9 Kings

Card-based strategy roguelite about building kingdoms through escalating wars

Sad Socket · Published by Hooded Horse, Sidekick Publishing · Released May 23, 2025 · Early Access

Reviews: Very Positive; 92% of 23K
Recent reviews: Very Positive; 88% of 361 in 30 days
Playing now: 828; right now
Steam Deck: Verified
Last update: 1 week ago; Sep 15, 2026

Free demo available, 9 playing it now: get the demo.

What is 9 Kings?

A card-based strategy roguelite where you build a kingdom while rival kings attack it. During each run, you place buildings and troops, cast spells, combine cards from different kings, and position your forces before battles. Quest challenges, endless survival, and asynchronous multiplayer provide different structures.

For you if...

+you enjoy building escalating synergies from card combinations
+you want difficult runs with distinct playable factions
+you like solo challenges and asynchronous competition

Not for you if...

−you dislike random card draws affecting difficult runs
−you prefer hands-on combat over watching armies fight
−you expect every strategy to work at high difficulty

What players say

92% of 23,303 reviews are positive · 88% of 361 in the last 30 days

Players praise the easy-to-learn loop, distinct kings, and cross-faction card combinations that can produce extreme scaling. The most common complaints are heavy reliance on random draws, uneven Quest Mode balance, and a narrow set of viable strategies at higher difficulties; some players also report slowdowns or lockups when armies become very large.

Screenshots and trailer

9 Kings system requirements

As published by the developer.

Minimum

OS: Windows® 10 (64-bit)
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-750 (quad-core) / AMD® Phenom™ II X4 965 (quad-core)
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 630 (2 GB) / AMD® Radeon™ HD 6670 (2 GB)
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Storage: 500 MB available space
DirectX: Version 11

PC version details

DRM, required accounts, controller support and Steam features.

DRM: None declared on Steam
Controller: Full controller support
Platforms: Windows, macOS
Achievements: 54
Steam features: Cloud saves, Family Sharing, Trading cards

Steam Deck: Verified

All functionality is accessible with the default controller configuration
Shows Steam Deck controller icons
In-game text is legible on Steam Deck
Default graphics settings perform well on Steam Deck

Multiplayer and co-op

Languages

Text only: English, German, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese - Brazil, Portuguese - Portugal, Spanish - Spain, Spanish - Latin America, French, Italian, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Filipino, Malay, Slovak.