Deck builders have never been more popular thanks to the success of Slay the Spire, but Sigils of Nightfall isn’t just a Slay the Spire clone.
This is a full-blown old-school tabletop RPG dungeon crawler that uses a familiar, addictive deck-building mechanic for combat. Add in a dash of heavy metal, non-linear exploration, and everything you love about the Dungeons and Dragons experience, and you have one of my biggest surprises of PAX East 2026.
Despite the unassuming booth location for developer 2 Wedges, they still draw a crowd. It helps that, with the breakout success of Slay the Spire 2, people see the familiarity of the deckbuilder genre. However, Sigils of Nightfall differs from Slay the Spire in a couple of different ways.
First, there’s the fact that you’ll be utilizing the same deck regardless of which character you play. The difference in playstyle comes from the character’s traits and how they align with certain cards. A class with high Strength, for example, will perform better with melee attacks versus utilizing spells. From there, you’re leveling up your character in a more traditional tabletop RPG experience. You upgrade your stats to lean more into the fantasy of said class.
“You build your character and build your deck at the same time, and you can level up and customize your character pretty much like you do in an RPG,” explains Leo Cunha of 2 Wedges. “You can specialize in a class pretty much like a Prestige class you have in D&D, and then it will influence your deck. So they both work together.”
Sigils of Nightfall embraces its tabletop Mörk Borg roots
That’s not all, though, as Sigils of Nightfall does an excellent job of capturing the dungeon-crawling experience. Slay the Spire is known for its branching nodes and pathways, whereas in Sigils, you can traverse through the dungeon as you see fit. This includes backtracking, discovering secrets through roll checks, and even being ambushed. It doesn’t have the wide-open variety that comes with a Slay the Spire run. However, across the five hours I’ve played the game since PAX East, every run feels different. I also have found myself looking to perfect my character and become better prepared for the challenging bosses that await at the end of the dungeon.
The result is this wonderful dance between a deckbuilder and an authentic tabletop experience. The icing on the cake is how well it leans into Mörk Borg, a heavy-metal apocalyptic-fantasy RPG. The theming is absolutely perfect, from the character designs, card art, and metal soundtrack.
I understand why some people would be concerned that each run in Sigils of Nightfall would start to feel similar. Thankfully, 2 Wedges’ ability to capture that tabletop experience really shines through. It’s something that helps the game stand out from an increasingly crowded genre without solely relying on its aesthetics. If you missed out on PAX East this year, there’s a demo available for you to try on Steam. Don’t be surprised if you spend all night playing through it. It was always the first thing I booted up when I got back to the hotel after the PAX Expo Hall closed.
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