The roguelite genre continues to expand into different genres. From recent racing games like Carmageddon: Rogue Shift to shooters like Deadzone: Rogue, run-based games have become a staple in the games industry. Though FromSoftware delivered Elden Ring: Nightreign in 2025, that took a different path towards the run-based genre, instead fusing elements of the battle-royale and PvE co-op with Soulslike action. Crimson Moon, an upcoming title from ProbablyMonsters, aims to play more into the other side of the equation, delivering what looks like a white-knuckled action/RPG where death and resurrection play even more into the equation.
My hands-off demo with Crimson Moon begins in the hub, a gorgeously rendered cathedral. You can choose from multiple different characters, each with their own builds. You control half-angel, half-human protagonists tasked with driving the undead out of our world. To do this, you must go on missions, which are your runs through the world. You choose a loadout, then embark on these runs, with a hefty risk-reward factor in place; they’re still tweaking how it will work, but you could potentially lose any gear you bring into the run if you die.
Thankfully, unlike most Soulslike games, you also bring lives into your run. In one section, I watched the developer playing get taken out, but because he had extra lives, he resurrected right in place. You can earn more lives through gameplay progression, but this mechanic is meant to make the game more approachable for a wider audience while still retaining the genre’s trademark difficulty. As you play through the run, you earn new loot, which you get to keep if you make it out of the run alive.
Crimson Moon has all the mainstays of the Soulslike genre, including a stamina bar, dodge-rolls, and little potions you drink to heal. But in the forefront is the combat, which looks as smooth as it does precise. After each tense confrontation, you can perform stylish finishing moves, which the team looked towards Mortal Kombat’s brutal Fatalities for inspiration.
The demo culminated with a boss battle against a bat/vampire-looking human called Cardinal Mathias, who leapt around a church with acrobatic movements and attacks. The developer’s character looks like they might be in for a tough battle, until the demoist tells me about Angel Mode, a special ultimate-style ability where you enter an overpowered state that boosts your range and movement speed, allowing the player to even the odds and fell the daunting boss battle.
Upon returning to the hub, they have the choice to funnel experience, which is granted regardless of your success or failure on any given run (albeit in different quantities), into different attributes like strength, endurance, and vitality. Those attributes, along with any gear you brought out of the run, can carry over to subsequent runs. And while Crimson Moon allows for two-player co-op across platforms, the experience is designed for single-player play.
The action/RPG genre is extremely hit or miss for me, but I enjoyed watching the team at ProbablyMonsters unleash an awe-inspiring amount of damage into any foe that dare cross paths with them, and the structure of the game is promising. As the development team told me, you will die a lot in Crimson Moon. My hope is that the structure and gameplay are good enough to make us want to come back from the dead time and time again.