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Slay the Spire
DeckbuilderTurn-based

Slay the Spire

Developed by
Mega Crit
Published by
Mega Crit

$24.99

View on Steam ↗Official website ↗

We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!

Consensus
S91.7/100
Steam players97.5% positiveOverwhelmingly Positive218,968 reviews
Metacritic ↗89/100Users: 7.9/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈3.8M copies · ≈$55M gross

What creators say

PepperHead ↗

S
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Part 1 (Sep 2023) · #1 of 9 in that tierWatch the moment (2:29:01)

Tier list Part 1 (2023)

Slay the Spire is the deck-building roguelike that kicked off the whole genre, and most later deck-builders descend from it. He calls it the most perfectly designed deck-builder and says it is his favorite roguelike right now, with more Steam playtime than any other game. He also thinks it is the ideal entry point to the genre because it is the simplest yet best-designed of them all. The huge modding scene adds to his love, but he says it is an S-tier masterpiece even without mods.

Liked

  • Cards are very well balanced: none feels overpowered or useless, and each can be played several ways
  • Many characters with many different builds
  • Relics act as run-long passives that change how you play, so every run feels different
  • Unlocking a new card pick after the first run makes runs feel unique early on
  • Huge modding community adds new characters, worlds and DLC-like content; he plays almost only modded now
  • Simplest and best-designed deck-builder, so ideal for introducing newcomers to the genre
  • Lasting appeal: he has played since release and followed every update

Disliked

  • Visuals are not especially impressive
  • Music is merely fine
  • No new official updates or DLC at this point
  • You cannot customize your starting deck

What players say

A single-player roguelike deckbuilder by Mega Crit where you climb a three-act tower with one of four characters, building a fresh deck from card, relic and potion rewards each run.

Slay the Spire is widely treated as the genre-defining roguelike deckbuilder. Critics were near-unanimous (Metacritic PC 89 from 24 reviews, all positive; a 98% critic-recommend figure is cited via Wikipedia (OpenCritic page not re-verified)) and Steam players rate it Overwhelmingly Positive at about 97.5% across roughly 219k reviews. Praise centres on tight card design, readable decisions and enormous replayability. The recurring dissent, mostly from a small negative minority on Steam, is about RNG and loss feeling undeserved. It launched in Early Access in Nov 2017 and hit 1.0 in Jan 2019, then spread to consoles and mobile. Its sequel, Slay the Spire 2, entered Early Access in March 2026 .

Players love

  • Card and relic synergies reward experimentation; players report discovering new builds after hundreds or thousands of hours
  • Highly addictive one-more-run loop: top-voted reviews show players at 150-680 hours and joking about losing sleep and study time
  • Four characters (Ironclad, Silent, Defect, Watcher) play very differently and each has multiple archetypes
  • Branching map with visible elites, shops, rest sites and events turns pathing into a clear risk-versus-reward decision that many later roguelikes copied
  • Enemies telegraph their intents, so combat is puzzle-like and deaths can usually be traced to a decision
  • Ascension levels (20 of them) plus the Heart ending give a very deep difficulty curve that keeps veterans challenged
  • Fast, pick-up-and-stop session format: no timers, save anytime, works offline and on handhelds, and easy to play in short bursts
  • Reviewers say it is accessible to people with no card-game experience while still having high depth
  • Strong value: frequently discounted heavily, and cited in reviews as a bargain for the hours delivered

Common complaints

  • RNG in card rewards, relic offers and boss/elite draws can doom a run early, which is the dominant complaint in Steam negative reviews
  • Some bosses and encounters hard-counter certain decks; the final act and Heart fight demand specific setups that can feel like a check against the build you drew
  • Losses after long runs can feel undeserved or like gambling rather than skill, per several negative reviews
  • Characters are felt to be unevenly strong by some players, with some bosses being harsh on particular characters
  • Visual style is functional rather than beautiful; even positive reviews call the art plain
  • Console and mobile versions stopped receiving updates after Humble Games' publishing arm shut down in July 2024
  • No undo button, which players say makes misclicks and misreads costly

Can feel tedious

  • Runs that blur together for some players; a few say the loop lacked the one-more-run pull after the first dozens of hours
  • Slow unlock XP that gates cards per character, which some call grindy
  • High win-rate grind to climb ascensions, with some players stuck near a 20% win rate and reporting frustration
  • Losing a long run to one bad draw or burst boss attack and having to restart from floor 1
  • Having to build towards the final boss while surviving the regular fights on the way up

What's unique

  • Helped define the roguelike deckbuilder genre; its map, relic and card-reward structure was widely imitated
  • Enemy intent display turns each fight into a deterministic puzzle layered on top of draw randomness
  • Permanent meta progression is only unlocks, not stat upgrades, so every run starts equal
  • Deck thinning and deck-size control as a core skill: adding cards is often a mistake
  • A deep ascension ladder plus an optional Heart fight extend the game far beyond a first win
  • Has a robust mod and Workshop scene, including large fan expansions such as Downfall

Players want

  • More randomness mitigation or reroll-type tools in normal runs (the Custom/constructed style modes are said to build decks that feel like cheating)
  • An undo or take-back option for accidental plays
  • Better balance between characters and against specific boss matchups
  • Less punishing early difficulty scaling and a gentler on-ramp to ascensions for newer players
  • Faster, more satisfying unlock progression, since players find unlocking cards via slow XP on each run dull

Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.

Steam tags

Roguelike DeckbuilderCard GameCard BattlerRogue-likeDeckbuildingTurn-BasedStrategySingleplayerRogue-liteReplay Value

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