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The Spell Brigade

The Spell Brigade has delivered a 1.0 release that really does shine! Wizards and spells are abundant, and co-op play is a lot of fun.
The Spell Brigade Game Cover
80%Game Brain Score
Most mentioned positive aspects:gameplay, graphics
Most mentioned negative aspects:grinding, stability
87% User Score Based on 5,418 reviews
Critic Score 63%Based on 3 reviews

Platforms

LinuxPCPlaystation 5Steam DeckWindowsPlayStation
The Spell Brigade Game Cover

About The Spell Brigade

The Spell Brigade is a single player and multiplayer casual shooter game with fantasy and dark fantasy themes. It was developed by Bolt Blaster Games and was released on September 16, 2024. It received mostly positive reviews from critics and positive reviews from players.

The Spell Brigade is an online co-op survivors-like for 1-4 players. Team up with your wizard friends to slay hordes of dark creatures. Complete team-based objectives, unlock new upgrades and create overpowered spell synergies. Friend nor foe is safe in this friendly fire bullet hell!

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Games Like The Spell Brigade

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Reviews

87%Audience ScoreBased on 5,418 reviews
gameplay203 positive mentions
grinding199 negative mentions

  • Funny and quirky cooperative multiplayer that is easy to pick up and play with friends.
  • Diverse roster of wizards and spells with interesting elemental infusion mechanics.
  • Polished visuals and satisfying chaotic gameplay loop with charming art style.
  • Progression is overly grindy and slow, requiring many long runs to unlock characters and upgrades.
  • Limited content variety with few maps, enemies, and repetitive encounters leading to boredom.
  • Friendly fire enabled by default causes frustration and complicates solo play; some spells and mechanics feel unbalanced or less impactful.
  • gameplay

    517 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    39% positive mentions, 55% neutral mentions, 6% negative mentions

    The gameplay is a fast-paced, simple, and accessible bullet-hell roguelike with a core loop of dodging enemies, completing objectives, and upgrading spells through elemental infusions and augmentations. While the cooperative mode and friendly fire mechanic add a unique and chaotic twist, many players find the progression grindy and slow, with limited content variety and repetitive enemy design causing the experience to feel monotonous over time. Overall, the gameplay is enjoyable and smooth, especially with friends, but would benefit from more depth, synergy, varied mechanics, and improved pacing to sustain long-term engagement.

    • “The core gameplay loop is simple but addictive: survive escalating waves of enemies, complete team-based objectives, and stack upgrades that rapidly spiral into absurd spell synergies.”
    • “Spell Brigade is a magical triumph that blends fast-paced co-op action with clever spellcasting mechanics, creating an experience that's both chaotic and deeply strategic.”
    • “The gameplay loop is engaging, the spells and abilities feel impactful, and the overall design keeps me coming back for “just one more run.””
    • “The game is very grindy, as your two notable forms of meta-progression rely on a single currency (gold) earned by completing runs. Both enchantments that ease runs and new wizards for gameplay diversity cost a high amount of the same currency, forcing you to choose between making the game more interesting or easier, which can kill motivation. Also, you don't know what you're buying from the wizard roster without external research, risking getting a character you don't enjoy.”
    • “The gameplay is a copy of Vampire Survivors but with poor original implementation; objectives are often unachievable and frustrating, power-ups can be good or useless adding to RNG issues, the ice map is annoyingly crowded, and ranged attacks with scarce health recovery create frustration. The game relies too much on revives instead of proper balancing.”
    • “The friendly fire mechanic in cooperative gameplay breaks cooperation, as players cannot get close without hitting teammates, forcing them to stay apart. This limits real cooperative interaction, making 'co-op' gameplay essentially solo play in the same map.”
  • graphics

    258 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    54% positive mentions, 44% neutral mentions, 2% negative mentions

    The graphics of the game are widely praised for their charming, colorful, and unique art style that is both visually appealing and easy to read amid chaotic gameplay. Reviewers appreciate the smooth animations, character designs, and pleasing aesthetics that create a cozy, inviting atmosphere suitable for all ages. While some note occasional visual clutter or lack of depth compared to other titles, overall the graphics elevate the experience and are considered a strong highlight with solid performance even on lower-end systems.

    • “The graphics are gorgeous, with a unique, vibrant art style that instantly draws you in.”
    • “The art style is adorable, the character outfits are chef’s kiss (especially the halloween ones), and the whole vibe is just… pure serotonin.”
    • “Visually, the game leans into a bold, colorful art style that keeps the on-screen madness readable despite the sheer number of projectiles flying around.”
    • “The graphics aren't great, there is no story -- it's just fun.”
    • “Lots of graphical flickering.”
    • “Just an example; enemies are not visible under the spells (anime style graphics - sh!tload of unnecessary huge animations).”
  • music

    228 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    30% positive mentions, 60% neutral mentions, 10% negative mentions

    The game's music is generally praised for being catchy, whimsical, and fitting its relaxed, magical vibe, with some tracks especially during boss fights receiving particular acclaim. However, many users find the soundtrack overly repetitive and limited, with only one or two in-game tracks leading to monotony over time. There is a strong desire for more musical variety, additional tracks per biome, and options to toggle between old and new soundtracks or add custom playlists.

    • “Performance is great, I love the art style and theme, the music, the objectives are varied and somewhat challenging, and the balance and level of difficulty is just right.”
    • “The art direction is vibrant and playful, and the soundtrack nails that magical, high-energy vibe that keeps the pace moving.”
    • “The boss music is so energetic and amazing, absolutely 10/10 soundtrack.”
    • “The new music is, not wanting to be too harsh, terrible because it does not fit the atmosphere of the game at all, so I completely muted it after a couple of hours of playing.”
    • “I am not sure if the dev team hired a kid out of high school with no experience to write the soundtrack, but it is beyond terrible, like the worst I have ever seen in the 10,000 games I have played on Steam and other consoles.”
    • “Music does not fit the game at all and given the map length it's a very short track that becomes annoyingly repetitive.”
  • grinding

    205 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    1% positive mentions, 2% neutral mentions, 97% negative mentions

    The game is widely criticized for being excessively grindy, with meta-progression heavily reliant on grinding gold through repetitive runs to unlock characters, upgrades, and core mechanics. Many players find the progression slow, tedious, and sometimes frustrating due to RNG elements and insufficient rewards, though some appreciate the challenge and fun in cooperative play. Developer responsiveness and recent patches have moderately improved the grind, but it remains a significant barrier for many, especially solo players.

    • “Really not that grindy imo, feels like any rogue-like, you start slow and earn more and more as you progress, it's easy and fun and has coop, it's a great game!”
    • “Good gameplay should incentivize playtime not grindy progression trees.”
    • “Put mage unlocks behind (not grindy) quests.”
    • “The game is very grindy, as your two most notable forms of meta-progression rely entirely on the single currency given by completing runs, gold. Both enchantments to make runs easier and unlocking wizards that add gameplay diversity cost a high amount of the same currency, forcing players to constantly choose between making the game more interesting or easier. This is frustrating especially since you can't tell what you're buying without external research, which can kill motivation.”
    • “You must spend hours grinding minor stat increases without significant exciting unlocks, resulting in slow and tedious progression that doesn't feel rewarding.”
    • “To put it into perspective, each ascension probably takes 15-20 hours of grinding, and unlocking a single new covenant takes about 30 hours. Doing this multiple times means you can spend over 400 hours grinding before unlocking all playable modes.”
  • story

    192 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    14% positive mentions, 77% neutral mentions, 9% negative mentions

    The game lacks a traditional story or narrative, focusing instead on mission-based objectives and roguelike progression. While players enjoy varied quests and missions that add challenge and variety, many find the mission design repetitive, grind-heavy, and sometimes frustrating due to unclear objectives and RNG factors. Overall, the absence of a cohesive story is noted but not seen as a major flaw, with emphasis placed on gameplay and multiplayer fun rather than narrative depth.

    • “Blending elemental magic, clever banter, and political intrigue, this story follows a ragtag group of misfit mages conscripted into a last-resort military unit.”
    • “For fans of character-driven magic, morally gray missions, and found-family dynamics, this is a must-read.”
    • “The quests are really fun to work towards most of the time.”
    • “The game has no end, no story, no final boss, just grind to level up wizards and that's it and 3 difficulties to lose time and that's it, it's super fun on multiplayer though.”
    • “Story and lore are practically nonexistent, leaving little narrative drive.”
    • “The quest design is extremely dull, skill variety is minimal, and for some reason, friendly fire is enabled.”
  • replayability

    83 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    36% positive mentions, 56% neutral mentions, 8% negative mentions

    The game offers strong replayability through its diverse spell builds, character upgrades, and multiplayer co-op, providing a fun and engaging experience especially with friends. However, some users note that limited content variety, balancing issues with certain spells, and repetitive stages can make the replay value diminish over time. Frequent updates and potential future content expansions are expected to further enhance its long-term replayability.

    • “The amount of combinations and builds you can create is honestly insane, and it adds a ton more replayability compared to before.”
    • “My friends and I found ourselves playing the first stage and the ice realm a few times and we encountered a few new bosses regularly; it was a pleasant surprise and provided good replay value when replaying already completed stages.”
    • “If you’re looking for a fun, casual game to kill time, with some interesting unlockable spells, characters, and cosmetic rewards, and especially if you enjoy playing with friends, Spell Brigade delivers a chaotic, replayable experience with charm and a lot of magical mischief.”
    • “It's just too shallow of a game to have a ton of replayability.”
    • “The replayability is pretty weak due to the limited amount of content.”
    • “However, once you've finished all of the missions and unlocked everything, the replay value just doesn't quite seem to be there either.”
  • humor

    64 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The humor in the game is widely praised for its quirky, chaotic co-op experience, especially due to friendly fire mechanics that lead to funny, unpredictable moments. Players enjoy the amusing spell combos, character quirks, and shared laughter during both challenging and casual runs, making it highly entertaining with friends. Overall, the game's lighthearted tone and humorous situations are considered a major highlight.

    • “The game allows you to push your build to extreme limits, which is ultimately very amusing, but getting absurd builds is not just the fun part, it is also those runs where things are going just okay and you're barely holding on and laughing about it with your friends is also a genuinely fun thing to happen.”
    • “Add to this the fact that the most powerful upgrades come from completing team objectives that frequently force players to run near each other and be in the same areas of the map and you get moments of genuinely funny thoughtful chaos where you actually have to consider how dangerous a spell is to both your enemies and your friends, and at its best it is a wonderfully fun and chaotic experience.”
    • “The spell combos are satisfying, every run feels a bit different, and the friendly fire moments create some hilarious situations.”
  • optimization

    33 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    33% positive mentions, 58% neutral mentions, 9% negative mentions

    The game generally runs smoothly and is well-optimized for most users, with good performance on lower-end hardware and positive improvements since launch. However, some players report issues such as FPS caps, stuttering, lag during extended runs or multiplayer, and occasional crashes, particularly on certain platforms or setups. Overall, optimization is good but could benefit from further refinement to address latency, performance degradation in longer sessions, and controller compatibility.

    • “Performance is great, I love the art style and theme, the music, the objectives are varied and somewhat challenging, and the balance and level of difficulty is juuuuuust right.”
    • “Crashes stopped happening (at least for me), upgrade costs less and the game performance improved (it was way worse after 1.0 just released).”
    • “Game is not demanding at all to run and I experienced no performance issues or gamebreaking bugs.”
    • “The trailer on the store page makes it appear to be running at higher frame rates, but my game was capped to 60fps and was getting semi-frequent stuttering.”
    • “Multiplayer is fun but constant latency issues and crashes, performance issues, servers can't keep up with everything that's going on; the host seems to have the biggest influence on connectivity issues.”
    • “Most recent patches have degraded performance significantly, causing hitching even on normal games where only endless mode with numerous projectile upgrades caused problems before.”
  • character development

    24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    46% positive mentions, 41% neutral mentions, 13% negative mentions

    Character development is praised for its creative, stylish, and charming designs, with unique characters that offer fun abilities and strategic depth. The art direction and thematic consistency enhance player engagement, while unlocking skins and diverse skills add to the enjoyment. Some minor issues with ability scaling were noted, but overall, character design is a standout aspect of the game.

    • “I am particularly fascinated by the depth of the character development and the strategic possibilities that arise from their different skills.”
    • “The character designs are so unique and adorable and I love their little lore, personalities, and outfits!”
    • “One of the best character designs I've ever seen in a video game.”
    • “There are also issues with character design and ability scaling.”
    • “The character designs are straight up designed by chatgbt, otherwise the game is solid.”
    • “Character designs are goofy and yet charming.”
  • stability

    20 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    45% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 55% negative mentions

    The game's stability is generally praised, running smoothly on various platforms including Steam Deck with high performance, though it still suffers from occasional bugs, freezes, and glitches, particularly in multiplayer and certain skills. Overall, it is well-optimized and mostly bug-free, offering a polished experience that just needs more content and minor fixes to reach its full potential.

    • “Very polished and runs great on Deck.”
    • “Very addictive, runs great under Proton, maxed settings 1440p 180 fps locked.”
    • “Lots of content, good optimization, almost bug free, and most importantly - fun.”
    • “Really buggy atm but has potential.”
    • “I experience freezes for 1 to 5 seconds.”
    • “Had high hopes but disconnects and glitches galore.”
  • monetization

    11 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    27% positive mentions, 9% neutral mentions, 64% negative mentions

    The game features unlockables, skins, and upgrades all accessible through in-game currency without microtransactions or ads, which many users appreciate. However, some players criticize it as a shallow cash grab due to misleading hard limits and ongoing monetization attempts. Overall, it offers a fair multiplayer roguelike experience without aggressive paywalls.

    • “Plus, it's a game with unlockables, skins, builds, and upgrades without microtransactions.”
    • “Thankfully, it's all in-game currency and not some system meant to funnel you into buying microtransactions.”
    • “Unlockable cosmetics with no battle pass or microtransactions.”
    • “Not even worth 1€ - shallow cash grab.”
    • “Why the hell are you advertising spells and endless modification when you set hard limits, don't tell the players, and don't even have the decency to detect when they are hardcapped and stop endlessly offering it?”
    • “Played for 15 min with my friend and that's all it took to see this is a cash grab running on the coattails of similar games.”
  • atmosphere

    10 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    30% positive mentions, 40% neutral mentions, 30% negative mentions

    The game's atmosphere is praised for its colorful, cozy art style and magical vibe, supported by bright visuals and a well-fitting early access soundtrack. However, some players feel later music updates clash with the game's tone, detracting from immersion. While biomes add variety, some users find them visually and atmospherically similar, leading to a sense of repetition.

    • “The music during early access was amazing and really felt like it fit the atmosphere and identity of the game, all we needed to have were a few more tracks in the same style.”
    • “Great game with a cozy art style and colorful atmosphere.”
    • “The music, atmosphere, and color palette are all top-notch.”
    • “There are other biomes to explore and I've been in one; it was harder with different obstacles but the atmosphere feels similar, or maybe the map size is the same, making it feel like the same bubble just reskinned with a few different mechanics.”
    • “The new music is, not wanting to be too harsh, terrible because it does not fit the atmosphere of the game at all, so I completely muted it after a couple of hours of playing.”
    • “This game does a great job on technical merit so it feels bad to dismiss it because of the art direction and atmosphere.”
  • emotional

    5 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
    100% positive mentions, 0% neutral mentions, 0% negative mentions

    The game evokes nostalgic and wholesome emotions, capturing the feeling of childhood camaraderie. Its dialogue is engaging and the emotional moments resonate genuinely without relying on clichés, though deeper character development could enhance emotional immersion further.

    • “It made me feel like I was 9 while gathered around a Nintendo 64 with my friends.”
    • “Wholesome game.”
    • “Dialogue is snappy, and the emotional beats land without resorting to fantasy clichés.”
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Play Times

16h Median play time
33h Average play time
10-55h Spent by most gamers
*Based on 40 analyzed playthroughs
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Frequently Asked Questions

The Spell Brigade is a casual shooter game with fantasy and dark fantasy themes. Common tags for The Spell Brigade include indie, score attack, roguelite, magic, early access and others.

The Spell Brigade is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Steam Deck, Windows and others.

On average players spend around 33 hours playing The Spell Brigade.

The Spell Brigade was released on September 16, 2024.

The Spell Brigade was developed by Bolt Blaster Games.

The Spell Brigade has received positive reviews from players. Most players liked The Spell Brigade for its gameplay but disliked it for its grinding.

The Spell Brigade is a single player game with multiplayer and local co-op support.

Similar games include Soulstone Survivors, Temtem: Swarm, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, Army of Ruin, Bounty of One and others.