What happens when you take the wave-survival frenzy of Vampire Survivors and bolt it onto a three-character party system? Luminas: Parasite Reign, the debut from Athens-based studio SOTO Game Studio, is answering that question right now in Steam Next Fest with a live demo and active developer stream.
The pitch borrows DNA from multiple genre pillars. You control up to three Luminas, magical creatures designed to fight the Parasites infesting Solaris Land, simultaneously during combat waves that recall Vampire Survivors‘ endless-swarm design. But the real strategic depth comes from party composition thinking borrowed from Divinity: Original Sin.
SOTO is shipping the demo with 8 playable Luminas, each sporting distinct spellsets and playstyles. You can build glass cannon teams, tank-heavy setups, or healing-focused compositions, with certain character pairs unlocking combo abilities during runs.
The roguelite structure layers meta progression on top of each run. Every Lumina has a separate skill tree with three distinct paths, and you’ll unlock treasures from a village vendor that persist across attempts. A corruption system escalates challenge by reshuffling gameplay rules, expanding enemy rosters, and testing your mastery at higher difficulty tiers. The full early access version will launch with 3 maps, 8 Luminas, and over 90 treasures to discover across 2.5 years of development.
The demo is live now on Steam. For roguelite players burned out on single-character survivors, this party-based twist could be the friction point that keeps runs fresh.