Picture by way of Tako Boy Studios
We’ve been in a position to watch Cross Blitz develop over the previous few years. In spite of everything, the roguelike deck-building recreation began out in early entry again in November 2023, with Tako Boy Studios step by step constructing it up till its November 2025 launch two years later. We’ve seen the workforce modify and repair points. Whereas I do respect how far the workforce and recreation has come, it feels prefer it’s missing some essential high quality of life changes.
Cross Blitz is uncommon in that it does characteristic some roguelike parts, nevertheless it’s additionally a deck-building recreation with strategic parts that includes a extra conventional marketing campaign too. The 2 elements feed into one another, in a manner. The Fables Story Mode follows the characters Mereena, Quill, Redcroft, Seto, and Violet as they go around the globe preventing in matches with their decks to perform particular person targets after profitable matches. This may really feel a bit just like the Sport Boy Pokemon Buying and selling Card Sport affairs, when it comes to the entire collectible card RPG factor, and every storyline is three chapters lengthy. Doing nicely right here unlocks playing cards by way of actions like finishing recipes or incomes XP as you undergo chapters, which feed into your deck in additional affairs. Within the Tusk Tales roguelike mode, you and certainly one of 20 mercenaries undergo randomized matches to earn Husks and construct your deck up, with each your companion’s playing cards and your personal influencing what the construct can appear like.
Matches proceed rather a lot like Hearthstone. You’ll discover sure synergies and archetypes to construct round when accumulating and compiling playing cards. These are positioned within the 4×4 discipline, with 4 areas in entrance of every of the 2 gamers. (There’s no aggressive multiplayer in opposition to precise individuals, with solely digital opponents obtainable.) Relics might be acquired to assist have an effect on matches and runs as nicely. There are lots of of playing cards, so there’s a lot freedom when creating decks. And the Tusk Tales Mode has every day and weekly hunts to encourage revisiting even when the Fables are all carried out. The precise core gameplay is okay.
So the primary problem with Cross Blitz is that there’s no native controller help. It’s deliberate. Tako Boy Studios confirmed it on the Steam Discussions board. However contemplating this can be a recreation that’s been in early entry for 2 years now, the truth that it’s a style that we’ve seen comfortably accommodate controller help earlier than, and that we’re a couple of month out of 1.0 with out it, it’s disappointing that it’s absent. It’s one of many issues that retains me from actually having fun with and entering into it on a Lenovo Legion Go or Steam Deck-like handheld gaming PC.
The opposite is the UI. In a deck-building recreation or roguelike with these parts, having the ability to clearly perceive what you’re doing and see what playing cards can do is essential, and Cross Blitz will not be nice at it. Particularly in case you are enjoying it on a handheld gaming PC. The menus aren’t useful. Informative packing containers will overlap and block out info. The playing cards themselves are usually very clear, with descriptions that tell us what they do, although the brevity does imply typically essential info won’t seem. This implies you’ll have to study by doing. Mix that with instances when it could really feel prefer it’s tougher to place collectively some decks, gather some playing cards, and test some info than it may very well be on account of some QOL UI points, and it’s a bit buggy. I’m nonetheless experiencing some crashes and lag.
Cross Blitz’s precise matches and modes are fairly enjoyable, with so many deck-building choices, nevertheless it feels prefer it wants a couple of extra patches. It’s near being a very nice recreation! It’s simply not fairly excellent but. In a manner, that’s a bit of disappointing. You’d anticipate a few of these crash, UI, and QOL parts to be addressed after two years in early entry. However one controller help is within the pipeline and we already noticed a patch on December 2, 2025, so I’m hopeful it will likely be in a a lot better place in a couple of extra weeks.
Cross Blitz is available on PCs.
