Leyline announces Guildrun, a PvE roguelike autobattler, and puts a free demo on Steam

On the evening of 15 July 2026 (18:00 UTC) Jay from Leyline posted on Steam "Guildrun revealed - Demo LIVE!": the Munich studio announced Guildrun, a PvE roguelike autobattler, together with its playable demo. The post first said the demo would open the next day at 3pm CEST; that line was then struck through, because the demo was already live. The Steam page gives 16 July 2026 as the demo's release date, and the press release is dated 16 July as well. Game names stay in English, as in the game.

What Guildrun is

The Steam page describes it in one sentence: a PvE roguelike autobattler with no timers, no queue and no PvP. You draft a guild of heroes, rank them from C to S and stack relics into builds that, in Leyline's words, one-shot bosses; you climb 8 difficulties and then the Endless leaderboards. Runs last about 20 minutes according to the press release, and you can save mid-run and come back later. Every hero has a starting class and ability, and the page counts more than 500 ways to level up and shape each one, so a backline healer can end up as a frontline tank. How a run works, step by step, is in our guide to Guildrun.

What the demo contains

Leyline's numbers for the demo, from the Steam page:

• 25 heroes, "across 75 spec paths", and 180 specializations;
• 300+ relics and 100+ items, unlocked run after run;
• 8 difficulties: every successful run unlocks a harder one;
• Endless mode, with global leaderboards.

The demo is free, single-player, for Windows and macOS, with Steam Cloud, in seven languages (English, German, Spanish - Spain, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese). Everything else, requirements included, is in our guide to the demo.

Built with the community since January

According to the press release, the closed alpha opened at the earliest stages of development and grew to more than 3,000 testers before the Steam page existed; since January 2026 the game has been updated every week. The demo launch is described as the next step: a public invitation to a wider community. The Steam post ends with a link to the Discord server and to an FAQ on the Steam forum.

Who Leyline is

Leyline (Leyline Creations GmbH) is an independent studio from Munich, and Guildrun is its first game. The press release says the lead designers have credits on Hearthstone and The Bazaar, and that the team includes former members of Activision Blizzard, Riot Games, Konami and Electronic Arts. The release of 20 July names funding from FFF Bayern.

Release window and price

The press release of 16 July said the full game would release on Steam in late 2026. No price was given. The full game's Steam page lists the release date as "to be announced".

Update of 20 July 2026: the press release on the first 100,000 wishlists gives 2027 as the launch window on Steam, and "the first half of 2027" in the studio boilerplate. We cover it in our article on the wishlists.

What we don't know yet

• The price of the full game: Leyline has not announced it.
• How the "180 specializations" and the "75 spec paths" on the same Steam page relate to each other: to verify in the game.
• Whether the demo's roster is the full game's: the Steam page says 25 heroes "in the demo alone".