An alien invasion has torn through Earth’s defenses, warping the frontlines into something closer to a losing war than a fight. Standing between what’s left of humanity and total collapse is a single mech, a deck of cards, and whoever’s willing to climb into the cockpit and hold the line.
StarVaders is a turn-based tactics roguelike from developer Pengonauts, published by Joystick Ventures and Beep Japan. It launched back in April 2025 and has spent the time since building one of the stronger review scores in a genre that isn’t exactly short on good options.
A Deckbuilder With a Battlefield Bolted On
You’re piloting a mech across a grid, and every move you make comes from a card. Attacks, positioning, combos, all of it runs through your deck, which means the usual deckbuilding question of “what do I draft” gets tangled up with a second one… “where do I even stand?”
Enemies advance on their own schedule, so a card that’s devastating in one position can be worthless a tile over. It’s deckbuilding with a battlefield bolted on, and the battlefield ends up doing a lot more work than you’d expect.
Three Mechs, Twelve Pilots, and a Rewind Button
There are three mechs on offer, and none of them play remotely alike. The Gunner Mech throws out a relentless stream of bullets and explosions. The Stinger Mech skips the range entirely and gets in close, like a ninja that never learned subtlety. The Keeper Mech would rather summon something else to do the fighting for it. Twelve pilots are split across those three mechs, and each one brings their own cards, mechanics, and backstory along for the ride, with more than 400 cards and artifacts in total to pull from across a run.
Then there’s the Chrono Token. Every deckbuilder eventually gives you that one turn, the bad draw or the misplaced card that undoes an otherwise clean run. In StarVaders, you can spend a Chrono Token and take that turn back entirely, cards, positioning, and all. It’s not a full reset, just enough rope to fix the one decision that went sideways.
Most roguelikes make permanence the whole point, so this shouldn’t work as well as it does. In practice, it just means you’re more willing to go for the risky play, the one that either wins you the fight outright or leaves you needing a token to clean it up.
A Secret Finale Worth Chasing
StarVaders currently sits at Overwhelmingly Positive across more than 2,000 English-language reviews, with 98% of players giving it a thumbs up. Recent reviews are still trending Very Positive well over a year after launch. It’s holding an 85 on Metacritic too, and one reviewer went as far as calling it the new Balatro.
Outside the main campaign, which hides a secret finale for anyone determined enough to find it, there’s Daily Runs, a set of Challenge Modes, and ascending difficulty tiers for anyone who wants a reason to keep coming back. Full controller support is in too, on both Xbox and PlayStation pads, and the game carries Steam Deck Verified status for anyone who’d rather take the invasion on the go.
The game is available now on Steam, with a free demo up for anyone who wants to try it before buying.