ReBlade: The Death Spiral Preview – Cyberpunk Roguelite With Sekiro-Style Parries

Ever wondered what happens when you mix Alita: Battle Angel with Cyberpunk 2077 and toss in a parry system straight out of Sekiro? That's basically the vibe of ReBlade: The Death Spiral, the upcoming roguelite brawler from developer ChillyRoom. We got our hands on the demo and spent over two hours hacking, slashing, and deflecting our way through a neon-drenched megacity. Here's what we think so far.

The setup: you're a nameless android who crawls out of a trash heap, damaged but ready to fight. The city is ruled by cyborg gangs and warlords reimagined as Chinese mythological deities, and you're on a path of destruction to stop the cycle of violence and uncover your origins. It's a visually stylized, brutal world that feels like a dystopian sci-fi thriller—a solid, if infrequently seen, framework for a roguelite brawler. The narrative is light, relying mostly on vibes and environmental storytelling, which left us wanting more context after several runs.

Combat is where ReBlade shines. It leans heavily into parrying, and landing a series of deflects is immensely satisfying—especially when you rapidly bounce enemy blaster shots back at surrounding foes. The action flows like Hades, with combo attacks, sub-weapon skills, buffs, and that all-important parry. Even with low-level starter gear, the fundamentals give you a sense of style and mastery. We mostly stuck with the standard sword (balanced speed and power), but the speedy twin blades and heavier axe-and-shield combo were also fun. You'll find advanced weapons in dungeons and shops, and you can swap buffs and perks between gear to improve your favorite weapon. Chips add modifiers like elemental damage or recovery boosts, deepening the cyberpunk angle.

Progression offers a nice change of pace: instead of a linear path, you choose which areas to hit up on each layer of the city, and most are only available for a limited time. This let us focus on the weapon upgrades and resource-gathering stages we wanted first, and we appreciated having a say in our loot—especially when saving cash for one of the few shops on the map. That said, some aspects of the roguelite structure felt a bit underbaked and not fully realized in this demo.

Boss encounters are where the combat really kicks into high gear. They blend cybernetic warlords with Chinese mythology, walking a fine line between high-fantasy martial arts epic and hard sci-fi action movie. Each boss put our offense and defense to the test, and we were impressed by what we saw. Overall, the demo shows promise, but we're hoping for more depth in the final version. Will you be keeping an eye on this one?