Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUESoulstone Survivors
Face the Lords of the Void and their endless minions, collect their Soulstones and become a god! In this Action Roguelite, unveil secret spells, craft mighty weapons, unlock multiple characters, discover game-breaking synergies and conquer the power of the void.
Our score
Eligible for ranking after all five dimensions are reviewed
Game filed. Review coming soon.
This game has not yet completed our five-dimension review. Explore its details and external material in the meantime.
Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
A 3D-styled single-player action roguelite / survivors-like from Game Smithing Limited where you pick one of ~22 characters, stack 350+ skills, runes and weapons, and kill Void Lords and Titans across kill-based stages and endless modes.
Soulstone Survivors is well liked: Steam shows Very Positive at about 91% across roughly 26,900 reviews, and the six critic reviews aggregated on Metacritic (all from the PS5 version) average 82. Players and critics praise the sheer amount of content, the power-fantasy escalation, the colourful visuals and the steady free updates. The recurring complaint from players is that builds, characters and maps feel too similar once you understand the tag/debuff stacking, and that the grind for meta materials and achievements is heavy. It spent about 2.5 years in Early Access (Nov 7, 2022 to full 1.0 on Jun 17, 2025), launched on PS5 and Xbox Series X around the 1.0 date, and is still receiving updates. Many reviewers give a positive vote with caveats, describing it as very solid but shallow in practice.
What players praise
- Huge amount of content: about 22 characters with 4-5 weapons each, 350+ skills, 100+ craftable weapons, a large passive/meta tree and nearly 500 achievements
- Fast, satisfying power escalation: players say you reach absurd damage quickly, which is what they play the genre for
- Kill-count based stage completion instead of a fixed timer, so strong builds can finish and leave early, with optional endless continuation
- Colourful, eye-catching 3D cartoon visuals and very good music; critics liken the look to a World of Warcraft-style aesthetic
- Meta-progression with the option to toggle parts of it off, plus difficulty and curse modifiers that raise rewards
- Ongoing free content updates after 1.0 (new characters, weapons, maps), praised even by negative reviewers
- Accessible and easy to pick up, with real full controller support; several reviewers call it a more fleshed-out step up from Brotato or Vampire Survivors
- Story framing with cutscenes and a Void King final goal, unusual for the genre, noted in the PlayStation Universe review
What players criticize
- Builds, characters, weapons and runes feel fundamentally the same: one review says you just stack debuffs on a target, with a dominant Doom-style damage tag available to everyone
- Gameplay at higher difficulty reduces to dashing in circles around bosses while dodging red zones and projectiles
- Little variety between stages and modes: maps have few gimmicks, and critics note arenas are small, walled areas
- Content feels inflated by reuse; one long review says character mechanics are the same system repackaged with different visuals and stats
- Late-game screen clutter and power creep make the screen an unreadable mess, and the combat feels floaty or like hitting damage sponges to some players
- Crashes on long runs (an hour-long run lost to a crash with no mid-run save) and performance dips on PS5 when the screen fills up
- Loud, constant XP-pickup audio and GPU-heavy effects are mentioned as annoyances
- Balance is uneven: some characters' skills, artifacts and ascension passives are much stronger, so players fall back to a few proven builds
Distinctive features
- Stage completion is based on kills rather than surviving a timer, which changes pacing versus Vampire Survivors-style games
- Skill tags and debuff stacking systems with runes, plus the ability to swap attacks/abilities during a run
- Real 3D fantasy-ARPG presentation with ~90 enemy types, Titan bosses and cutscenes, rather than pixel art
- Very large persistent progression: character levelling, passive grids, craftable weapons, ascension and optional meta toggles
- Multiple modes (clear-and-boss, arenas, endless) with curse/difficulty modifiers that scale reward
- Steam listing includes Mac and Linux builds as well as Windows, plus PS5 and Xbox Series X versions
Divided opinions
- Depth versus illusion of choice: fans see deep build theorycrafting, while many negative reviews say every build plays the same
- Difficulty and feel: GameSpew found it forgiving and easy, while others find late-game chaos and dodging demanding or unreadable
- Value: commonly recommended at a discount (one reviewer says under 10 euros), with many calling it good value even while criticising the design
- Endless modes and long runs are either a feature (power fantasy, optional) or a burnout trap
Repetition and friction
- Grinding crafting materials and meta currencies; one positive reviewer calls the material grind borderline excessive
- Maxing every character and chasing achievements becomes a grind after roughly 38 to 40 hours of genuine progression
- Very long endless runs, where low-DPS builds need minutes to kill bosses and some players burn out not knowing when to stop
- Repetitive bosses and basic environments (a point raised in the Critical Hits review) and lack of map variety
- Some players feel they see everything within a few hours, with the rest of the unlocks not changing decisions in a run
- Matches feel long and brainless once the build is settled; negative reviewers say unlocks and achievements never change the actual gameplay (top negative-review theme, 100+ helpful votes)
Hoped-for improvements
- Add a pause-and-resume or save between waves/rounds for long runs, so a crash does not waste up to an hour
- Make builds, characters and stages mechanically distinct (real stage hazards, character-specific mechanics) so choices matter
- Add co-op, including local co-op: several positive reviewers explicitly wish for it
- Reduce the material grind and rebalance dominant tags like Doom so more build archetypes are viable
- Improve performance and visual clarity when the screen is full, and offer more audio tuning (players ask for XP pickup sound options)
- A roadmap and Workshop/mod support are recurring community requests on the Steam forum
Early Access began Nov 7, 2022 and 1.0 shipped Jun 17, 2025 (Steam lists release date as Jun 17, 2025 with price $14.99). The critic scores on Metacritic all relate to the PS5 release, six reviews from mid-June to late July 2025; the Metacritic user score of 7.9 rests on only about 23 ratings, so is not robust. OpenCritic did not load (404), so no OpenCritic score was found. Steam reception has remained Very Positive (about 91%) and the game has a supporter pack and soundtrack DLC. Negative Steam reviews mostly come from long-time players, sometimes with hundreds of hours, who acknowledge the free content additions but say the core loop was never addressed. Note: the web search budget ran out, so community detail leans heavily on Steam reviews and the Steam forum page, and no Reddit threads could be fetched (Reddit blocked). Verification: Metacritic page re-fetched; PS5 Metascore 82 from 6 critics and user 7.9 from 23 ratings confirmed; Xbox Series X shows 88 from 4 critics; PC has 3 critic reviews without a score.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Local Steam metadata: 91.3% positive of 26,869 reviews, SteamSpy owners, revenue estimate ↗
- Steam store page: Early Access Nov 7 2022, release Jun 17 2025, feature list (350+ skills, 100+ weapons) ↗
- Metascore 82 from 6 critics, user score 7.9 from 23 ratings; PC/PS5/Xbox Series X ↗
- Critic review list with outlets, scores and dates (PS5) ↗
- PlayStation Universe 8.5/10 review: praise for content and enemy variety, small arenas and frame drops ↗
- GameSpew 8/10 review: content, visuals, power fantasy, but forgiving difficulty ↗
- Steam forum: requests for roadmap, Workshop, bug reports, underwhelming last boss achievement ↗
- Estimated gross (~$11.2M) and net (~$3.3M) revenue, Boxleiter-based ↗
- Owner estimate 500k-1M (as recorded in local steam_data.json) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Soulstone Survivors is a hack-and-slash chaos simulator played on a single-level layout where you upgrade spells and kill ever more enemies. He finds it chaotic, hectic, casual and fun to watch, but says it gets old very quickly. Once you have found your spells, later upgrades are mostly number tweaks, so the gameplay stops changing. Despite his many problems with it, he still considers it a fun game and places it in low B.
What the creator praises
- Wildly chaotic, visually pleasing spectacle that goes well beyond what the trailer shows
- Very amusing and entertaining to watch; hectic but casual and fun
- Super satisfying to play without thinking, just to see things explode
- Spells are found during the run and can be shared across characters, adding some variety
Issues raised by the creator
- Gets old very quickly
- Little customization at the start beyond character choice
- After you find your spells, upgrades are just number adjustments (area, defense, speed) that feel boring
- Gameplay barely changes as chaos increases; you just run in circles
- Single level layout with no variety in setting
Design observations
- Spells are offered during the run and can come from other characters, so character choice matters less
- Chaos scales far beyond what marketing shows
- Design lesson: spells could be more tame but have branching upgrade paths (e.g. lightning zap that chains, or leaves an energy cloud) for real build identity
Updated opinion
He says he discussed this game at length in an earlier video of his, but this is not a re-ranking.
