Ex Sanguis

Introduction

Ex Sanguis, developed by Lightbulb Crew and published by Firesquid, entered Steam Early Access on 10 September 2026 at NZ$26.09 during its launch discount. It's a turn-based tactical roguelite: lead the STILLAE, a trio of elite warriors, into arena battles against the forces of STASIS, slaying foes, knocking them backward and forward on a shared delay-based timeline, and chaining reactions where "elegance and blood flow as one." It's the latest release from the studio behind Othercide, a connection several reviewers draw explicitly, for better and for worse. It's a week-one Early Access build with a genuinely divided launch review sample: 15 total reviews at the time of writing, 10 positive, landing Ex Sanguis at a "Mixed" rating on Steam's own scale.

What's working: a striking visual style and an addictive delay-based combat loop

Ex Sanguis's positive reviewers converge repeatedly on two specific strengths: its visual and audio presentation, and the moment-to-moment feel of its timeline-manipulation combat. A Portuguese-language review, translated, sums up the appeal directly: "Recommended. Satisfying to play, stylish, and a visually striking game," while adding a specific, reasonable request rather than a complaint — that map layouts and character starting positions could use more variety, which the reviewer expects will improve over development. A separate reviewer frames the game's opening hours in similarly enthusiastic terms: "I felt so badass when I beat my first level! The mood is peak and the music is so good (I need to get it!)," adding that the difficulty of early objectives required some trial and error but that what they'd seen so far was "very promising for an early access." A German-language review, translated, draws the Othercide comparison directly and favourably: "Ex Sanguis feels to me like a kind of Othercide 2, I like the art style, I find the gameplay great, and it runs very stably for me in terms of performance."

The combat's core hook — pushing and pulling enemies along a shared timeline to chain attacks and reactions — draws specific praise from reviewers with genre experience. A Spanish-language review, translated, singles this out precisely: "turns become very dynamic with the delayed-attack system and the ability to delay enemy turns or speed up your own." One of the sample's longer English reviews frames the overall loop as "a mix bag compared to their previous titles" while still landing on a positive recommendation, rating gameplay "Good," graphics "Very Good," and music "Very Good," and specifically noting the three boss battles included in the current Early Access build sit at "quite normal difficulty." A separate reviewer's account of the game's pull is more visceral than analytical: "I might have overstayed in the main menu vibing with the music and these three warriors! There are already tons of good things for an Early Access game so I'm sending my support to the devs."

The honest problems: balance, a fixed camera, and a formula some reviewers call too familiar

Set against that reception, Ex Sanguis's more critical reviewers raise specific, converging complaints, several of which come from players with direct experience of the developer's earlier work. The most detailed negative review, in Simplified Chinese and translated here, reports concrete early-game balance problems: an enemy with roughly 80 HP standing against a player character capable of dealing under 20 damage in a turn, only three playable characters against ten or more enemies, and a delay/timeline-manipulation mechanic the reviewer says becomes "extremely overtuned" once a player has acquired two matching skills, at which point it's possible to chain effectively unlimited extra turns. That same reviewer reports the game's roguelike skill progression creates a difficulty cliff rather than a curve: unwinnable without early skill picks, trivially easy once two specific skills are acquired. A separate, lengthy Russian-language review, translated and condensed here, argues the game's visuals, enemy roster, character archetypes and combat structure closely mirror the developer's previous game without meaningfully evolving them, specifically calling out unchanged, un-skippable attack animations already seen repeatedly during the tutorial, and closes with a direct recommendation to skip the game until more of its Early Access development plays out. A separate Russian reviewer who does recommend the game still frames its interface bluntly: "a decent sequel to Signalis... it's a shame the UI/UX is as ugly as the visual style is beautiful."

More specific, concrete issues round out the critical picture. The camera's inability to rotate is flagged independently by more than one reviewer, including the otherwise positive Portuguese review quoted above. At least two reviewers, writing in Traditional and Simplified Chinese, report the game becoming stuck indefinitely on a loading screen with no progress indicator, unable to enter the game at all. A further reviewer reports a display-resolution bug specific to ultrawide monitors, where the game's resolution setting resets between sessions with no matching option available in the settings menu to restore it. None of these complaints are vague; each names a specific, reproducible issue, and together they paint an honest picture of a Steam launch that is functional and visually accomplished for some players while genuinely broken, imbalanced, or derivative for others.

Verdict

Ex Sanguis backs up a genuinely divided launch reception with real, identifiable strengths: a striking dark-fantasy visual and audio presentation multiple reviewers across several languages single out unprompted, and a delay-based timeline combat system that reviewers with genre experience describe as dynamic and addictive. Its honest problems are just as specific: detailed reports of early-game balance issues and an overtuned timeline-manipulation exploit, a camera that can't rotate, at least two accounts of the game becoming stuck on an indefinite loading screen, and a recurring, more structural criticism from experienced reviewers that the game leans too closely on the studio's previous title rather than meaningfully building past it. The developers' own Early Access plan, a stated minimum of six months focused on balance, content and new modes, matches the scope of what reviewers say still needs work. This is a cautious recommendation at its current discount, best suited to genre fans and existing admirers of the developer's earlier game who are comfortable buying into a build with reported early balance and stability issues.

Wanderer callout

The reviewer who called out unskippable, repeated tutorial animations as a small but specific drag on Ex Sanguis's otherwise strong presentation is naming the same discipline Wanderer holds its own onboarding to: a new player's patience is a finite resource, and it shouldn't be spent twice on the same beat.