Slay the Spire gameplay screenshot: A character with cards dealing damage, battling a boss.

Slay the Spire: Level 1 Exordium, Ironclad facing a whale-like enemy. Dialogue: "Hello again..." Game interface visible.

Slay the Spire: Scene featuring the Woman in Blue. She says "I have a feeling we will meet again." and vanishes.

Slay the Spire is a mixture of a roguelike-like video game and a deck-building card game. At the beginning of a playthrough, the player chooses between one of three already created characters plus a starting deck of cards. According to their election, the player gets an initial quantity of health, gold and a starting relic that provides a particular skill, along with a deck featuring basic attacks and defensive cards. Their choice also determines the potential color-coded cards linked explicitly to that character that they will encounter through the run.

The aim is to go through several levels of a spire, each level having multiple probable events spread out in a winding structure with a boss battle at the end of the level. Those events can include battles with monsters, campfires to heal or upgrade cards to more powerful versions, shopkeepers to buy cards, relics, and potions, as well as to remove cards from the deck, chests with random loot, and random choice-based encounters.

Combat is turn-based, and on each turn, the player receives a fresh set of cards and three energy points. The player can lay down any number of cards as long as they have the energy to pay for the costs of each card, and at the end of each turn, all cards which have not been laid out are discarded and put into a different pile. Players' cards are unique to each character, but they usually contain their essential attack cards to inflict damage to opponents, skill cards to buff themselves, debuff opponents, or add to their blocking power for the turn, and power cards with effects that remain in play until the end of combat. Each opponent on the field will telegraph what move they will make: if they attack and with how much damage, block or cast a spell to buff themselves or debuff the player. In some cases, the opponents' attack or the player cards may add unplayable cards representing battle conditions to the player's deck, like Wounds.

The players can determine the best strategy to avoid taking any damage after they complete their turn. If the players' health goes below zero, the game is over, and they must restart from the bottom of the spire. On the other hand, if the player beats all the monsters in a fight, they usually get gold and a choice of one of three randomly-generated cards to add to their deck, if they so choose. Other loot that can be gain from monsters or other encounters includes relics that provide a permanent character buff for the duration of the game, such as increased maximum health, additional energy points, lower casting costs, and automatic blocking, or single-use potions that can be consumed anytime for no cost to restore health, buff the player, and debuff or damage the enemy.

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Patch Notes

V2.3.4 - 20/12/22 (V2.3.4: Crash on launch fix for Non-English PC users)
V2.3.3 - 02/12/22 (V2.3.3: Steamdeck Hotfix)
V2.3.1 - 05/10/22 (V2.3.1 Hotfix)
V2.3 - 08/03/22 (V2.3 Hotfix)
V2.2 - 14/12/20 (V2.2: Hot Fix)
V2.0 - 29/01/20 (Even more Hotfixes for V2.0)
V2.0 - 20/01/20 (Hotfixes for V2.0)
#14 - 04/01/20 (Character 4 Progress Report #14)
#13 - 20/12/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #13)
#12 - 14/12/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #12)
#11 - 06/12/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #11)
#10 - 08/11/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #10)
#9 - 01/11/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #9)
#8 - 26/10/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #8)
#7 - 18/10/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #7)
#6 - 12/10/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #6)
#5 - 04/10/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #5)
#4 - 27/09/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #4)
#3 - 20/09/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #3)
#2 - 16/09/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #2)
#1 - 11/09/19 (Character 4 Progress Report #1)
15/08/19 (Character Four: Beta Date)
V1.1 - 01/07/19 (Patch V1.1: The Dealer)
1.0 - 23/01/19 (Slay the Spire 1.0: Farewell Early Access)
18/01/19 (Weekly Patch 56: The Collector)
11/01/19 (Weekly Patch 55: Blur)
04/01/19 (Weekly Patch 54: Loop)
21/12/18 (Weekly Patch 53: Blizzard)
14/12/18 (Weekly Patch 52: Release Date & Price Increase)
07/12/18 (Weekly Patch 51: Recursion)
16/11/18 (Weekly Patch 50: The Final Act)
06/04/18 (Weekly Patch 19: Seed)
30/03/18 (Weekly Patch 18: Paranormal)
23/03/18 (Weekly Patch 17: Patched in the Face)
16/03/18 (Weekly Patch 16: Back to Work)
09/03/18 (Weekly Patch 15: Surprise Patch)
02/03/18 (Weekly Patch 14: Bullet Time)
23/02/18 (Weekly Patch 13: Thinking Ahead)
16/02/18 (Weekly Patch 12: Lunar New Year)
09/02/18 (Weekly Patch 11: A Library of Features)
02/02/18 (Weekly Patch 10: Quality of Life)
25/01/18 (Weekly Patch 9: Ascension)
19/01/18 (Weekly Patch 8: Ooh Shiny!)
12/01/18 (Weekly Patch 7: Setting Up All the Things)
05/01/18 (Weekly Patch 6: We're Back!)
22/12/17 (Weekly Patch 5: Happy Holidays!)
15/12/17 (Weekly Patch 4: Full speed ahead!)
08/12/17 (Weekly Patch 3: Balance Balance Balance)
01/12/17 (Weekly Patch 2: Slimes!)
25/11/17 (Weekly Patch 1: The First of Many!)
17/11/17 (Post-Launch Updates!)

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Supported languages

	Interface	Audio	Subtitles
English
Korean
Italian
Chinese (Simplified)
Polish
French
German
Ukrainian
Spanish (Spain)
Dutch
Chinese (Traditional)
Turkish
Thai
Vietnamese
Portuguese (Brazil)
Russian
Japanese
Spanish (Mexico)
Norwegian
Portuguese (Portugal)