Dice Legends is a turn-based, dice-rolling deck builder coming out on Steam! Read our review of its free demo to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying when it fully releases!
Everything We Know About Dice Legends
Dice Legends Story Plot
The full scope of Dice Legends’ story is yet to be revealed, but a few key plot points have already been established through the game’s free demo. The world of Dice Legends is one changed by a wave of magic that swept through its lands. People were forever transformed into bestial forms, but retained their minds, allowing them to piece together what happened and possibly revert to their original form as they journey through an unfamiliar realm.
The demo lets players experience the game’s first chapter with one of the three playable characters, Arie the Lion Paladin.
Dice Legends Gameplay
Dice Legends’ gameplay centers around traditional turn-based RPG elements, mixed in with basic strategy deck-building mechanics and dice-rolling to create a blend of Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons.
Players manage cards and dice as resources to fight enemies in turn-based combat, using dice and their rolled values to fuel specific actions described by their available cards. Dice are rerolled at the start of each turn alongside a new hand of cards to use them on, with the values of the dice often determining the value of the action they trigger, such ass higher damage, more shielding, or being the exact number needed to trigger an effect.
Between combat, players may buy new equipment to give their hero passive boosts, draft new cards, regain their HP, improve their attack damage, and select their next path in a Slay the Spire-style branching path progression to the final boss of each area.
Dice Legends Release Date and Time
Rolling For Initiative in Fall 2025, Demo Out Now!
Dice Legends will be releasing for the PC (Steam) sometime in Fall 2025. The game’s exact release date and time are yet to be revealed, but we’ll update this article as soon as that information is available.
The game’s free demo, including its first chapter and one playable character, is now available to download on Steam.
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Dice Legends Review [Demo]
A High Roller In The Making
I’ve said this before in a review of an inexplicably effective billiards-themed roguelike, but it’s worth repeating: if there’s a sport, board game, casino game, or party game out there, chances are there’s a roguelike version of it lurking on Steam. If we bet on that likelihood further, chances are, it’s a turn-based RPG of some sort. Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers turned blackjack into one, Rack n’ Slay made billiards work, Luck Be A Landlord spun slots into strategy, and PokerQuest dealt poker into the mix.
You probably see where I’m going with this. Dice Legends isn’t the first roguelite RPG to use dice as its core mechanic—Dicey Dungeons rolled that number half a decade ago. But Dice Legends is the newest contender in this particular subgenre, and it’s coming in hot with slick visuals, crisp, synergistic gameplay, and a strong evolution of the ideas Dicey Dungeons first laid out. It’s a high roller in the making—and here’s exactly why.
Dice RPG Refined To A Lethal Point
Let’s start with the game’s bread and butter: gameplay. As mentioned earlier, Dice Legends isn’t the first to crack the formula for turn-based RPGs using dice. If we’re willing to stretch that definition, then Dungeons & Dragons had it beat by a few decades—but in the realm of video games, Dicey Dungeons was already a frontrunner, even if it notably didn’t use cards. Dice Legends does, and it uses them to great effect—blending the deck-building strategy of Slay the Spire with the dice-driven action economy of Dicey Dungeons. Let me explain.
Here’s how Dice Legends plays: the player builds a deck of cards, adding new ones by winning fights or purchasing them from the shop, usually from a random selection of three. Each card comes with its own effect—dealing direct damage, applying status effects, providing shields, boosting stats, and so on. How much damage and shielding? That’s where the dice come in.
Rather than using a traditional energy system, where stronger cards cost more to play or require synergy to reduce their cost, Dice Legends uses dice values to drive combat. Sometimes it’s as simple as “Deal X Damage” based on the number you roll. Other times, cards require specific values, exact matches, dice pairs, or total sums. You might need a 6, or two 3s, or dice adding up to 10. The requirements vary, but the payoff often makes the effort worth it. In a way, it’s like weaponizing Yahtzee, but with far fewer swears and no cups being thrown in frustration.
At the start of your turn, you roll your pool of dice and draw a new hand of cards from your deck. You can then assign dice to the actions if they fit the restrictions, resolving their effect. Once you activate a card with a matching die, both are spent for the rest of the turn. Unless, of course, the card has counters—allowing it to be triggered multiple times, provided you have the dice to fuel it.
Usually, you’re limited more by the number of dice you have than the specific values, since the game is fairly generous with which dice can be used where, though restrictions do exist.
Like in Slay the Spire, enemies display their intent before their turn, giving you a chance to plan accordingly. You can even bank unused dice for the next round if the situation calls for it. As with most turn-based RPGs, the goal is simple: reduce your opponent to 0 HP before they do the same to you. The victor earns gold and a card draft—standard stuff.
It’s a simple concept, executed with finesse. But none of it would matter if the game didn’t have one critical ingredient: synergy.
Amazing Synergy Already, Even With So Few Cards in the Demo
This is the lifeblood of any deck-building game—just as important as the cards themselves. Sure, cards make up the “deck” in deckbuilder, but the “builder” part? That comes from synergy—the way a game’s internal systems connect and compound. You can have all the cards in the world, but if they don’t weave together into something greater, they’re dead weight. Thankfully, even with the limited pool in the demo, Dice Legends makes its synergy clear right from the start.
The demo puts you in the boots of Arie the Lion Paladin, and he’s about as straightforward as it gets for a dice-based RPG—or any RPG, really. He starts with a solid, simple kit: a few damage cards, a couple of block generators, a card or two to increase incoming damage on enemies, and a repeatable low-damage card for reliability. If we’re being honest, he feels more like a fighter than a paladin with how barebones his kit is. Still, even this basic loadout hints at the game’s deeper synergy potential.
Take his shielding cards, for instance. One gives you an X amount of block based on the value of the die used. The other applies the block value twice—but only if the die value is between 1 and 4. On their own, they’re not worlds apart. But add in cards that let you generate more shield or manipulate die values, and suddenly that second card becomes a block-generating machine.
Beyond the starter kit, synergy paths start to branch out through drafting. For Arie, I found myself leaning into his Counter synergy—letting him deal damage back to enemies whenever they hit him. Stack enough of it, and bosses start hurting themselves more than you. Then there’s his Charge synergy, which boosts attack damage per stack. Even better, there are side-synergies that let both paths coexist, feeding into each other in clever ways.
What’s most exciting is that all of this is still happening at the game’s most basic level, using only a standard d6 (six-sided die). The other two characters, Kuro and Xin, will roll with d12s and d8s, respectively—so you can bet there’s a whole lot more synergy on the horizon, likely in ways we haven’t even imagined yet.
And then there are the equipment and potion pieces, with the former adding even more synergy potential for players to play with, and the latter offering a more immediate, consumable strategic option. There really is a lot going on here, even with the tiny snippet we’re given, so I look forward to the tangled web these cards will weave come the full game’s release.
Great Pixel Art and Music with An Admittedly Basic Story
It’s not just about gameplay mechanics with this game, either—Dice Legends has some visual and audio chops to show off. The pixel art, while not quite Hyper Light Drifter levels of jaw-dropping, is vibrant and detailed enough to feel completely out of place when compared to Dicey Dungeons—and I mean that as a compliment in every sense.
The pixel-art sprites do a great job of conveying each character’s playstyle—well, the one character we can actually play as right now, anyway—and the backgrounds (not to mention the main map) are just as impressive in their intricacy.
The music’s no slouch, either, courtesy of the composer behind Balatro’s iconic humming soundtrack. The sweeping brass and soaring strings pair perfectly with the game’s fantasy flair, creating an audiovisual experience to die for, though I’d recommend not doing that in-game.
Unfortunately, the story’s not exactly much to write home about. People got turned into beasts, and we’re supposed to find out who’s behind it. That’s the long and short of it. I’m sure there’s lore tucked away in there somewhere, but so far it’s nothing new, nuanced, or particularly surprising. There are plenty of reasons I’ll be coming back to this game, but if I’m looking for a gripping fantasy narrative? I’ll stick to D&D. Heck, the Spire’s background intrigue is more entertaining than Dice Legends’ lore.
Very Short Experience, Even For A Demo
Now, maybe I’ve just been spoiled by some killer demos—Tales of Seikyu and The First Berserker: Khazan come to mind—but Dice Legends’ demo feels a bit… short. Even by demo standards, there just isn’t a lot of playtime here, and I can’t help but worry that might reflect the scope of the final product. The first chapter takes maybe 15 minutes to finish, there are only four chapters total, and while two additional characters have been announced, there doesn’t seem to be any form of meta-progression in place, or even hinted at for the full release. That paints a picture of a game that could feel short and repetitive in the long run.
Now, of course, all of this is just speculation—but I’d strongly suggest the devs find ways to expand the experience beyond what’s currently planned. Maybe some ascension levels, like Slay the Spire or Monster Train? Challenge modes, more characters, more areas, a trophy room—the possibilities are endless. And I really hope the devs lean into them.
Something To Hold Us Over Until Slay the Spire 2
All in all, Dice Legends is a solid pick-me-up for newcomers curious about deck-building games and veterans biding their time until Slay the Spire 2. It’s fast, sharp in all the right places, synergistic to a frankly alarming degree, and stands out as something wholly unique in the current roguelite landscape.
Sure, it doesn’t hit with the same oomph that Slay the Spire had on entry—mainly because its story is barebones and the sneak peek doesn’t give us much insight into what the full experience might look like—but if you’re into turn-based strategy and a little bit of dice-fueled gambling, I can pretty much guarantee you’ll have a good time. It’s a high roller in the making, no doubt, and the bones are waiting to be cast for the full release.
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Dice Legends Product Information
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| Title | DICE LEGENDS |
|---|---|
| Release Date | Fall 2025 |
| Developer | Big Bite Games, Ad Luna |
| Publisher | Ad Luna, Big Bite Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Card, Strategy |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Dice Legends Website |
