Griftlands

Griftlands is a roguelike deck-building game with elements of role-playing and digital card games. The player starts a game by selecting one of the predefined characters, each a mercenary seeking fame and fortune in on a planetary world that is home to an antagonistic peacekeeper body, pirates, and dangerous creatures. While the layout of the world is the same each game, the events, missions, and other elements within it are procedurally generated on starting a new game.

The game is broken up between moving about on an overworld map and engaging in conversation trees to gain quests or shop, and card-based encounters. At the start of the game, the player's character is given two pre-defined decks of cards, one representing those to be used in combat encounters, and another to be used in negotiations. As the player progresses in the game, they can gain new cards for either deck from quest rewards or through shops, upgrade existing cards to more potent versions, or have cards removed from either deck. Additionally, players can earn special implants called grafts for their character that have persistent effects throughout the rest of the game. The player can also purchase limited use item cards for either deck from vendors, as well as enlist computer-controlled allies to assist in negotiation and battle.

Griftlands takes place in a futuristic science-fiction fantasy setting, where humans populate the game world in addition to anthropomorphic humanoid races such as the crustacean-like Kra'deshi. Advanced space-faring technology and energy-based weapons are available, fueled by fictional power sources Lumin and Spark. The setting is in contest between governing bodies such as the Admiralty, religious orders such as the Cult of Hesh, industrial factions such as the Spark Barons guild, and criminal organizations like the bandit guild Spree. There is a finite number of defined NPCs that populate all three campaigns with a fixed appearance, faction allegiance, and social bonuses, but the actual in-game role played by each NPC is randomly determined - some NPCs however always play the same role in each campaign as either allies or boss combat encounters. The names and purposes of locations on the overworld map are also fixed, but their availability and physical location may vary between runs.

There are three playable campaigns available in the game, each following the multi-day journey of a specific protagonist: the formerly indentured servant Sal Ik-Derrick who now seeks revenge on the criminal that sold her into slavery as a child, the secretive and experienced spy Rook on a dangerous mission, and the alcoholic vagrant Kra'deshi Smith Banquod who returns home seeking his inheritance after the death of his wealthy parents.

Griftlands was developed by Klei Entertainment. The game was announced at E3 2017, at that time being an open-world RPG with encounters being played out in turn-based combat similar to most Japanese RPGs. In the interim years, Klei mentioned little of Griftlands while producing Oxygen Not Included. In October 2018, Klei had posted to the game's product page that "we jumped the gun on announcing it because we thought we were further along than we were." The game was re-shown at E3 2019, and while it retained the same setting and art style, the game had transitioned to card-based system, dropping the open world and more traditional role-playing games combat.

Griftlands was released as an early access title in July 2019 for Epic Games Store for a year. The early access version was released on Steam on 15 June 2020 alongside a free demo, and the full version of the game is expected in 6–12 months from the early access release date. The full version of the game was released for Microsoft Windows and Linux on June 1, 2021, and for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on June 4, 2021.

Griftlands received "generally favorable" reviews for Microsoft Windows, according to review aggregator Metacritic.

During the 25th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated Griftlands for "Strategy/Simulation Game of the Year".