Coffee Stain set to publish a stylishly strange-looking new deckbuilder

As We Descend
(Image credit: Box Dragon)

As We Descend, a pretty stylish-looking upcoming deckbuilder from new studio Box Dragon, will be published by Coffee Stain, the same folks publishing hits like Valheim and Deep Rock Galactic.

Describing itself as a "roguelike deckbuilder with the soul of a strategy game," As We Descend has a nice aesthetic that seems to blend magic with technology in a desperate, dystopian city-vault that is humankind's last outpost on a devastated world. 

As We Descend will have a roguelike structure, with each expedition out of the city having you compose your unit of several squads of specialist units, with retrieved tech from outside the vault giving you more types of units to access. Combat will have two zones for your units to move between: A forward defense area and a rear support zone. The key to success will be in moving them between the two in response to enemy intents.

The other part of the game will be exploring cityscape of the vault in order to "make contacts, gather forces, scavenge ruins, and find valuable resources to gain an advantage over the deadly monsters threatening humanity's existence." You'll use those resources to beat back attacks by the monstrous enemy, who kind of look like fantasy creatures crossed with deep sea coral and mineral formations.

Developer Box Dragon was founded by two former Stunlock Studios (Battlerite) developers, Kevin Chang and Karl Bergstrom, with senior character and environment artist Aleks Nikonov from Riot Games. 

“It feels like only yesterday we were announcing that Box Dragon existed, and here we are over two years later unveiling what we’ve been crafting for all this time,” said Kevin Chang, Game Director at Box Dragon, in a press release. “We’re ecstatic to begin playtests in our closed beta to help shape the development of our game. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we know that we can make As We Descend an S-tier roguelike deckbuilder with the help of passionate players who love this genre and are eager for something new and big.”

You can find As We Descend on Steam and on its official website. If you're interested in trying a closed beta, you can sign up for that on the official website as well. It doesn't yet have a release date.

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

Read more
Ascendant on Steam.
Ascendant brings a unique spin to the bullet hell dungeon crawler with its huge item stash and extensive build crafting for new and deadly synergies
A mountain block dropping into place in Drop Duchy.
Drop Duchy is an unholy fusion of city builder, roguelike deckbuilder, and Tetris, and you can try it for free right now
Vanguard Exiles
An autobattler designed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield is coming in March
A spellcaster and muscular barbarian face down against an army of skeletons.
This 'overwhelmingly positive' Steam Next Fest autobattler demo feels like someone bolted a Path of Exile-style map onto Halls of Torment, and I fear for my future productivity
Screenshot from tile-based city building game Dawnfolk
Dawnfolk is a satisfying city builder puzzle game that works great on Steam Deck
Ro, the main character of Death Howl, holding a ghostly deer that is her deceased son's incarnation in the spirit world.
Death Howl is an impossible and brilliant blend of soulslike, turn-based strategy, and deckbuilding, and you can try it for free now
Latest in Card Game
A snakewoman holding a sickle
Magic: The Gathering's Tarkir: Dragonstorm set isn't just about dragons
A blue dragon rises into storm clouds
Wizards of the Coast throws a bone to players who miss vanilla Magic: The Gathering with a dragon-themed set called Tarkir: Dragonstorm
A joker card with other cards in the background
Balatro's publisher doesn't know how big the 1.1 update will be or when it's coming: 'He's just gonna show up one day and say, here's 100 new jokers'
The jester from Balatro, portrayed in unsettling detail in real life, wears an uncanny smile and stares at the viewer.
Balatro's LocalThunk isn't 'trying to pull a Banksy', he just 'wanted to be left alone to make his game'
Hands pushing poker chips on a table
Winning $2.6 billion in this poker videogame has completely ruined fake poker for me
A pack of real life Balatro cards.
The official Balatro Timeline documents the history of 2024's biggest game as its developer went from 'obsessed' with making it to 'shocked' at the reception
Latest in News
A girl cheering in Everybody's Golf Hot Shots.
My favourite, most underrated anime golf game series is actually getting a PC entry for the first time in its nearly 30-year history
A shock trap transformed into a Lego brick in Monster Hunter Wilds.
A modder keeps turning Monster Hunter traps into Lego bricks so that the monsters will know true pain, and they've just done it again
live action Jimbo the Jester from Balatro holding a playing card and addressing the camera
You've probably been pronouncing Balatro wrong all along, but 'it's kind of a gif/jif situation'
A late afternoon view shows two young women walking past a wall-sized anime mural along Chuo-dori (Central Avenue) in the Akihabara district (known as Electric Town for its maze of electronics stores, but currently considered an almost sacred destination by members of Japan's otaku culture, drawn to Akihabara's video game centers, maid cafes, anime shops, and manga comics), located in Chiyoda Ward in central Tokyo, Japan.
OpenAI's GPT-4o model gets image generation update for all of your anime-style selfie needs
Wuk Lamat, a character in Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail, stares in an unimpressed manner.
'I can't really say what they were thinking' says whistleblowing modder, as Final Fantasy 14's attempt to thwart stalkers falls terribly short of the mark
Raidou Kuzonoha and pals, looking like they've about to drop the most fire single of the 1930s
Raidou Remastered is finally bringing the historical Shin Megami Tensei supernatural sleuth spinoff to PC this June