This ambitious roguelike combines Vampire Survivors with Diablo and Hades, and you can try it for free

Soulstone Survivors is the latest "horde survival game" to riff on Vampire Survivors' winning formula, and it's also taken pages from Diablo and Hades to assemble a promising roguelike.

Developer Game Smithing Limited outlined the game as part of Steam Next Fest, which includes a free demo of Soulstone Survivors available until October 10. This will give everyone a free chance to sample Soulstone Survivors' ambitious pitch through a limited selection of characters, abilities, maps, and bosses. The proper game will launch in Steam Early Access on November 7, and the devs expect the full version to be out in less than a year with post-launch updates to follow. 

Soulstone Survivors is an isometric bullet hell roguelike where you unlock and upgrade new characters, weapons, and abilities as you start and inevitably die in run after run of screen-clearing chaos. Its Steam summary is a feast of numbers: nearly 150 unique skills, 14 playable characters, hundreds of skills and runes, dozens of weapons, all with many more to come in Early Access. 

The influence of Vampire Survivors is obvious, and not just from the name; this is a familiar loop of annihilating mobs, hoovering up money, and taking it to the upgrade shops ahead of your next run. Meanwhile, Supergiant's Hades looks to have shaped the way you select new abilities and tailor your playable demigod, though Hades' impeccable character writing doesn't seem to be a focus for Game Smithing. Standing on the shoulder of Diablo also appears to have shaped some of Soulstone Survivors' classes, upgrade trees, and abilities. It's a mixed salad of action-RPG greats, and it looks like a promising combo at first blush. 

Vampire Survivors fan game HoloCure was so popular that the devs had to turn off its leaderboards to keep things from crashing.