Soulstone Survivors 1.0 is out now and it's one of the best survivor-like RPG action rogue-lites available. It has Linux support and is Steam Deck Verified / SteamOS Compatible.
During Early Access it sold over a million and it has a Very Positive user rating from over 20,000 reviews. So in the survivor-like bullet heaven / bullet hell (whatever we're calling it today) genre it's clearly one of the best. I'll back that up too, I've played a lot of hours of this one and it really is good.
Blindingly good you might say. And I don't just mean because of the masses of visual effects, some of which at times are perhaps a little overwhelming on the senses. But the overall pace of the action is ridiculous too. If you love a game where you get to just absolutely annihilate everything on the screen constantly, it's definitely one for you.
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The new intro the game has is a nice little taster into the world too. Many in this genre just throw you into it abruptly, so it's great to see more expand on the world they've actually built for it.
Highlights:
- 22 Playable Characters: Unlock and experiment with 22 playable Void Hunters, each with their own forgeable weapons and unique attacks! Two new characters have been introduced at launch: the mech-driving Machinist and the fan-requested Samurai.
- Unleash Chaos: Choose from hundreds of devastating skills and attacks as you level up, creating countless lethal combinations that make you an unstoppable force. Infinitely stack buffs and advantages to create your ultimate builds.
- Hear their Calls: Experience, for the first time, a full voiceover for Void Hunter characters, enhancing their distinct personalities as they take on the hordes of the Void.
- Become a God: Invest in permanent upgrades, with a full skill tree for each character, until you unlock the Ascension forms: temporary god-like powers that lay waste to the battlefield.
- Conquer the Void King: Newly revealed for launch - face the all-consuming, all-powerful Void King and end the nightmare of the Great Void once and for all (until you start a new run)
- Increase the Risk, Reap the Rewards: Ramp up the difficulty with a variety of curses and game modes, granting even more soulstones and other materials to make your Void Hunters increasingly deadly.
The Native Linux release does has one major issue I observed. It will quit when focus is lost (like alt+tab). However, I was able to solve it by putting it into windowed mode, then back to fullscreen. It's been reported already, so I've given the dev a log file and more info to help. Aside from that initial issue it works great. Proton is also an option to work around issues.
Overall, the game makes you feel like a ridiculously overpowered god even at the start. The amount of enemies that you're smashing through is crazy.
From the press release:
"We started work on Soulstone Survivors almost three years ago as a side project, while still working our full time jobs, and at the time the two of us had no idea where the game would go!" said Allan Smith, game director and founder of Game Smithing. "We quit our jobs and over time grew our team to the 12 people we are today, and 16 major updates later – with countless fixes and improvements, and a game ten times larger than we ever hoped – we still love working on the game.
"From the start, and through every step along the way, the community helped guide and shape the future of the game and we are extremely proud of the game we've developed together. We can't wait to deliver some more surprises with our 1.0 update, both to old and new players on Steam, Playstation, Xbox, GOG and Epic Game Store."
Steve Escalante, CEO and co-founder of Digital Bandidos, added: "This is a great moment for the Bandidos team: our first full launch of a great new game. It's been great working in partnership with the team at Game Smithing again and we're so pleased we could help bring Soulstone Survivors to an even bigger audience following its success in Early Access.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Ehvis 4 hours ago
After finishing a level, you can continue with either a "boss" rush or go deeper with random levels. The enemy health grows exponentially though, so eventually you'll hit a brick wall that is stronger than your patience. Also a bunch of other modes as well.
There are a lot of characters with some special abilities, lots of unlocks and a giant skill tree that will take a LONG time to complete.
My only criticism is that the various characters don't feel very different. At least not in the beginning. Some more later on and maybe a lot more than I haven't really gotten into yet. I've managed a depth of 8 levels before enemies got too tank-y for me. But people on the forums have gotten to something like 14 by exploiting synergies and making full use of multiplicative powers as opposed to additive ones. Since I mostly play this stuff when I'm too tired to think, this is not something I have explored.
I can definitely recommended it if you're into these types of games.
wytrabbit 3 hours ago
- During each run try to focus on a single strategy for your spells/skills. Damage over time, auras, big AOEs, projectiles, etc. Try to stick to upgrades that benefit your those skills the most. Like increasing projectile size is impressive, but not particularly effective IMO, it's better to increase attack speed and piercing ability.
- If you're looking to just have fun and screw around then at the end of each level choose whatever portal you want, but if you want to progress quicker always choose the blue portal. Claiming your rewards, applying them to permanent upgrades, unlocking new characters and spells, then starting a new level with a higher Curse rating will net you far more resources than picking the red or yellow portals again and again, those 2 have linear returns as difficulty rises exponentially.
- And lastly, I recommend finding 1 to 3 characters you enjoy the most and play them exclusively. You'll earn resources, especially the rarer ones, considerably faster than if you spread your time between a handful of options, and you'll unlock more achievements to unlock more characters quicker too.
Last edited by wytrabbit on 19 Jun 2025 at 1:49 pm UTC
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