The world has lost its power source, civilization is drowning in trash, and your reward for fixing any of this is apparently…freedom from prison.
Schism is a top-down action roguelike RPG from solo developer Fami that throws you into the tallest garbage mountain on Earth with a bargain-bin gun and a cheap imitation of the Schismatic Engine you’re supposed to recover.
It launched version 1.0 in March 2025 after more than a year in Early Access, and while the people who have found it seem pretty happy, there still aren’t many of them. Schism currently has just 141 Steam reviews, with 96% rating it positively.
For a roguelike containing 230+ relics, more than 60 weapons, 26 gods, frequency-switching bullet hell combat, and enough build combinations to completely ruin any sense of balance, that feels surprisingly overlooked.
Welcome to the Trash Mountain
Your job is simple enough…Climb into a colossal pile of garbage, locate the missing Schismatic Engine, and survive long enough to earn your freedom. Unfortunately, the mountain is full of enemies, bosses, and bizarre items getting in the way.
Runs revolve around shooting your way through procedurally generated areas while leveling up eight main stats, collecting relics, and piecing together whatever build the game decides to offer. There are also countless secondary stats lurking underneath all of that, so anyone who enjoys turning numbers into increasingly stupid amounts of damage should feel fairly at home.
More than 60 weapons are available, ranging from relatively sensible firearms to things that sound way less practical. Weapon Mods can also apply across every gun you’re carrying, opening up even more opportunities to stumble into combinations that probably weren’t meant to become quite that ridiculous.
Pick a God and Try Not to Annoy Them
Weapons and relics aren’t the only things shaping your run. There are 26 gods to worship, each offering different boons if you manage to earn their favor. They effectively act as another part of build customization, letting you lean further into particular strategies while giving you another system to obsess over when the loot starts lining up nicely.
There’s also a lot of loot. The game currently includes more than 230 relics, alongside randomly generated Babel Books, consumable Memories that behave differently between runs, and Injoyables with their own addictive properties. Many of these systems were added during Early Access, alongside extra final bosses, secret areas, and new zones.
Sometimes the Correct Move Is to Change Color
Combat has a really strange trick up its sleeve. Inspired by Ikaruga, Schism lets you switch frequencies to match the color of incoming bullets. Match correctly and you can dodge through attacks that would otherwise hurt, adding another layer to fights beyond simply weaving between everything on screen.
Bosses naturally take full advantage of this, forcing you to juggle movement, shooting, frequency swapping, and whatever wildly overcomplicated build you’ve assembled by that point. Thankfully, new rooms begin paused, giving you a moment to actually look at the disaster waiting ahead before it starts firing.
Schism launched version 1.0 on March 7, 2025, published by 2 Left Thumbs, and there’s still a free Steam demo available if you want to see how guns, gods, garbage, and color-coded bullet hell somehow fit together. With a 96% positive rating and barely more than 100 reviews, this is one trash mountain that probably deserves a few more visitors.