Cursed Blood – A Brutal Dance of Steel, Shadows, and Survival

Stepping into Cursed Blood feels like wandering into a moonlit alley where every shadow hides a threat, and every heartbeat counts as a warning. This grim, gothic roguelike wastes no time pulling you into its blood-soaked rhythm, where precision, timing, and sheer nerve decide whether you rise stronger or fall to the curse once again. As you carve through its labyrinth of horrors, each run becomes an in-depth exploration of risk, reward, and the intoxicating thrill of narrowly escaping death’s grip.

Game Quick Data

Developer: David Marquardt Studios
Publisher: David Marquardt Studios
Genre: Action, Indie, Roguelike
Release Date: April 2, 2026
Website: Official Steam Page
UK Store: Steam

Quick Nav: Specs & HUD |
Gameplay Review |
Performance & Fidelity |
Settings & Controls

Cursed Blood Steam Review: Specs & HUD

• 2.12GB Download size, very lightweight game, meaning you can just boot it up and go.
• Tutorial pop-ups as you play, and they’re little animated windows that look cool and help teach you.
• Full 3D game world on an isometric camera angle, so you can see it all.
• Button prompts do show up for interactions, looting, etc.
• Screen name or Steam tag name can only be 9 letters long, and anything after that is gone.
• Find medallions in big skull embossed chests for powerful new attacks or abilities that again show a tutorial video.
• Earn EXP with characters, and you can see progress after the end of the game on each character.

Gameplay Review & Mechanics Breakdown

Combat is hack and slash; the more you press the same button, the bigger the combo. Stealth kills grant bonus rewards from enemies, and they love blood, cartoon blood everywhere. Find randomised pots where you choose one to improve your character. Each pit will be randomised and can affect health, gold, and so much more. Damned Obelisks can be used where you give blood orbs to them and then pick a reward? I say it like that, as you get one good and one bad reward, as it were. Blood orbs and coins are the game’s currency for the Obelisks and shops.

Enemies can be damaged and crawl along the floor, perfect for you to execute them. It’s a game that is fast-paced, almost a speed runner mentality. You don’t have to, of course, but it feels like that sort of game. Ranged weapons are in the game, and you can aim and shoot, but unfortunately, it’s not twin stick shooting, so it can be fiddly. Locations are big enough that you can explore and find chests and secrets; this is the case with the verticality as well. The Greedy wishing well is where you exchange coins for a buff or ability. You can buy as many as you have coins.

Activate checkpoints as you go through the levels, and hitting one heals you. Health is limited; you don’t heal in the traditional sense and need to hit checkpoints to actually heal effectively. Three lives, and after each death, you go back to your checkpoint, and all enemies respawn. Levels and layouts are randomised every time you start a new run. Once you get into a flow and you get some good upgrades and rolls in the world, the game does open up and get entertaining. Combat is early doors, all about button-mashing. It takes a while to get new weapons to make combat better.

Cursed Blood Steam Review: Performance & Fidelity

• Awesome graphics, the game world has a lot going on, you can jump around the ledges, cut bushes, break boxes, and find loot chests.
• The music is good and changes as you get in and out of fights.
• Environmental hazards like exploding barrels.
• Performance is not always smooth, and it can hitch a fair bit when the action heats up.
• With no camera control, it can make navigation tricky or make enemies hard to see.
• Combat is fast and frantic, but I did find it difficult to block and time attacks, blood flies around, and it dirties the screen and obscures your view.
• Stealth is in the game, kind of a big deal as well, but the camera is not suited for good stealth play; it’s too close.

Settings, Customisation & Control Details

• Full controller support and the controls are slick and responsive, making combat and movement quick and easy.
• Four playable characters, each has their own set of armour and colour variants.
• Online and local co-op play. The online had a handy invite a friend option.
• At the start of a game, you can choose one modifier from three random choices.
• Jumping is simplified in that you can’t over- or underjump, you press jump, and you go across cleanly.
• Level up weapons and unlock new ones by ranking up.
• In solo play, you can pause the game.
• Graphics settings – Resolution, window mode, v-sync, max fps, graphics quality preset, brightness slider, bloom lens dirt, depth of field, and ambient occlusion.
• Game settings – mouse sensitivity, controller dead zone, mouse, haptics, camera shake, profanity, and you can remap the controls for both the controller and the keyboard.
• No accessibility options like dyslexic font or Colourblind support.

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