《Elemental Lands》携战术卡牌与前哨基地登陆 Steam Next Fest 试玩

Elemental Lands mixes a conquest map, base-building and turn-based card battles. Its Steam Next Fest demo, live now until October 26, is the first public chance to see whether those parts fit together.

RikerRiker describes it as “Darkest Dungeon meets Into the Breach”. That comparison comes from the studio. It does show where the game is aiming, with a small party you manage carefully on a grid where position decides the fight.

How a Campaign Works

Each campaign starts at your castle. From there you raise three Outpost bases to push back invading elemental hordes. According to the Steam listing, three elemental factions expand across the campaign map every turn, so the pressure grows the longer you wait.

Your bases do not raise an army. They support a small, classic RPG party of heroes instead. You explore, build and mine the land for mana, and that mana fuels your heroes’ spell cards. The economy on the map and the fights on the grid are meant to feed each other.

The Steam listing promises more than 60 recruitable heroes, each with their own abilities. That number comes from the developer.

Cards That Give Orders

Battles are turn-based and play out on a grid. Positioning matters, and fights include battlefield objectives you can capture. Many cards work as orders rather than plain attacks. The studio’s examples are Focus Fire, Flank, Shield Wall and Overdrive.

This is where the Into the Breach comparison makes the most sense. You are giving tactical commands to a party, not just spending cards for damage.

What the Demo Offers

The demo is free on the game’s Steam page for the length of the festival. According to RikerRiker, it includes the opening prologue level, a full battle tutorial and two full levels. That is more than many Next Fest demos offer, and enough to see how the map, the Outposts and the battles connect.

The developer says campaign runs last 60 to 90 minutes. That puts Elemental Lands closer to a run-based roguelite than a long strategy campaign, and it suits the order cards, which reward quick tactical reads over long-term planning.

Both the demo and the full game now support six languages, according to RikerRiker: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, German, French and Spanish. The game is on PC and Mac.

Price and Release

There is no price yet. The store page lists a planned release in the first quarter of 2027, which can still move. What happens when a run is lost has not been announced.

Worth Wishlisting?

On paper, yes. The order cards and the link between mining mana and fuelling spells give Elemental Lands a clearer identity than most deckbuilders arriving at Next Fest. Whether the strategy layer has real depth is the open question, and the demo is a free way to find out.

The Facts