Slay the Spire Archives

AppWizard

March 27, 2026

Steam Drops 4 New Free Games Just In Time For the Weekend

The text highlights four free games available on Steam that stand out for their unique gameplay and narratives. 1. Sylva’s Spirit: An isometric hack-and-slash game where players act as a forest protector, utilizing an elemental affinity system to cleanse a sanctuary. It features a deep progression system. 2. Deckbuilder Fantasy: A strategic game combining turn-based combat and cardplay, offering a full narrative experience without paywalls. Players can refine decks and face challenges in a replayable format. 3. Escape Gaia: Departure: A creature-creation game inspired by Starfox, allowing players to explore a universe with seven races and over 50 creatures. Players can create personalized creatures and command a spaceship to rebuild a damaged planet. 4. Find My Key: A first-person horror-maze game set in ancient Greece, where players must find keys to escape the Labyrinth while avoiding the Minotaur. The game offers multiple difficulty levels for varied enjoyment.

AppWizard

March 25, 2026

How multiplayer works in Slay the Spire 2

In Slay the Spire 2, co-op gameplay allows one player to host a multiplayer save, with up to three additional players joining as long as they are Steam friends. There are no password-protected lobbies or matchmaking queues. Players must select a save profile with an unlocked character and choose 'Multiplayer' from the main menu. Each player has three profiles, can only host one campaign at a time, and must be present from the beginning of the game. Multiplayer campaigns feature individual inventories, and enemy stats scale with party size. Energy is not shared among players, and loot is distributed individually. Ascension progression in multiplayer is separate from single-player achievements, and players must complete all three acts as a team to earn Ascension levels, which apply to all characters in multiplayer.

AppWizard

March 23, 2026

This week in PC games: a new Hooded Horse city-builder, some PS2-style horror, a school-day RPG and an absolutely tremendous catfish

The atmosphere in gaming is currently lacking excitement due to a lull with no major releases. Notable upcoming games include: - Journey of the Garden Rose: An adventure game featuring a princess battling insects in a low-poly palace. - Frog Holm: A bar-running game that combines cocktail mixing with Tetris mechanics. - No Vacation for an Executioner: An action-horror game with a PS2 style and intricately designed monsters. - Come Again, Chachii?: A game where players help quirky aliens find jobs by deciphering their speech. - Roombattle: A top-down multiplayer game featuring competing vacuums. - Mado Monogatari: Fia and the Wondrous Academy: A dungeon-crawling RPG with cheerful characters and perilous elements. - Beast Breaker: A tactical pinball game where players launch a mouse at kaiju. - Nova Roma: An early access city-builder focusing on water management. - Damon and Baby: An action-adventure game featuring a baby and a demon king. - Screamer: A cyberpunk racing game known for its colorful mechanics. - Project Songbird: A game about overcoming writer's block while battling tree monsters. - EverSiege: Untold Ages: An action-strategy game from the creators of Aliens: Dark Descent. Additional activities include capturing images of mushrooms in Rova, constructing a mycelial web in ChloroLink, battling vintage supervillains in Marvel Maximum Collection, searching for a sister in Too Well Hidden, harvesting fuel in Venus in Transit, and transforming clouds into sea creatures in The Wide Open Sky is Running out of Catfish. The Treehouse is working on guides for Crimson Desert, evaluating Slay The Spire 2, assessing hardware, and participating in a preview event.

AppWizard

March 23, 2026

Mega Crit responds to the panic over Slay the Spire 2’s 1st balance pass, saying these changes are ‘the first of many’: ‘No change is necessarily permanent’

Slay the Spire 2 has experienced financial success and positive player feedback, but recent balance changes led to negative reviews on Steam. The controversy centered around the card Prepared, which was changed to Prepare in a beta patch, altering its cost and functionality. Mega Crit acknowledged community concerns and emphasized the importance of player feedback in their patching process. They stated that the beta branch is for testing experimental changes and that adjustments are based on player input, metrics, and design philosophies. The studio remains optimistic about future changes, indicating that nothing is permanent at this stage of development.

AppWizard

March 22, 2026

Steam Deck Users Warned About Playing #1 Selling Steam Game

Steam Deck users are experiencing performance issues with the best-selling game on Steam, Crimson Desert, which is marked as “Unknown” for compatibility with the device. Despite being a top title, its demanding technical requirements create significant challenges for the Steam Deck. Experts recommend waiting for patches before playing, as current performance struggles include difficulty achieving stable 30 FPS, especially in demanding sequences. Developer Pearl Abyss has not communicated plans for future support or optimization for the Steam Deck. The gaming community is encouraged to discuss their experiences regarding the game's performance on this platform.

AppWizard

March 21, 2026

10 games to grab during the Steam Spring Sale 2026

March has seen the release of several notable gaming titles including Slay the Spire 2, Crimson Desert, Monster Hunter Stories 3, and Timberborn. The Steam Spring Sale offers discounts on a variety of PC games, running from March 19 to March 26. Featured titles in the sale include: 1. Dispatch: 20% off - .99 / £19.99 2. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2: 50% off - .99 / £24.99 3. Routine: 20% off - .59 / £26.79 4. Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader: 60% off - .19 / £17.19 5. Maze Mice: 50% off - .49 / £4.49 6. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown: 50% off - .49 / £12.49 7. Blue Prince: 34% off - .84 / £14.84 8. Dungeons of Hinterberg: 66% off - .45 / £6.45 9. Star Wars Jedi Survivor: 90% off - .99 / £5.99 10. Dread Delusion: 50% off - .74 / £7.74

AppWizard

March 16, 2026

Crimson Desert gets the edge on PC with a transformative graphics upgrade

Crimson Desert, developed by Pearl Abyss, features ray tracing options on PC that enhance lighting quality and visual fidelity. Digital Foundry's Alex Battaglia highlighted these advancements in a dedicated video, noting that ray tracing significantly improves the game's lighting across platforms and optimizes performance even on less powerful systems. Players can utilize AMD's FSR Ray Regeneration or Nvidia's DLSS Ray Reconstruction if their hardware supports it. The optimizations yield a notable boost in visual fidelity, with a 14% average frame rate drop on an RTX 5080 in 4K performance mode when Ray Reconstruction is enabled, and a 24% decrease on an RX 9070 XT with FSR4's Ray Regeneration. The system requirements for Crimson Desert are accessible, allowing players to customize settings for their builds, but the introduction of Denuvo DRM has sparked controversy among some players. Pearl Abyss has confirmed that performance benchmarks were conducted using the same Denuvo implementation that will be present in the launch build.

AppWizard

March 16, 2026

Cheaper Games Are Dominating Reviews And Sales On Steam

The 2026 PC and Console Gaming Report from Newzoo indicates that "sub-" game purchases on PC increased by 156 percent from 2022 to 2025. It projects that PC game sales will exceed console revenues by 2028, surpassing the combined revenues of Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S/X. This forecast excludes revenues from subscription services. The rise of "cheaper" games, defined as those priced below a certain threshold, is a key factor in this trend. In 2025, such titles represented 3.2 percent of the top sub- games and accounted for approximately 9 percent of total PC game revenue. Sub- games made up 32 percent of PC revenue, compared to 7 percent for PlayStation and 9 percent for Xbox. Ben Porter from Newzoo noted that the cyclical nature of console generations affects spending behaviors, while the PC gaming market shows more fluid growth.

AppWizard

March 15, 2026

‘Even though I threw out my back from overworking, I’m feeling high in spirits’: Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million copies in its first week

Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million copies within a week of its launch and players completed 25 million runs, with the developer suggesting the actual number may be higher. The game topped the Steam sales charts and retains familiar gameplay elements. Future updates will include Steam Workshop support, a new scoring system, and a phobia accessibility mode. An expansion for the Slay the Spire board game, titled Downfall, is set to launch on March 24.

AppWizard

March 14, 2026

Steam Next Fest challenged me with a word game that also contained fractions

Balatro has set a precedent in the roguelike genre by transforming playing cards into an engaging gaming experience. Cursed Words is a new roguelike game that focuses on forming words from a randomized grid of letters, with players earning points based on their creations. The game includes various items that influence the letters on the board, allowing for strategic gameplay. A notable strategy involves manipulating negative Void tiles to earn points. The game introduces numbers as wildcards that can represent letters when placed correctly. An item that transforms numbers into fractions adds complexity, allowing for multiple uses of these tiles. Cursed Words promises a rich experience within a familiar framework, with a demo available ahead of its anticipated release in 2026.