A roguelite tactical RPG, Ready, debuts in Early Access Today, built around gridless combat, skills, environmental plays, and survival.
A crystal to protect, resources to manage gridless tactical fights, and an art style that grabs you right away. This is Blightstone, and now I’m going to share some technical details about it.
I’ve already put around nine hours into it, and I still haven’t finished Act 1. The game is in Early Access, and from what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t feel like it wants to be a “comfortable” tactics game.
Blightstone by Unfinished Pixel is a roguelite RPG with meta progression, where every run gives you experience points that you can spend to unlock new functions and upgrades.
You also get runes that let you activate starting bonuses across three different branches, and later on, you will unlock a particular forge where you can spend another resource for permanent bonuses. But let’s see some details.
Korghul, the Crystal, and the Chronomancers
The story mostly works as a frame, like it often does in roguelites. Korghul, the current big bad, has opened a rift, and an army of dark creatures is spilling through. That’s where the chronomancer Xander and a group of heroes step in.
To seal the rift, they have to escort the Earthglass Crystal all the way to the breach, close it, and save the planet.
Another chronomancer, Ayanur, joins Xander, too. The two of them don’t just reset the run after a failed mission. They also feed the meta progression through the experience your heroes earn and the items they bring back.
The fun part is that the crystal you’re escorting isn’t just a “quest item.” It’s an active tool. You can move it, give it commands, and over time, it can unlock skills and spells you can use in combat.
You start by choosing your initial heroes and the bonus or skills the crystal can grant. There are three heroes at first, but you can unlock more characters during runs. After that, it drops you into the classic node-based map, with branches that lead to fights, mystery events, shops, elite encounters, and a boss battle at the end. I cleared the first boss, but it was a grind.
Gridless Tactics And The Environment
The heart of the experience is still the combat system. Fights happen on maps that, for now, don’t feel very complex, or at least they haven’t seemed that way to me. There aren’t many elements that feel truly interactive. That matters because one of the game’s most interesting promises is using the environment.
You get the classic stuff like a water puddle you can electrify, flammable objects, traps, and explosive points. At this stage, I haven’t seen a lot of variations, but that makes sense given where the game is right now.
Another factor that could affect the strategies used in battle is weather conditions. You might be fighting in strong winds or under heavy rain, and this can affect the accuracy of ranged attacks or make both enemies and allies susceptible, for example, to electrical attacks.
The big twist is that the tactical combat doesn’t use a grid. Each character has two or more action points, and that number goes up with bonuses and progression. Those points are used for both movement and skills.
How far you move determines when a movement starts “costing” you an action point. You move for free up to a point, then you start paying with resources.
The skills lean hard on combos between the different playable characters. Some abilities let you throw enemies into other enemies, or shove them into explosive objects and traps.
Character kits fit together well, and the idea of building combos is clear. To really get the most out of it, it needs more map variety and more chances to play off the surroundings, but the foundation works.
One thing that hasn’t fully clicked for me yet is how readable enemy intent is. A lot of the time, there isn’t a clear indicator of what an enemy is going to do on their next turn. Early on, when you don’t know the patterns, you can’t tell if an enemy attacks up close or from range, how far they can move, or who they’re going to target.
That makes it harder to build a clean strategy, or even just play at range to buy yourself a turn.
In some cases, certain units start with a status that makes it clear they only see the crystal as their target. But beyond that, there’s no real system that tells you what’s about to happen, and I definitely felt that gap, but probably this could be a nice feat to unlock through the meta progression.
That said, I liked the boss battles. And not just because of the bosses themselves. A lot of enemies have “charged” skills that trigger after a certain number of steps and skills used. The counter doesn’t tick down at the end of the turn. It drops every time you move or use a skill.
When it hits zero, the big attack goes off. It might be a straight charge that hits multiple allies, or a chain of effects. It’s a simple idea, but it changes the rhythm and makes the flow feel more varied.
Meet the Party and the Core Stats
The three starting characters already feel pretty distinct. There’s the “brute force” fighter, with skills built around dealing damage and soaking hits. He can grab an enemy, hold them in place while he beats on them, then throw them. He also has a charge that can make an opponent bounce around almost like a pinball.
Then there’s the ranger, and he’s a bit different because he comes with a dog you can command. You can tell it to attack, send it toward a target, or call it back into position. On top of that, the ranger uses a bow for ranged damage.
And finally, there’s the mage, with a kit focused on magic and control. He can move enemies and objects, throw them, and he can even launch allies toward a specific area.
Each run, character growth plays out in a random way. Rewards from fights and events unlock new skills and passives for each character. Another way to power everyone up is through the three equipment slots: a weapon, an armor piece, and an accessory. Those can also unlock passives, add skills, or boost your stat points.
Those stat points translate into HP, action points, resistance to threats, damage they do, movement range, and so on.
On top of that, each class has its own set of skills for the camping phase. These can help the party recover resources and health, reduce the risk level bar and stress on your adventurers, and even scout map nodes so you get a preview of what’s coming, plus possible treasures or bonuses you might find along the way. It’s basically the same kind of system you see in Darkest Dungeon.
During this Early Access build, you can unlock two more characters as you play, but I’m stopping there because I don’t want to spoil anything.
survival & Camping
Blightstone does something not every roguelite bothers with. It gives you a whole set of resources tied to keeping your heroes alive and pushing their progression forward in the world. You’re juggling coins, food, beer, firewood, spare parts, and more.
The essential ones are food, which you consume whenever you stop at the campfire, and firewood, which you burn to keep the fire going and address the risk level bar. A higher risk bar translates into greater difficulty encounters and events. The other resources feed into skills and crafting certain items. All of these resources will be acquired at the end of battles and events.
Roadmap And Early Considerations
Blightstone is about to launch, or it may have already launched (February 20, 2026), in Early Access on PC via Steam by the time you’re reading this article. The current build includes three maps, five recruitable heroes, and a bunch of events and skills that will be expanded.
The roadmap from February through May 2026 is set to add two new heroes, maps, new enemies, minibosses, and a 1v1 arena mode.
So far, Blightstone feels like a tactical roguelite with solid ideas and a combat system that could become really interesting if the maps and the environment start leaning harder into interactions. And as development moves forward, that’s probably where it’s headed. Anyway, the feeling “just one more run” is there.
Let me know what you think about Blightstone by reaching me on my social pages and the new Reddit channel. Wish you the best. Ciao
