This Slay the Spire-inspired gacha has me torn between excitement and dread

“What if we turned Slay the Spire into a gacha?” is a question no fan of the game has ever asked. The devs at Smilegate did ask this, though, and came up with Chaos Zero Nightmare, a gacha game with roguelike and cardbattler elements that also takes a page out of Darkest Dungeon’s book.

Thanks to CZN’s closed beta, we already know what the game looks like before it’s released globally on Oct. 22. Just like in your average gacha, your goal is to battle monsters in a series of stages across multiple game modes, from the main story to a roguelike mode that resembles Slay the Spire. You build your team with three characters and use Action Points to play their cards, which can damage enemies or affect your team with buffs, healing, and other effects.

If you’re a fan of Slay the Spire, the combat in CZN seems to be about as close as you’ll get to the OG roguelike card game. Everything else is wildly different and built to keep you investing time, money, or both to improve your characters and cards. The Energy system is a time gate that restricts how many battles you can play in a day, while Character gachas dictate which cards are available to you and the power of their effects. It’s like if Slay the Spire forced you to spin the wheel to unlock The Watcher, pay some money to upgrade cards on the Campfire, and limit your Ascension runs to three per day.

I admit that, at first, it looks like Smilegate is just making a bad version of Slay the Spire that is fun if you’re a gacha whale. But I’m also excited to give it a try, because I’ve played really good games like AFK Journey with good strategic depth and fun gameplay hiding behind a gacha system. If the gacha isn’t predatory and you can enjoy the game without spending, then I’m probably down to giving it a shot for a few weeks.

Chaos Zero Nightmare will be released globally on PC, Android, and iOS on Oct. 22.