Emberward

Emberward rewards planning: shape monster routes with blocks and position towers around the maze you create. Its changing maps and tower combinations make it a fit for players who like rebuilding a strategy from run to run. It costs $19.99 at Steam; consider whether you want this tactical mix now or would rather wait for an announced Steam sale window. The $19.99 price at Steam can be weighed against the next announced Steam sale window, Dec 17, 2026 – Jan 4, 2027.

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96%Steam Reviews4.4K reviews

Released: Sep 17, 2026

Tower Defense · Falling Blocks · Strategy · Deckbuilding · Base Building

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official price~ $19.99Buy now

All-time low ~ $11.24across Steam & third-party stores

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Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $11.242025-04Current Low Across Stores~ $19.99Steamvs. Historical Low+78%

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About Emberward

Emberward blends roguelite tower defense with hands-on maze building. Before each battle, use limited block cards to reroute monsters or make better spaces for towers. After battles, add runes that enhance towers or give cards special abilities. Different maps, tower combinations, and mazes shape each run. Steam players rate Emberward 96%% positive from 4,363 reviews. The Steam PC version supports English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and other interface languages. The Steam PC version offers full controller support.

Credits

Developer

Refic Games

Publisher

Refic Games

Steam player reviews

96%positiveOverwhelmingly Positive4,363 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$11.242025-04-12 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Simplified Chinese	Yes	—	—
Traditional Chinese	Yes	—	—
English	Yes	—	—

Show 10 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Japanese	Yes	—	—
French	Yes	—	—
Italian	Yes	—	—
German	Yes	—	—
Spanish	Yes	—	—
Korean	Yes	—	—
Polish	Yes	—	—
Portuguese-Brazil	Yes	—	—
Russian	Yes	—	—
Spanish-Latin America	Yes	—	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19

02Before you buy

Maze-building strategy

Before each battle, build a maze from limited block cards and place towers; runes modify cards and towers.

Controls and languages

The Steam PC version has full controller support and supports English, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and other interface languages.

03Frequently asked questions

What do you do in battles?

Use block cards to shape monster routes and position towers before each battle.

Do runs vary?

Yes. Runs vary in maps, tower compositions, and mazes; you can collect towers, block cards, and relics along the way.

What do battles provide?

Battles grant experience, and talents help strengthen you for later runs.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

12/13/2024

Got this game after watching Fauna playing it. Pretty good game I must say, although there's not a lot of content yet, and some towers might do with a buff or two, maybe a few more hours and those seemingly under-powered towers may shine.Show moreShow less

8.4 hours at review134 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

07/24/2024

Really close to a recommend, but this is going into the no/refund for me. Pros: - Really interesting maze building mechanic - Great art style - Smooth gameplay - Fun enemy design (specifically the werewolf) Cons: - Lack of replayability. Feels like my first playthrough showcased everything the game had to offer. - Lack of depth. No meaningful roguelite choices. One upgrade per tower in combat, no tower upgrades outside combat. Relics are weak, tetris block enchantments mean little. - The whole "deck/card" mechanic with the tetris blocks is cool but lacks cohesion with the rest of the experience. Maybe towers should be included in your deck or something. Or be able to add spells to your deck. Much more interesting things can be done here. These issues could be resolved in a future update, in which case this game could be amazing, but as it stands its a no.Show moreShow less

1.4 hours at review13 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

RecommendedSteam player

06/29/2024

Bloons td, tetris, slay the spire. that's this gameShow moreShow less

3.9 hours at review90 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

09/06/2024

Concept: 10/10 Execution: 5/10 The concept for this game is great. As someone who has played a lot of roguelikes, deckbuilders, and tower defense games, the concept of combining them all into one is great. But unfortunately I think the execution is disappointing. Difficulty: this game is just way too easy, even on hard difficulty. I can only lose if I'm distracted and reading reddit on my phone. Victories don't feel rewarding at all. There are some stages where on the first round you can literally not build a single tower and the stage itself kills every enemy for you, lol. Bro, just start me on round 2 if that's the case. Balance: some towers/strategies are clearly optimal and form a sort of "meta." There are approaches that are massively overpowered, and if you want to have any fun you have to just self-impose a challenge to not use them (this is a recurring theme). There is one character who is so overpowered that he basically deletes the mazebuilding/deckbuilding mechanics from the entire video game and just lets you build near-perfect mazes every time. Meta-progression with cross-run ingame currency: this is just gross and makes it feel like a mobile gacha game. Meta progression only works in roguelikes if it gradually expands the set of *options* available to the player (more ships in FTL, more cards in Slay the Spire, etc). It shouldn't just straight up make the game easier. Like, unlocking a permanent higher crit chance is just a straight up buff that adds nothing interesting to the game. If anything, in a roguelike you want the game to get *harder* over time (maybe through unlocking higher difficulties), not easier! The dev says that you can simply abstain from using the meta progression system if you find it makes the game too easy, but, I mean, that's a cop out. Abstaining from the meta progression is certainly not presented to the user as a sort of difficulty modifier in the way that heat (Hades) or ascension (Slay the Spire) are. And in any case the base game should be perfectly challenging to the ordinary player; an ordinary player with only a couple dozen hours shouldn't have to be doing self-imposed Nuzlocke-esque limitations just to get some modest amount of difficulty. This system would function so much better as a per-run progression system (synergizing with your tiles and towers) that would actually enhance gameplay. It's baffling that isn't not a per-run progression. RNG: there isn't enough RNG. You have so many choices as to your rewards for each stage that you can basically spec into a specific build intentionally every single time. Part of the fun in a roguelike is doing the best you can with the cards you're dealt -- in this analogy, I'm allowed to pick through the whole deck to select my cards. Yes, I could just self-impose "I will click the top left option every time" but is self-imposing difficulty at every juncture really preferable to just properly balancing the game in the first place? I would love to see this game fixed up but I think the dev has a fundamentally different view of the game from what I would want it to be. I want this to be a really challenging roguelike that will earn a spot next to other classics in my library. The dev wants this to be more like a casual mobile game.Show moreShow less

34.1 hours at review11 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

RecommendedSteam player

07/05/2024

Very addicting little game with massive potential. I have ADHD, and for the past couple of days I have been unable to put this game down. It scratches my tower defense itch like no other game. It is so satisfying drawing that right block to perfectly fill a gap or perfectly complete a corner. It feels very polished for what it is, and I am eagerly awaiting new content. That being said, there is no such thing as a perfect game and I do have a few critiques for this one. Firstly, the towers feel very weak. The draw of the game at the moment is without a doubt the building-block system. If you want any chance at beating the later stages, you are going to have to spam the hell out of towers. Even the bulkier, more expensive 2x2/3x3 towers don’t really feel like they’re doing much. I attribute most of this to the lackluster upgrade system. If you want to make a tower stronger, you pick between 1 upgrade out of 2 choices and then you’re done. Even then, most of the upgrades are simple damage or range increases. Only the large towers have upgrades that really modify the effects of the tower. I would love to see more variation/paths for towers. I want to be able to invest in making a certain tower really strong, not unlike a certain game involving monkeys and balloons. Secondly, the power card system is pretty useless. Sometimes while you’re playing, a treasure chest will drop offering you random rewards between building blocks, gold, health, or random power cards that will buff a certain tower for a certain amount of time. However, as I mentioned above, you’re gonna have a lot of towers. Buffing a single tower for 15-30 seconds feels completely useless in the grand scheme of things, and most of the time I completely ignore the cards. they just take up space at the bottom of my screen. I can easily see this game being a staple for the TDS genre given enough content and updates. Workshop mod support or a community creator for this would be really cool :) I wanna make my own towers :)Show moreShow less

7.4 hours at review88 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

RecommendedSteam player

06/25/2024

At the time of writing, I have over 20+ hours in this game across demo and playtest branches. As someone who has had the pleasure of playtesting this game and working closely with Refi, this is a MUST have for the tower defense genre. This game is a wonderful mix of both tower defense, rogue lites, and puzzles! Yes, this game is in Early Access - this does not mean that the game is broken and full of bugs, but rather there will just be more content added down the road. Gameplay The core gameplay revolves around placing various towers along your own maze of blocks. Think Tetris meets tower defense. On top of that, there is a roguelite element in which you have randomized loadouts of starting towers and abilities which you get more of as the game progresses. Each round, you will be faced with waves of enemies racing towards your "fire" which acts as your life. When monsters reach your fire, you will take damage. Once your fire reaches 0 hp, your run will end. There are two main components into keeping these monsters away: building tiles and towers. Building Blocks & Towers Building blocks come in a variety of shapes and sizes, similar to the familiar Tetris shapes. These blocks can be rotated and placed around the playing field to make the path that the monsters need to take longer and more complicated. Then, you can build towers on these placed blocks or on pre-existing blocks that are placed upon starting the level. These towers come in a variety of sizes (1x1, 2x2, 1x2, etc), damage types (arcane, ice, fire, etc), and costs. Most towers can be upgraded as well, leaving you with the decision on whether or not to build even more towers or upgrade the existing ones. Once you successfully fend off monsters for X number of rounds (which is pre-determined and will be visible on each level), then you will be rewarded with EXP, Ember Stones, and potentially new blocks and/or buffs. EXP & Ember Stones EXP is used to buy talents which you can purchase between rounds to give you permanent buffs to each of your runs. Some of these include Shop Discounts, Active Skills such as the ability to unlock a placed block once per game, giving your fire the ability to attack monsters just to name a few. Ember Stones allow for restoring energy to your fire or you can use them to purchase upgrades and items at the Shop. Boss Rounds At the end of a run, you will face the final Boss for that world. Here, rounds will play out as usual except for one difference: there is a giant buffed monster that you must defeat! The Boss can be damaged over time and will ultimately make its way to your fire over multiple rounds. Graphics This game features colorful and polished graphics matched with catchy music and sound effects. This game runs flawlessly on both my PC and Steam Deck (with mapped controls as there is not yet controller support) without any loss of frames despite all of the actors on the screen. Accessibility At the time of review, the game features the following accessibility options: • Camera Shake - A slider to determine the strength of the camera shake • Turn off timer • Flash Intensity - A slider to determine the flash intensity • Recall Block - Choice between long press or one button press • Static Background - There are some moving maps such as a train which can be turned to a static background by enabling this option Replayability - In Depth At the start of a run, players get to choose from three difficulties: Casual, Normal, and Heroic (which is unlocked after defeating the boss in Normal mode!). Then, you get to select the world that you will be playing in. Then you once again get more choices, your character (which offers different buffs and quirks to the run) and a fire type. These choices will allow players to challenge themselves or build around their play style. Do you want massive blocks? Great, check out Chunk the Builder! Do you want to be able to hoard lots of money to be able to afford some bigger towers and upgrades? Then Silas the Merchant might be your guy! Once choosing the above, you get to pick a loadout which determines which different blocks you start with in your deck as well as a buff that will last the rest of the game. With all of these options, it means that each and every run will be unique and the replayability is endless. Closing Thoughts This is an outstanding addition to my game library and constantly gets updates. A huge congratulations to Refi for being the ONLY developer working on this game. He responds quickly to all feedback and bug reports and fixes them as soon as possible. If you enjoy tower defense games in any way, I highly recommend picking up this game. This is an outstanding price for this game in which you will have unlimited replayability and tons of updates to in the future. Happy building!Show moreShow less

0.9 hours at review72 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Not recommendedSteam player

04/03/2026

This is a conflicting one for me. The game feels polished, its fun to play, the ui and graphics are smooth as butter. It runs well. It's got the foundation to be amazing. But it just doesn't scratch that itch for me, and I feel like it falls short of what it sets out to do. The game is a "roguelike", except the run variance is minimal at best. There are like 30 or so towers that you pick up through a run, all of which are full of character and fun to watch do their thing, and thats about where the variance ends. The mobs are all more or less the exact same, and don't call for varying strategies. The perks and other rng elements are inconsequential and I dont find myself caring to interact with them. I'll pick the first one to get the dialogue screen over with. They don't change the game much. The tetris blocks are cool but when playing you also find that they ultimately dont matter - you're going to make a zigzag path that stretches as the enemy path as far as you can every time, and the blocks in your loadout dont really ever change your ability to do so. And the game itself isn't hard enough to warrant finding the smaller synergies that may be there to eek out any extra performance - you can spam your starter tower with a half iq path built with your blocks and you will win the hardest difficulties. you can, every time, turn your brain off and go through the motions and experience virtually the same run, despite "rng" party favours existing in the background. The core is there. I feel like the game would be a 10/10 if they dropped the roguelike entirely and focused on uniqe level design and challenge building, and more enemy types to demand use of the towers. None of the roguelike elements are really working. But again, its early access. The foundation is extremely solid. I want to be able to reccomend this. Maybe they'll add some content and this will change. Because in a rare case, some extra content and tools to play with would make this game amazing. The foundation is such a solid springboard for them to throw things onto. I look forward to future updates.Show moreShow less

3.1 hours at review7 people found this helpful

Written during Early Access

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.