Reignbreaker Review – Studio Fizbin’s Final Indie Game Is a Medievalpunk Roguelike Must-Play in 2025
Reignbreaker is a stylish, fast-paced roguelike where medievalpunk rebellion meets high-energy gameplay. Discover why this indie gem stands out with killer combat, voice acting, and bold art direction
Reignbreaker
Studio: Studio Fizbin
Publisher: Thunderful Games
Platforms: Steam
Completion Time: 5-6 hours to Complete (3 hours played for review)
Price: $9.99
Genre: Action RPG, Action, Roguelike, Roguelite, Combat
✅ Steam Deck Verified
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Good Game Lobby review of Reignbreaker, a high-octane action roguelike. Let's grab our javelin and take down the elite in my review. The now-defunct Studio Fizbin, which I will speak about later in the review, has released a fantastic game with Reignbreaker. Let's get right into the story.
Rebel Rebel
Clef, once a part of the Queen’s mercenaries, is a fearless rebel who is ready to take down the kingdom. The oppression of the Elite gives her the strength and badass attitude to grab her javelin to battle enemies, defeat unique bosses, rid this medievalpunk world of its enemies, and become the Reignbreaker.
Roguelike Badass Battles
A roguelike dungeon-crawling style of gameplay with a familiar loop: you manage your health, weapon cooldown, and increase your stats with new items acquired. Each wave of enemies you crush. You use your javelin key to unlock a new wave of enemies. Each wave starts with the title VANQUISH THY FOES. Once the wave is completed, you are given a Vandal Artefact to choose from.
It is the gear confiscated from local vandals to assist you—like increasing your dash’s cooldown, adding a punch mechanic to your dash to boost damage output, or one of my favorites: your dash launching explosive spray cans at enemies.
Each new chamber you explore is marked with the number of vaults you need to break into before you can break the seal and lift the next bridge to go deeper into the next chamber.
Medieval Punk Neon Visuals
It's aptly described as a medievalpunk setting, where the dungeon areas have that medieval look with a touch of punk. Spray-painted arrows give you clear direction on where to go next, with colorful designated areas all spray-painted in neon colors, making them pop from the mechanical/medieval setting. The design of the characters and their angsty attitudes play well in this rebellious world. They all fit the world well, with a large, diverse cast of characters. On the main screen, your health bar and javelin have the proper markings of spray-painted backgrounds. The hot pink colors for enemy health bars and the lights and explosions are clearly inspired by this fun and energetic style. It looks great, and the action sections make for a visually stunning experience.
Great Voice Acting and Medieval Rock Soundtrack
The Queen’s mercenaries and your old companions are sassy and angsty in their demeanor. Those who you fought with side-by-side are now your enemies and speak of your betrayal, like Ardea, your Spear Sister. Each vault is guarded by these foes, and the voice acting by each one is superb. Most video games will give an intro or opening line of dialogue, and then you are left to read the rest yourself, but I appreciate the wonderful voice actors whose portrayals of these characters are brought to life and immerse you deeper into the lore and world of Reignbreaker. The Queen of Keys subtly poking at you with each new chamber—or trash talking you when you’ve died during one of your runs—is all the fuel you need to keep coming back and kicking her mercenaries’ asses.
Also refreshing is that a majority of the cast and characters are female-led. This is an inclusive game, so if you don’t like that style of game, keep on moving.
I would say the punk side of things may only really exist in the attitude and style, but the soundtrack is more of a rock-inspired vibe. The intro song has this rock vibe I'm not so particularly fond of, but it fits the setting well. Honestly, I wish it was just an overload of punk songs with fast-paced riffs, but what we have works. Here is the main game's theme song “Reignbreaker” by Djerv, a Norwegian rock band. Let me know what you think in the comments—enjoy!
Must Play in Unfortunate Times
Roguelikes are creeping more and more into the games I play, and I love it. My only complaint is that they can be difficult, resulting in more hours of gameplay to get deeper and deeper into the game. I am an almost 40-year-old dad—I need a parent mode where I get to flip a switch that puts on assistance features that let me get to the ending easily. This isn't a complaint because Reignbreaker isn’t as difficult as other games I’ve played in the genre.
The truly worst part of Reignbreaker is that Studio Fizbin has been closed down. I wasn’t aware of their work, but once I started playing the game I wanted to check out their previous work and learned that they were closed down with only 2 weeks to go before the release of the game.
“Our parent company Thunderful made the decision to drastically reduce internal development in November 2024.” - Studio Fizbin
I know that as you are ending a larger game and get closer to launch, not everyone on the team is needed as they were in the lead-up to launch. But to remove everyone 2 weeks out from a game they’ve worked on for years is an absolutely insane strategy to me. It’s cold. That is AAA-level disgusting, and I hope Thunderful Games learns from it. My only hope is that the team had a chance to celebrate the release and will land on their feet at other great studios.
Aside from this shake-up of the studio, Reignbreaker is a kick-ass experience in the roguelike genre. The collision of punk rock and medieval designs and character design meld into a new world I want to explore deeper. With brilliant voice acting, action-packed combat, fun and inventive upgrades, and a hard-hitting design and soundtrack, Reignbreaker is a must-play for 2025. It’s $9.99, which is a sweet spot for indie games, and with the roguelike genre’s new style of gameplay for each run, it’s plenty worth the price. It took me 3 hours to get through almost every boss, but I have a skill issue of being shit at roguelikes. HowLongToBeat claims you can complete the game in roughly 5–6 hours, so maybe I’m almost there.
I want to make this a staple of reviews going forward: to mention if a game is Steam Deck Verified. And Reignbreaker is indeed verified!
If you work at an indie studio and are reading this review, then I advise you to reach out to the email hiring@studio-fizbin.de because I am sure you will find a talented group of people from the Studio Fizbin team eager to get back on track to make more kick-ass games.
The key was provided by Lurkit on behalf of Thunderful Games.
Love the art style of this. But boy, what a tragedy for the studio.