My favorite roguelike in Steam Next Fest has a genius solution to Vampire Survivors' biggest problem

A fire trail follows the cursor blade as it slashes through enemy blobs. — (Image credit: RealPeach)

Steam Next Fest, the digital event swarming with cool demos, has countless games aiming at a piece of Vampire Survivors' pie. Take a casual scroll through the available demos, and you’ll see dozens of top-down, auto-battling, roguelike, bullet heaven mash-ups. That was to be expected. But I wasn’t expecting to stumble on Cursorblade, which is already an absolute roguelike banger in my eyes and potentially outshines the subgenre's big daddy.

Cursorblade can loosely be described as 'Vampire Survivors but you play as the cursor.' You drag your cursor (cosplaying as a blade, hence the name) through waves of enemies to damage them, and every time you slash the blob waves to dust, you’ll be treated to a new ability - a fire trail, temporary invincibility, and contagious lightning are all on offer, among others.

But Cursorblade's biggest achievement is that it sidesteps Vampire Survivors' biggest issue: movement. Survivors is moreish until you find a winning strategy - after that initial thrill wears off, the game feels like you’re continually chasing flashier numbers as you walk in circles, waiting to either level up or get crowded by zombies.

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Unlike others in the growing subgenre, your enemies can’t move in Cursorblade. Only you can. Enemies will instead charge up attacks and glow before they chuck projectiles your way, or chomp at the air hoping to get a chunk of your health. Threading between projectiles and unfriendly blobs is oh-so satisfying, and knowing when to safely attack is half the battle here.

Cursorblade feels like a more flexible and wholly engaging version of the Survivors-like thanks to that active movement. My spare hour practically evaporated while playing Cursorblade, as I swiped with all the glee of a child unwrapping Christmas gifts. And I can’t wait to lose many more hours staring at the deadly little cursor until my pupils turn to mush.

Cursorblade fully releases on November 6th, and in the meantime, you can download the Next Fest demo on Steam.

Steam Next Fest has tons to enjoy - from underwater Soulslikes to 2D takes on Bloodborne. Here are 15 must-play demos from the event.

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.