- DEVELOPER: Exordium Games
- PUBLISHER: Daedalic Entertainment
- PLATFORMS: PC
- GENRE: Strategy / Turn-based
- RELEASE DATE: November 5, 2025
- STARTING PRICE: TBA
- REVIEWED VERSION: PC
If you’re a fan of turn-based games, Roman culture, and the permadeath challenge, Bloodgrounds is a game you don’t want to miss. There’s a satisfying depth to its progression, varied enemies, unique gladiators, synergies, and diverse equipment. Following a very successful demo during Steam Next Fest, Bloodgrounds is ready to deliver a fun experience that you’ll end up coming back to.
Turn-Based Tactics Meet Gladiatorial Survival
Bloodgrounds is a roguelite turn-based strategy game blending RPG and city management elements. Set in a brutal gladiatorial world, you’ll combine tactical arena combat, squad progression, and settlement building as you seek vengeance against a tyrannical emperor. The game features retro-styled visuals, the high stakes of permadeath, and procedural challenges across five distinct ages and biomes.
It starts simple, like pieces on a chessboard with basic abilities, but the complexity increases satisfyingly as you progress. The ability pool opens up, and new classes of combatants are introduced, making the experience genuinely fun. After beating the final boss of a level, you unlock the next era, allowing you to continuously upgrade your buildings and face new challenges.
Every fight feels unique, thanks to random modifiers, crowd favors, and unpredictable RNG that forces you to adapt on the fly. Between matches, you manage your estate: healing fighters, training, gearing up, and stocking traps or potions for the next bloodbath. However, this progression often requires replaying challenges to level up gladiators and earn the necessary funds for better equipment and new skills, which are essential to keep up with increasingly tougher enemies.
Where Every Victory Comes at a Cost
While the core gameplay loop stays consistent, the tactical execution changes dramatically in every match. Map traps such as poison or fire traps, randomly dropped consumables, and varied enemy compositions ensure strong replayability as you strive to create the ultimate gladiator. The unit depth is impressive, ranging from archers and tanks to melee fighters specializing in crit damage or elemental attacks.
An important management element is the statuses (positive/negative effects) and traumas gladiators earn during fights, often forcing you to rest them or pay for quicker recovery. Thankfully, the game includes a speed-up option, but you’re still pushed to think tactically and outsmart your opponents. This is complicated by some frustrating RNG, like when an enemy with only a 5% evasion chance dodges multiple attacks in a row.
When leveling up, you can choose between several stat upgrades, influencing attributes such as initiative, damage, health, and armor among others. The Market is another key feature, letting you acquire new equipment and reroll its offerings between arena fights. My main concern is the difficulty curve: after beating a boss, the challenge can spike sharply, often forcing you to grind without a clear sense of whether your squad is truly prepared for what’s next.
No Second Chances: Adapt or Fall in the Arena
The permadeath system is perhaps the most heartbreaking aspect of the game, as you lose your gladiator forever. However, this is actually a positive feature, as it forces constant adaptation since you can’t rely on keeping a perfect squad intact. While roguelite procedural challenges and your legacy system carry forward, it’s confusing that you lose a gladiator’s gear when they die, even if your remaining squad wins the overall match.
Despite these punishing mechanics, Bloodgrounds rarely feels unfair. Every defeat teaches you something new about team composition, ability synergy, or terrain use. The tension of knowing that one misstep could cost you a veteran fighter keeps every turn meaningful. It’s a game that rewards experimentation and resilience, pushing you to rebuild smarter each time instead of grinding mindlessly.
In the end, Bloodgrounds delivers a deeply satisfying experience with well over 15 hours of core gameplay, not including its replay value. However, this isn’t for everyone; it’s specifically aimed at fans of turn- and grid-based strategy who appreciate a game demanding patience and extensive planning. You won’t be disappointed. With so many games releasing, make sure this one doesn’t slip into your backlog — you can always try the demo on Steam right now.
Pros
- Deep Tactical Gameplay: Combines turn-based strategy, roguelite progression, and city management for complex, rewarding gameplay.
- Satisfying Learning Curve: Combat starts simple but grows in complexity with new units, abilities, and strategic layers.
- Strong Replayability: Procedural maps, random modifiers, and varied enemy compositions encourage multiple playthroughs.
- Meaningful Permadeath: Encourages adaptation, experimentation, and smart team-building without feeling unfair.
- Engaging Management Elements: Healing, training, equipping, and maintaining gladiators adds depth between battles.
Cons
- Frustrating RNG: Enemies can dodge multiple low-chance attacks in a row, adding unpredictability.
- Steep Difficulty Spikes: Boss battles can feel punishing and may require grinding or replaying missions.
- Gear Loss: Losing gladiator equipment on death can discourage risk-taking.
- Repetitive Grinding: Some repetition is necessary to fund upgrades and recover from losses.
- Permadeath Punishing for Casuals: The system can be too harsh for new players or those seeking a relaxed experience.
Review copy provided by the publisher
4
