Raiders of Blackveil

I came into Raiders of Blackveil expecting yet another mid-tier co-op roguelite riding the genre wave, and the combat caught me off guard. This is a top-down action game built by ex-IO Interactive and Square Enix developers - people who worked on Hitman, Tomb Raider, and Deus Ex - and the pedigree shows in how readable and intentional the encounters feel. Combat moves like a true MOBA-roguelite hybrid: you pick one of four champions, slot into one of eight classes (Mage, Assassin, Priest, Guardian, Monk, Druid, Warrior, Warlock), and build outward from there through a perk system that runs north of 300 options. Skills have a basic attack, upgradeable abilities, and an Ultimate, and the real depth kicks in when you find Duo Perks that create synergies between two class trees. That's the hook. It does not feel like mindless stat stacking. Runs are structured around infiltrating Blackveil's factory floors room by room. Your squad votes on which rooms to attempt - risk harder rooms for better rewards, or play it safe and bank what you have. Bosses cap each biome, and the Early Access build currently has three biomes to work through, including the Ghoulag update added in May 2026 which introduced a new zone with twelve levels and a surveillance-focused boss called Wanda. Positioning and ability timing matter here in a way that most dungeon crawlers do not demand. Misread a room and a run ends fast. Solo play is possible, but several encounters are tuned with a three-player squad in mind, so going it alone stacks the difficulty without any meaningful scaling compensation. Here is where it gets messy. The overall Steam review score sits at Mixed, and the complaints are specific: matchmaking is the main offender. Players have reported being unable to join friends' lobbies at all, and there is no reconnect option if you drop mid-run. Losing a long run because of a connection hiccup is painful in any roguelite, but it is especially aggravating when the run itself demands as much attention as this one does. The loot system also draws some criticism at higher difficulty levels, where legendary and mythic drops can dry up completely, leaving veteran players spinning their wheels with nothing new to chase. Room variety has been flagged too - the layouts get repetitive faster than the perk build variety would suggest. What works against those complaints: the developer cadence has been responsive. Updates have shipped consistently since launch, the champion talent system drew positive user feedback after a major patch, and the studio has been actively tuning balance via Discord. The foundation - the combat feel, the build depth across eight classes, the clean animations - is solid enough that the trajectory looks more promising than the current Mixed score implies. If you have two friends lined up and a stable connection, this plays well above its weight class right now. Solo or with random teammates via matchmaking, you are rolling dice on an experience that might not even load correctly.

Fred · Scout Team

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