You don't fight the dark — you become it. A stealth-survivors hybrid: auto-attacking hordes meet real stealth — hide in shadows, silence witnesses, hide the bodies, and outrun what you can't kill. Survive the night, then face the Nightmaster at dawn.

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Early Access Game

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Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

Leaving Early Access: 2026

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Shadow Slayer is fully playable and content-complete for a survival roguelite - 33 hunters, 18 maps, seven modes, 129 achievements — but it's a systems-driven game that gets better with real players hammering on it. Early Access lets us tune stealth balance (detection, suspicion, enemy mixes), difficulty curves and new-content pacing against live feedback, and prioritise the community's most-wanted additions before a 1.0.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“Around 6–9 months. We'll leave EA once online leaderboards/ghosts are live, the content roadmap below has landed, and balance has settled from player data.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Planned for 1.0:
online leaderboards, ghost-of-others and cloud saves;
a run of new bosses (a unique boss per biome);
enterable building interiors and more vertical map set-pieces;
additional weapons, enemies and characters;
a hunter-vs-prey asymmetric multiplayer mode;
and Steam Workshop support for community maps.
Scope may shift with player feedback - the core loop won't.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“Feature-rich and stable. Everything on the store page is in and playable today: the full stealth model (vision cones, graded suspicion, disguises, corpse disposal, scent-tracking hounds), 33 characters, 22 passives, 15 weapons, 7 modes with NG+ Ascension, 18 maps with named regions and dynamic weather, local co-op and a best-of-3 duel, 129 achievements, six languages, and full controller support. Also in: fire and oil, breakable crates and barrels, watchtowers, blood shrines and ritual circles that each play differently, tunnels between caves, river rafts, the Blood Moon and damage types. Single-player has no known blocking issues.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“The Early Access price is the launch price.
We plan a modest increase at 1.0 as the online features and new content ship, so buying in Early Access is the best value.
There are no microtransactions - all in-game cosmetics are earned by playing.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“I plan to post updates about the game on Steam and various platforms from time to time, stay in touch with the community and hear feedback and reviews.
Occasionally update on the game's development progress and give a glimpse of the additional things I will add, talk with the community on Discord and Steam and let them be involved as much as possible in the development process.”
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About This Game

Stay in the dark. Move fast. Kill silently.

You're not hunting the dark down — you're wearing it. Shadow Slayer flips the survivors formula: your weapons still fire themselves, but the real game is not being seen. Every enemy has eyes, ears — and some have noses. Slip through shadow zones, break line of sight, use rain and nightfall as cover, and execute anyone who hasn't noticed you with a single silent strike.

Eighteen maps that are real places. Forest clearings walled in by pines with a winding trail between them. A ruined city of streets, walled blocks, a plaza and canals. Dune ridges, an oasis, rock mesas. Frozen lakes under an aurora. Braided swamp channels crossed by plank boardwalks. Cliff terraces you can drop off — but never climb back up, and neither can what's chasing you. Every map has a landmark, and every landmark has a name waiting at it.

Every run has a spine. A hunters' camp a short walk from where you start. Then three acts: clear the camp, assassinate a named target who arrives at the landmark with bodyguards (read his dossier first: paranoid, drunk, armored, a poison taster...), endure. A region-wide alarm level turns "was I seen?" into a dial you manage — witnesses, discovered bodies, loud weapons and alarm bells heat it, hiding cools it, and every level sends harder hunters. Pick your intensity: Relaxed, Standard or Brutal.

The world is your accomplice — or your snitch.

  • Day/night and weather change how far enemies see. Fog hides you. Lightning betrays you. Tall grass hides you — unless you sprint.
  • Seven biomes play differently: snow shows you off, swamps slow you but swallow sound, plains and salt flats are fast and deadly open, ruins are a line-of-sight maze. Roads are quick — and expose you.
  • Birds flush when you sprint past. Bloodhounds smell you through walls — unless the rain washes your scent. A falconer's bird finds you in any shadow. Some squads sleep at night — until a noise wakes the camp and one of them runs for the bell.
  • Caves come in pairs: take a tunnel and leave your chasers searching the wrong cave, though the way out rumbles and draws a look.
  • On the widest rivers a raft carries you between two landings, dry and quiet.
  • Some nights the moon comes up red. Under a Blood Moon only beasts roam, patrols come as wolf packs, and relics drop in pairs.

Murder has consequences.

  • Humans leave corpses. Patrols that find them raise the region.
  • Drag bodies into the dark. Throw stones to split up squads. Trade noise for speed and pay for it.
  • Lose them and they search: they check the haystacks, reeds and crates around where they last saw you, then give up. Be in the one they skip.
  • Or make it look like an accident. A shove off a cliff or into a canal raises no alarm. Douse a lantern to lure someone over; cut the bell rope before anyone reaches it.

Play with fire.

  • A fire bomb sets tall grass or dry brush ablaze, and enemies it catches keep burning. Fire is loud and lights up the night.
  • Throw an oil flask as a slick that slows whoever wades through, lure a squad onto it, then light it with any fire.
  • Crates and barrels break for a herb, oil or XP when you dash, shoot, blast or burn them. Whole, they block sight. Broken, they bring the guards.

Every detour is a deal.

  • Climb a watchtower and every enemy nearby shows on your map, but up there you're exposed.
  • A blood shrine shows you a relic and asks a fifth of your max HP for it. Pay, or walk away.
  • Stand in a ritual circle to start a timed beast trial: slay every wave for a relic, or outlast it for Shards.
  • Every map has at least one of each.

A full roguelite underneath.

  • 33 playable hunters, each a distinct starting loadout + passive mix; 15 auto-firing weapons with evolutions (plus a hidden ultimate) — each with a noise rating that matters — 22 passive powers, relics, crafting, pets, skins and per-character skill trees. 32 enemy types, 6 map minibosses and the Nightmaster, every boss with a weakpoint to flank. Every weapon is physical, magic or status: beasts shrug off some physical damage, people some status (fire, poison).
  • 7 modes — Classic, Endless, Hardcore, 8-minute Contracts (one target, four stars, plus a Contract of the Day), a 5-night Campaign, NG+ with an open-ended Ascension ladder, and a local 2-player Duel (best-of-3 with a closing ring) — across 18 map presets, up to ~12,800px across, each dotted with named regions, caches, watchtowers, blood shrines and ritual circles.
  • 129 achievements, daily & weekly seeded challenges with ghost replays, 8 run mutators, full-moon nights, a season pass of free cosmetics, a daily streak, four mastery stars on every map, a guild rank, and a Hunter's Lodge trophy wall that fills up with every miniboss you fell.
  • Full controller support (Xbox / PlayStation / Switch) — menus and all.
  • Survive 15 minutes and the dawn epilogue begins; kill the Nightmaster for the true ending.

Made of math and moonlight: every sprite is code-drawn vector art and the adaptive soundtrack is synthesized live — the whole game weighs less than a single screenshot of it.

Local 2-player co-op, gamepad + rumble, colorblind and reduced-flash modes, rebindable keys, six full languages (English, Hebrew, Russian, Spanish, French, German).

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Shadow Slayer is built almost entirely in code. The character and enemy art is
drawn procedurally as vector graphics, and the sound effects and adaptive music
layers are synthesized in real time in the browser - none of that is AI-generated.
Generative AI tools were used to help create some of the content that ships with
the game:
- Music: several of the recorded background-music tracks were produced with the
help of generative AI music tools.
- Localization: the non-English translations were produced with AI-assisted
translation and reviewed by the developer.
- Store page & marketing images: some capsule/promotional artwork was created
with generative AI image tools.
All AI-assisted content was selected, edited, and integrated by a human
developer. No AI content is generated live while you play - everything ships
pre-made and reviewed.

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
    • Processor: Dual-core 2.0 GHz
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Any GPU with hardware-accelerated Canvas (Intel HD 4000+)
    • Storage: 500 MB available space
    • Additional Notes: 60 FPS at 1080p on integrated graphics; auto-degrades effects
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10/11 64-bit
    • Processor: Quad-core 2.5 GHz
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Any dedicated GPU
    • Storage: 500 MB available space