when it comes to sound design, as I find that weak or clinically organic sound design can be incredibly dull. Sound effects that stand out, and don’t exactly match what you think something should sound like but sound perfect in action, are exactly what I love, and this game really hits it home yet again.

Given that these types of games are primarily controlled through dragging cards, it’s imperative that the UI is well-designed and easily understandable. This is another aspect where Deathless didn't disappoint. It's not immensely stylish or unique, but it's very functional and straightforward. Controls are responsive and there were never any issues where cards struggled to be played, or failed to return to my deck if I decided I didn't want to play them. There were also no performance issues and zero bugs or crashes.

Morally, the game is relatively clean aside from its Slavic folklore origins. There are demons, witches, wizards, spirits, ghouls, and other folklore creatures. Magic is a part of the game, though it isn’t explicitly portrayed as being demonic or occultic. There is no explicit worship or praise of any gods or demons. Some characters can have slightly revealing clothing, showing some cleavage or midriff, which is unfortunately conservative by today’s standards. Violence is comic only, and there’s little blood and no gore. As far as I’ve seen in my ~30 hours of playtime, there’s no language I can remember.

I struggle to think of anything negative to say about Deathless. It’s kept me captivated for quite a while now, and I will likely continue to play the game for a bit until I see every possible corner of the game. While I know I others have said the game is too simple or too boring, I personally prefer it as Slay the Spire never gripped me with how much effort was required to get a run out of the early game. Deathless usually ends in either a cheap death due to my own ignorance, or feeling like I’d finally earned my strength after a long run. Combined with its gorgeous art, great music, perfect sound design, and cohesive style, I think Deathless is a true gem of a game that, while perhaps not the most experimental in its blossoming sub-genre, is extremely polished and a solid game. I highly recommend you try it out if you like rouge-like deckbuilders.