ReBlade: The Death Spiral

ReBlade: The Death Spiral is an action RPG roguelite from ChillyRoom, a team of eight developers making their first independent game, published by Spiral Up Games. You are a condemned Synthetic, marked for destruction and stuck in endless resets, in a cyberpunk city built on Chinese mythology. Each cycle takes you a little further through its mechanical creatures and closer to the truth about why you keep coming back.

How it plays

Combat is about timing and control: read an enemy, balance attack and defense, and strike at the right moment. Between runs you shape a build from weapons, chips and augments, and you meet allies and trade the resources you find. The demo has three weapons with different styles, one main trial and two side trials, each with three extra difficulty tiers.

The good side

The mix of mythological beasts reinforced with machinery is a striking look. The developers point newcomers to the Shield Axe as the easier weapon, and the extra difficulty tiers give skilled players a reason to replay. It has full controller support, including DualSense.

The watch-outs

The demo has no story content, so it only shows the combat. Demo saves do not carry over to the full game. The minimum PC is 16 GB of memory and an RTX 2060, and there is no release date yet.

For players around the world

It is coming to PC on Steam, with text in English, Simplified and Traditional Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese. The free demo is open worldwide on Steam from October 19 until November 10, past the end of Steam Next Fest.

NEXTARCA's take

ChillyRoom made its name with fast, replayable action, and ReBlade looks like a confident step into 3D. Try the Shield Axe first if Souls style timing is new to you, and judge the full game on how well the story fills in the cycle the demo leaves out.