Across the Obelisk

🔥 What is Across the Obelisk for PC

Across the Obelisk is a cooperative deck-building roguelite that combines strategic card combat with party-based adventure elements, offering players an exciting blend of tactics, exploration, and role-playing depth. Developed by Dreamsite Games and published by Paradox Arc, the game invites players to build teams of heroes, venture through procedurally generated maps, and face a diverse array of enemies and story driven challenges. Unlike many traditional card battlers, Across the Obelisk emphasizes synergy between multiple characters, with each hero contributing a distinct role to the group healing, tanking, or damage dealing all while shaping the overall strategy through unique decks and abilities that evolve across each run.

The story begins in a mysterious kingdom divided by magical corruption, where players must travel through different realms filled with secrets, curses, and unpredictable events. As the name suggests, the Obelisk is both a central mystery and a symbol of the world’s fragile balance. Every decision made during a run whether choosing a path, helping a villager, or engaging in combat can lead to dramatically different outcomes. While the roguelite structure ensures that no two playthroughs feel identical, the persistent progression system allows for meaningful long-term growth as players unlock new heroes, cards, and traits that redefine how future runs unfold.

👉 Features of Across the Obelisk

• Cooperative Multiplayer Adventure: One of the game’s most distinctive features is its fully integrated four-player online co-op mode. Players can divide control of the heroes, coordinating card plays and strategies in real time. It’s a dynamic system that fosters teamwork and communication, making the game feel like a blend of a tactical board game and a shared adventure.
• Extensive Hero Customization and Deck-Building: Every hero in Across the Obelisk comes with a unique set of abilities, archetypes, and potential deck builds. Players can craft highly specialized decks, combining cards that emphasize elemental attacks, defensive buffs, or healing synergies. Between runs, heroes can also be upgraded with perks, equipment, and powerful legendary cards that unlock as rewards for completing quests or overcoming elite challenges.
• Dynamic Roguelite Structure: The game’s procedural generation ensures that no journey across the Obelisk is ever the same. Each map presents new paths, biomes, and event options, while combat encounters scale dynamically based on the party’s progress. Death is not the end but rather a chance to refine strategies and unlock new content for future runs.
• Engaging Narrative Events: Throughout the adventure, players encounter narrative-driven choices that can alter the party’s fate. These decisions often involve moral or strategic trade offs sacrificing resources for potential power, saving an NPC for later aid, or taking a dangerous shortcut to reach the Obelisk faster.
• Complex Elemental Combat System: Combat in Across the Obelisk revolves around elemental interactions, status effects, and team coordination. Each enemy type requires different tactics, and combining effects such as burn, bleed, frost, or shock can lead to devastating combos. Because all heroes act in sequence, timing and synergy are crucial for victory.

Gameplay

Strategic Deck-Building and Team Synergy

At its heart, Across the Obelisk delivers a remarkably deep and strategic gameplay experience that rewards experimentation and foresight in equal measure. Players start with a team of four heroes, each drawing from their personalized decks, and must navigate a series of increasingly difficult encounters while balancing resources such as health, mana, and card draw. Each hero’s role is sharply defined yet flexible: a healer might specialize in holy magic but can pivot toward damage if equipped with the right relics, while a rogue can alternate between poison-based control or burst damage depending on deck composition.

Cooperative Play and Role Distribution

In cooperative mode, players divide control of the party, taking responsibility for different heroes and their associated decks. This creates fascinating tactical interplay, as coordination becomes essential when planning attacks or managing buffs. Communication is key, especially during difficult encounters that demand synchronized defenses or carefully timed healing spells. The satisfaction of executing a perfectly coordinated turn where every hero contributes to a massive combo is immense and often leads to moments of pure cooperative joy.

Exploration and Event Choices

Between battles, players navigate a branching map filled with events, shops, and narrative encounters. These sections give the game an unexpected depth of storytelling and world-building, as decisions can lead to permanent hero changes or rare rewards. A seemingly harmless villager might offer an enchanted trinket, while a cursed shrine could imbue the party with dangerous yet potent powers. The randomness of these events means that adaptability is as important as raw strategy, forcing players to evaluate risk and reward constantly.

Difficulty, Progression, and Replayability

The roguelite structure ensures that Across the Obelisk maintains a compelling loop of challenge and reward. Losing a run never feels punishing because progress carries over in the form of unlocked cards, heroes, and perks. As players learn enemy patterns and optimize their decks, previously insurmountable bosses become manageable, creating a strong sense of personal growth. This design philosophy makes the game as addictive as it is strategic, encouraging both solo mastery and cooperative experimentation across hundreds of hours of playtime.

Graphics

Distinctive Art Style and Character Design

Across the Obelisk uses a hand-drawn 2D art style that blends fantasy illustration with comic-book sensibilities, giving each character and environment a vivid, memorable identity. The heroes are designed with strong silhouettes and expressive detail, ensuring that even small avatars communicate personality and role clearly. Enemy designs range from eerie, otherworldly creatures to corrupted knights and twisted forest spirits, all unified by a consistent color palette and thematic cohesion that enhances the world’s sense of mystery.

Environmental Variety and Visual Clarity

Each biome from haunted forests and volcanic wastelands to snowy peaks and mystical ruins offers a distinct visual identity that keeps exploration fresh and visually stimulating. Despite the stylized presentation, the game maintains exceptional clarity during combat, with clear indicators for buffs, debuffs, and attack animations. The interface feels both informative and unobtrusive, allowing players to focus on tactical decisions rather than deciphering cluttered visuals.

Animation and Special Effects

While Across the Obelisk doesn’t aim for photorealism, its animations and spell effects bring satisfying dynamism to every battle. Spells crackle with energy, blades shimmer with elemental light, and status effects are visually distinct enough to be instantly recognizable. These touches not only enhance immersion but also make each encounter feel alive with motion and consequence, reinforcing the strategic satisfaction of landing a perfectly executed combo.

Pros and Cons

✔️ Pros

• Deep and rewarding deck-building system with endless strategic possibilities
• Fully integrated four-player co-op mode that encourages teamwork and communication
• Excellent replayability due to procedural maps and diverse hero combinations
• Engaging visual style that balances clarity and personality
• Meaningful progression system that rewards both skill and persistence

❌ Cons

• Difficulty curve can feel steep for new players unfamiliar with deck-builders
• Some events and random encounters can lead to frustratingly punishing outcomes
• Limited animation variety compared to larger-budget titles