Blightstone is a new turn-based tactical roguelike that proves indie developers can compete with industry giants when they focus on strategic depth over spectacle. Developed by Barcelona-based studio Unfinished Pixel, this dark fantasy adventure demands careful planning, environmental awareness, and adaptability, rewarding players who think before they act.
Blightstone is now available on Steam in Early Access. Blightstone stands out as a refreshing take on the roguelike genre, prioritizing intelligent decision-making over attrition-based gameplay.
1. Story: Purposeful Corruption and Cyclical Struggle
Blightstone‘s premise is straightforward: lead your band of heroes to destroy the Blightstone, deliver the Earthglass Crystal to the Infernal Rift, and defeat Korghul, a demon overlord threatening the world.
The story follows Xandar, a chronomancer, and his growing band of allies as they repeatedly attempt to destroy the Blightstone and restore peace to a world fractured by corruption. The protagonist group (Xandar, Ayanur, and your rotating roster) has enough characterization to justify their presence without overshadowing the strategic focus.
The Early Access version offers limited story development, which is appropriate for its current state. Future updates promise expanded narrative elements, though the core loop doesn’t depend on them.
Xander’s backstory.
2. Gameplay: Strategic Layering Works
Before each run in Blightstone, you configure three interdependent systems. This preparation phase deserves attention because it fundamentally shapes your tactical options.
2.1 Hero Selection
You begin the journey in Blightstone with three heroes and can unlock two additional characters during a run. The roster spans distinct archetypes:
- Ranger (ranged damage)
- Arcanist (magical offense with environmental manipulation)
- Brawler (melee tank)
- Priest (healer with holy damage)
- Druid (summoner with projectile support)
The constraint of starting with just three heroes forces meaningful choices. Do you build a defensive composition to weather early encounters, or commit to aggressive positioning knowing you’ll need to survive to find additional heroes?
Team Management in Blightstone.
2.2 Crystal Runes (Your Modifier System)
You select up to six crystal runes to customize your run. Each rune branch provides distinct strategic directions:
- Assault adds damage amplification and attacks like Earthbolt, enabling aggressive strategies
- Bastion provides revival mechanics and survivability buffs (health, speed), essential for riskier compositions
- Harmony grants movement increases, free recruitment when heroes fall, shop discounts, and extra starting resources
The rune system becomes your primary lever for adapting to a specific hero composition. Combining a high-damage Assault build with fragile ranged heroes creates an all-in aggressive approach. Pairing Bastion with a defensive Brawler-focused team enables positional exploration without fear of total party wipes.
Crystal Runes options.
2.3 Continuum Forge
Upgrading the Continuum Forge, your meta-progression system, increases your rune flexibility. Higher forge levels unlock additional rune selections, reroll options for upgrades, and resource generation. This means your first run feels genuinely different from your tenth run as forge upgrades compound.
Between runs, spend accumulated currency to unlock permanent upgrades at the Continuum Forge:
- Death ward mechanics (protection against instant death)
- Additional map nodes per run
- Extra item selection options
- Fate refresh tokens for re-rolling upgrades
This system ensures that even unsuccessful runs contribute to long-term progression, reducing frustration and encouraging continued engagement.
The Continuum Forge.
2.4 Gem Skill Starter Selection
Your third preparation choice involves selecting a starter gem skill from three categories: damage, movement, or support buffing. This choice will have immediate impacts on your Blightstone playthrough. The movement starter, for example, enables aggressive environmental manipulation from turn one. Damage starters reward aggressive hero placements. Support starters create defensive positioning strategies.
All Gem Skills.
2.5 Blightstone’s Overworld Map
After preparation, you select your node path to the boss. The map presents a branching structure, with each node icon indicating an encounter type: combat encounters, unknown mystery events, or treasures. You can only move forward along predetermined paths, forcing meaningful routing decisions.
This design creates interesting trade-offs. Do you pursue treasure nodes that might offer powerful items at the cost of delayed boss encounters? Do you avoid unknown encounters because they carry trap risk, or do you roll the dice on potential hero recruitment? Your route choice shapes which resource types you’ll encounter and, indirectly, which upgrades become available.
Random events trigger during map traversal. These events typically offer choices: explore deeper (risking combat) or retreat safely.
Some events in Blightstone‘s Overworld Map unlock additional heroes for your roster. Others grant equipment or resources. Others are clearly traps designed to ambush unprepared teams. Managing your path risk requires constant calculation of your current team’s survivability.’
The Overworld Map.
3. Combat: Turn-Based Tactics Without Grids
Blightstone‘s combat distinguishes itself through non-grid-based positioning and environmental interaction, a refreshing departure from traditional tactical RPGs.
3.1 Movement and Action Point Economy
Each hero possesses a pool of Action Points (AP) per turn. Every action—movement, skill use, or ability activation—consumes AP based on cost. Once exhausted, the hero’s turn ends, and the enemy’s turns begin.
This creates natural decision points: Do you spend AP aggressively to damage enemies, or conservatively to position for next turn’s opportunities?
Fighting a battle.
3.2 Night Phase (Resource Management)
The camp phase in Blightstone forces resource triage. Your heroes need rest, which allows you to spend accumulated AP on active interventions: healing damage, buffing stats, curing Blight status conditions, or gaining map insights for future navigation.
If you’ve exhausted your AP pool pursuing aggressive strategies, you face nighttime vulnerabilities. Risk events can damage your heroes or increase Blight accumulation. Careful play means reaching nthe ight with sufficient reserves. Careless play means entering the next day weakened.
Resting up heroes is important.
4. Graphics and Audio: Thematic Competence
Blightstone selects a dark and grim fantasy world as its main aesthetic. The art direction effectively reinforces the tone through character and environment design. Animation is functional rather than flashy, which serves a tactical game well. Strategic clarity trumps visual spectacle, and the game prioritizes readability during complex positioning scenarios.
The soundtrack establishes atmospheric groundwork effectively. The current Blightstone‘s Early Access audio could use improvement. Additional biome-specific themes would enhance long-term replay value, particularly as you encounter the same visual environments across multiple runs.
Lastly, the game’s UI deserves specific praise: the tooltips display actionable information without overwhelming detail, ability previews show hit chance and damage estimates before you choose to commit to that action, and status icons quickly convey buff/debuff information, so you can always pivot and adapt to the ever-changing battle landscapes during your runs.
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- Starting a playthrough.
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- Finishing a run.
This Blightstone Preview on PC is made possible thanks to JF Games Marketing and Communications.
