Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEWarm Snow
'Warm Snow' is a Rogue-like action game with a background set in a dark fantasy world, where the eerie 'Warm Snow' holds sway. You will play as the Warrior 'Bi-an' on a crusade against the Five Great Clans, in order to save a world teetering on the brink of destruction.
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Video reviews
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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 Chinese-mythology dark-fantasy action roguelite by BadMudStudio (published by bilibili) in which swordsman Bi-an fights the Five Great Clans using melee weapons plus recallable flying swords, with a deep relic/sect build system.
Warm Snow is a well-liked, somewhat under-the-radar action roguelite: Steam shows about 39k reviews at roughly 93% positive (Very Positive), with the Steam store page showing a dip in recent reviews (about 79% on a small 30-day sample). Players praise build variety, the flying-sword combat and the ink-painting art style; they criticise slow meta-progression, unclear or badly translated text, a linear fixed map and fodder enemies once a build comes together. Formal critic coverage is thin: Metacritic has only two critic reviews (90 and 80), so no Metascore yet, and no OpenCritic entry was found. It is a full release (Jan 2022), not early access, with a paid DLC (The End Of Karma), a free DLC (Shao Meng / 烬梦) and console ports (Oct 2023). Commonly compared to Hades, usually as solid but a step below it in presentation and story.
What players praise
- Large build variety: sects, relics, weapons and deities combine into many synergies, and players report late-game runs feel very flexible
- Distinctive gear system: the same relic or piece of gear has a different effect depending on which slot it is placed in, and can be re-slotted at any time
- Fast, fluid combat built around melee plus flying swords that can be launched and recalled
- Striking art direction inspired by ancient silk/ink painting, with Chinese mythology theme and a well-liked soundtrack
- Scalable difficulty and challenge options give high replay value; reviewers cite 30-40+ hours to unlock everything and multiple stories/endings
- Good boss fights and decent enemy variety according to several positive reviewers
- Lots of content for the price (around $18), including a free DLC and a paid expansion
What players criticize
- Translation problems: English text overflows UI boxes, some keywords and item effects are mistranslated or unclear, and some end-of-boss text is untranslated
- Meta-progression is described as very slow to upgrade, which a top-voted negative review calls the game's major flaw
- Fixed, linear level layouts and repeated bosses make runs feel repetitive compared with procedurally generated roguelites
- Many item and relic effects reduce to 'do more damage when X', so playstyle changes less than the item count implies
- Enemies become fodder with a decent build but feel like HP sponges in early runs or on weak builds
- Dash and movement are called clunky or slow by several reviewers; game feels dated to some
- Story and characters are seen as weak or forgettable compared with Hades, with average presentation of the narrative
- Some players report stuttering and performance problems on PC
- Weapons lean on specific relics to reach full power, and many weapons reuse the same swing animation so they feel like stat swaps
Distinctive features
- Slot-dependent relic effects: the same item behaves differently in each of the four slots and can be rearranged freely
- Floating flying-sword projectiles alongside melee, with a recall mechanic
- Sect and deity choices at run start that shape the build, inside a Chinese mythology / dark wuxia setting
- Multiple stories (about three) with a hidden true ending that requires collecting fragments across many runs
- Extremely nuanced status-effect and condition-trigger item system (poison, bleed, burn, frost) with deep stacking rules
Divided opinions
- Hades comparison: some praise it as a top-tier roguelite, others say Hades and its sequel exist so just play those
- Build depth: many praise huge variety, while critics say effects mostly boil down to more damage and do not change playstyle
- Difficulty and balance: some find it hard, others find bosses and enemies trivial with a good build
- Chinese voice acting and translation: some see it as flavourful, others as a barrier for English speakers
Repetition and friction
- Slow meta-progression and farming enemies for fragments to unlock all stories and the true ending
- Early runs feel repetitive before enough content is unlocked
- Nothing is explained well; players often have to play to learn what a keyword does
- Fixed maps and repeated bosses get samey over a long playthrough
- Completion is a long grind: unlocking everything means farming fragments across many runs, and some reviewers regret the hours sunk into 'unlock it all'
Hoped-for improvements
- Clearer UI, status and keyword explanations and a proper retranslation of the English text
- Faster or less grindy meta-progression and unlock pacing
- More varied or procedural level layouts and more enemy types
- Better balance so that some relics/weapons are not dependent on specific relic pairings and some builds are not broken
- Stronger narrative delivery and more developed characters
- Tighter dash and movement feel
Released on Steam Jan 18, 2022 (Windows only, priced $17.99) by BadMudStudio / bilibili and never in early access. It had a strong Chinese launch and later gained an English audience; console versions (Xbox, PS, Switch) followed around Oct 2023. Post-launch content includes the free 'Shao Meng / 烬梦' DLC and the paid 'The End Of Karma' DLC. Steam-wide all-time rating stays around 93% positive, but a recent-reviews dip (about 79% on a small sample per the store page) suggests newer players are more lukewarm, mainly over translation and meta-progression. Third-party estimates (steam-revenue-calculator, Boxleiter-based, order of magnitude only) put Steam gross revenue near $30M and owners at 1-2M. Limitations of this research: the web search budget was exhausted, so no Reddit threads or major outlet reviews could be read; OpenCritic has no confirmed entry and Metacritic has only two critic reviews (no Metascore).
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam store metadata: appid 1296830, review counts, tags, SteamSpy owners estimate ↗
- Steam store page: review summaries (all-time and recent), DLC list, languages ↗
- Steam community discussions: bugs, boss strategies, completion posts ↗
- Metacritic page: no Metascore yet, user score 7.5 from 10 ratings ↗
- Two critic reviews: TheXboxHub 90, Movies Games and Tech 80 ↗
- TheXboxHub console review: 4.5/5, praises art and build depth, notes difficulty and tricky achievements ↗
- Boxleiter-method revenue estimate (~$30M gross) ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Warm Snow is a Chinese hack-and-slash roguelike that plays its serious tone straight and pulls it off. Everything in it is wildly overpowered, both the player and the enemies, which makes it visually crazy and very fun. He admits the balance is only okay, but he has played it a lot and keeps enjoying it. The lack of boss variety holds it back from S, so he places it at the top of A and recommends it to fans of action-heavy hack and slash.
What the creator praises
- Takes itself seriously without turning goofy, and the tone works
- Makes you feel really powerful, with absurd scaling such as +300% damage passives
- Overpowered enemies keep the power fantasy from getting boring across runs
- Strong pre-run customization: every run starts with a boon from a different god that sets your elemental damage
- A starting relic that synergizes with the boon gives character-like choice from the start
- Visually impressive, with awesome-looking bosses
Issues raised by the creator
- Bosses are great but always the same ones every run
- Balance is merely okay and not the best design
- Constant overpowered state could bore players in some games, though here it mostly holds up
Design observations
- Everything is overpowered, enemies included, so scaling is mutually absurd rather than one-sided
- Starting god boon acts like choosing a different character by fixing the elemental damage type
- Design lesson: roguelikes benefit from varied bosses, especially action-based ones
