Game: Ex Sanguis
Developer: Lightbulb Crew
Publisher: Firesquid
Genre: Turn-Based Tactics Roguelite
Released: September 10, 2026 — Early Access
Platform: PC (Steam)
Price: $19.99 · 10% off to Sept 24
EA Window: At least 6 months
Steam Deck: Playable
From: The Othercide team
📋 Early Access — and the Price Is Going Up
Ex Sanguis entered Early Access today, with Lightbulb Crew planning at least six months before 1.0. Currently in: a tutorial, two biomes, one boss and two mini-bosses, three Stillae, 16 traits and 37 skills.
⚠️ Firesquid state plainly that they “plan to gradually raise the price as we ship new content and features.” Unlike most Early Access titles, buying later will cost you more — worth factoring into the decision.
⚠️ Content note: Lightbulb Crew flag frequent violence, blood and gore. Blood is the game’s central visual motif — characters are wounded and killed with heavily stylised effects throughout. It’s art-directed rather than gratuitous, but it is relentless.
$19.99Price
3Stillae
37Skills
16Traits
2Biomes
🩸 Know this first: every attack always hits. There’s no hit chance to gamble on, and you can see exactly how enemies will move. PCGamesN called it “the most stylish XCOM-style roguelike I’ve ever played” — but the comparison misleads. XCOM is about managing probability. Ex Sanguis is about solving a puzzle.
⚖️ A Player Called It “Damage Tetris,” and That’s Exactly Right
This is the clearest description anyone has given of what Ex Sanguis actually is.
All your attacks always hit. You have full information on how enemies will move. So combat stops being a risk calculation and becomes a positioning-and-ordering puzzle with one or more correct solutions — the right attacks, in the right order, from the right squares.
The tool that makes it sing is Timeline Effects: you can speed up, delay or outright swap positions in the turn order. Combine that with knock-backs, forced facings, flanking bonuses, damage-over-time and environments that explode, ignite or block line of sight, and you get chains where a single opening turn cascades into the rest of the fight resolving itself.
It’s the rare tactics game where, as one player put it, you “stop and really think about your moves.” Not because you might miss — because there’s a right answer and you haven’t found it yet.
Bleed the world back to life
“20 hours of that ‘one more turn’ feeling, which I almost never get these days.” From a player who’s already put a full working week into an Early Access build.
Ex Sanguis is a turn-based tactics roguelite from Lightbulb Crew — the studio behind Othercide — published by Firesquid. It entered Early Access today at $19.99, currently 10% off, and sits at Mostly Positive on Steam.
Our verdict: Ex Sanguis delivers tactical depth with its elegant turn-based combat system and creative timeline mechanics that reward strategic thinking. The foundation is genuinely excellent. There just isn’t very much of it yet.
The Resource Triangle Is Beautifully Designed
🩸 Memories, Blood, and Power — All Tradeable
This is the system a detailed reviewer surfaced that you won’t find explained anywhere on the store page, and it’s the smartest thing in the game.
A run is governed by three resources:
• Memories — how many fights you have left in the run
• Blood — earned in encounters, and you need a threshold of it to enter a boss fight
• Power — the abilities and traits your squad has accumulated
And they’re interchangeable. Feeling underpowered? Find a map event, spend blood to buy an extra memory, take another fight, level up. Already have the build you want? Same event, spend a memory to gain blood and reach the boss threshold sooner.
That converts a resource economy into an actual dial you control — you’re choosing between “more runway” and “more strength” in a currency you can convert both ways. Elegant, legible, and it means no run is unsalvageable.
Layer on per-fight difficulty selection — easier encounters give smaller rewards — and you can grind gentle fights for upgrades, then take the boss on maximum difficulty. Genuine agency, expressed through systems rather than a settings menu.
⏳ Timeline Effects
Speed up, delay or swap turn positions. The core tactical lever.
💥 Reactive Terrain
Environments that explode, ignite enemies or block line of sight.
🎯 Spatial Play
Knock-backs, forced facings, flanking bonuses and damage-over-time.
🗺️ Choose Your Path
High-risk missions, straight to bosses, or slow down and gather. Outer rim is hardest.
The Othercide Question
⚔️ Faster, Kinder, and Less Brutal — for Better and Worse
Every single review of this game mentions Othercide, so let’s deal with it directly.
What changed:
• Missions take 3–15 minutes, where Othercide’s could run for hours
• Your squad fully heals between fights
• No HP cost for using strong abilities. In Othercide, your best skills drained health, so you rationed them across a campaign. Here you use whatever you want, whenever
• Runs are roughly eight battles, with a skill choice after each
• Storytelling is more conventional — still dark, but not, as one player put it, dark “to the excessive degree that Othercide was”
The result is a game one reviewer called “a lot more dynamic and faster.” Another compared the campaign-to-runs transition directly to Darkest Dungeon 2 and said Lightbulb handled it better.
But the criticism is real too. One player felt “the developers have not done enough to differentiate itself,” and an Othercide veteran’s first reaction was “meh — very similar, but changed in ways that lost what made the original so unique.” They came round after a couple of hours. Not everyone will.
Our read: this is Othercide with the friction removed — which makes it far more approachable and measurably less punishing. Whether that’s a gain depends entirely on whether the punishment was the point for you.
Right Now, Nothing Is at Stake
The sharpest criticism in the reviews, and it’s a good one. You can play every single battle on the easiest difficulty, and you can retry as many times as you like.
That’s a defensible default for an Early Access build — it keeps the game open to everyone while systems settle. But it means a tactics veteran can walk through the current content without ever being pressured, and it hollows out the excellent puzzle design described above. If there’s no cost to getting it wrong, there’s less satisfaction in getting it right.
One reviewer’s suggested fix is the right shape: a higher difficulty mode with “some kind of doom clock that pushes you to perform.” Something that makes hesitation expensive. It’s a notable absence for a studio whose previous game was defined by its unforgiving stakes, and it’s the single change that would most improve Ex Sanguis today.
What’s Actually Coming
🗺️ The Early Access Roadmap
Firesquid have published a dated roadmap, which is more than most Early Access launches offer:
NOW (September 10) — Tutorial, 2 biomes (desert and city), 1 boss and 2 mini-bosses, 3 Stillae with unique archetypes, 16 traits, 37 skills and attacks, achievements, cutscenes
AUTUMN — Update 01 — More mission layouts, new interactive objects and reactive environments, new enemy variations, a new boss, and a new ‘Survival’ mission type
WINTER — Update 02 — New secondary objectives, squad member passives, traits management, and Stillae that visually evolve as they progress
2027 — New enemies, a new biome, a new boss, and more
ONGOING — Bug fixing and stability, gameplay balancing, community feedback
Lightbulb note the roadmap is subject to change, as they all are. But the shape is sensible — content breadth first, then systems depth in winter.
Things to Know Going In
📋 Setting Expectations
• $19.99, 10% off to $17.99 until September 24 — and the price will rise over Early Access, not fall
• Mostly Positive across 52 reviews on launch day, plus a PCGamesN quote on the store page
• It’s thin right now. A tactics veteran can see everything in under five hours. Multiple reviewers use the words “bare bones” while still recommending it
• But people are replaying it heavily — one player has 20 hours in, expects 50 on current content, and 500+ once complete
• Described as “fully polished” despite the content volume. This is a small game, not a broken one
• Art direction and soundtrack draw near-universal praise. Several players say they bought it on the art alone
• Steam Deck Playable, with six accessibility features and eight languages
• ⚠️ No Steam Cloud saves listed — worth knowing if you play across machines
• A $7.99 Supporter Pack adds an artbook and soundtrack, and players who bought it are happy with it
• Single-player only, with 16 achievements currently
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good |
The Bad |
The Ugly |
| Combat Is a Puzzle, Not a GambleEvery attack hits and enemy movement is fully visible, so fights become positioning-and-ordering problems with correct answers. Timeline Effects let you reorder turns entirely. One player called it “damage Tetris” and nothing describes it better. |
Not Different Enough for SomeAn Othercide veteran’s first reaction was “meh,” and another felt the team hadn’t done enough to distinguish it. Both came round or stayed positive — but the concern is fair and it’ll hit returning players hardest. |
Nothing Is at Stake YetEvery battle can be played on the easiest setting with unlimited retries. Defensible for Early Access, but it hollows out the excellent puzzle design — and it’s a strange gap for the studio that made Othercide. |
| A Resource Economy You Can Actually TradeMemories, blood and power — and map events let you convert between them in both directions. “More runway” versus “more strength” becomes a dial you control, and it means no run is unsalvageable. |
No Steam CloudSaves aren’t listed as cloud-synced, which is a nuisance if you move between a desktop and a Deck. Minor, and easily added. |
Under Five Hours of ContentA tactics veteran can exhaust the current build in an afternoon. Reviewers use “bare bones” while still recommending it — but at $19.99 rising, you’re buying a foundation and a roadmap rather than a finished game. |
| Art and Sound Are the DrawRed on drained monochrome, and several players admit they bought it on the art style alone. The soundtrack gets singled out repeatedly, and the whole thing reads as “fully polished” despite the content volume. |
Less Brutal Than Its PredecessorFull heals between fights, no HP cost on big abilities, conventional storytelling. More approachable and far less punishing — a gain or a loss depending entirely on whether the punishment was why you were here. |
The Othercide ShadowOne buyer wrote that they hope the devs “see this game through and not abandon it like they did with Othercide.” That’s one player’s view of the studio’s history, but it’s a real consideration when you’re buying six-plus months of promises. |
| A Roadmap With Dates on ItAutumn, winter and 2027 updates laid out with specifics — new bosses, a Survival mode, squad passives, visually evolving Stillae. And players note the devs genuinely communicate. That’s more than most Early Access launches offer. |
—The remaining complaints are all about volume rather than quality. Nobody reports bugs, crashes or broken systems. |
— |
The Verdict
Ex Sanguis has one of the most interesting tactical foundations we’ve seen this year. Removing hit chance entirely and giving you complete information transforms combat from a risk-management exercise into a solvable puzzle, and Timeline Effects give you a lever nothing else in the genre offers — the ability to reorder the fight itself. Add the tradeable resource economy and the per-fight difficulty dial and you have a game that hands you an unusual amount of control over your own experience.
It’s also visually superb. Blood-red against a drained, colourless world is a strong idea executed with real confidence, and enough players admit to buying it on the art alone that it clearly lands.
The problems are both about restraint. There’s under five hours of content, which reviewers describe as bare bones while recommending it anyway. And nothing currently forces you to be good at it — easiest difficulty and unlimited retries are available for every fight, which undercuts the puzzle design that’s the whole appeal. A higher difficulty with real pressure is the single most valuable thing Lightbulb could add, and it’s conspicuous coming from the Othercide team.
On the abandonment worry: it’s a fair thing for a buyer to weigh, and we’d note the counter-evidence — a dated roadmap with specifics on it, and players saying the developers genuinely communicate. That’s not a guarantee. It is more than most Early Access launches put on the table.
The honest read: buy it now if the systems excite you, and wait for Update 01 if content volume matters more. Unusually, waiting costs money here — Firesquid have said the price will rise as content ships — so the calculation is genuinely “cheap and thin now” versus “fuller and dearer later.” Both are defensible.
What isn’t in doubt is that the bones are excellent. We’ll revisit when Update 01 lands.
For more game reviews, check out our full reviews section.
Score Breakdown
Art Direction & Atmosphere9.5/10
Timeline & Tactical Systems9.0/10
Resource Economy Design8.5/10
Pacing vs Othercide8.5/10
Developer Communication8.5/10
Differentiation from Othercide5.5/10
Difficulty Pressure4.0/10
Final Score — Early Access
7.5/10
Ex Sanguis — Lightbulb Crew
Excellent bones. Not enough meat on them yet.
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