Disclaimer: This review is based on the early-access build of Into the Grid, and may not reflect the final version. We’ll update it when the full game launches.

Summary

Into the Grid is a cyberpunk deckbuilding roguelike and tactical dungeon crawler that places you in the role of a hacker navigating the dangerous computerized world known as the “Grid.” Venture deeper into the digital maze in your hunt for the elusive Core Node. Outwit various sentries, battle powerful digital enemies, and upgrade your deck to breach the Grid’s defenses!

Gameplay

Before you start a game, you’ll first need to choose a character. Into the Grid has two unique characters for you to choose from. Each character has its own unique commands (a.k.a. abilities) and decks, offering players different play styles. The game also provides a tutorial, which is super handy, even for a veteran of the subgenre, to go through, just so you can familiarize yourself with your chosen character’s deck and commands.

Aside from the tutorial, you’ll also see three other difficulty levels on the main map, namely Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert, though the Expert run is locked and will only be unlocked after you’ve completed the Intermediate run. The dungeon you’ll be crawling through each run is randomly generated (the seed number of the run is provided), so you won’t feel like you’re just playing the same thing over and over, unlike say Godbreakers, or Hellclock.

Within a dungeon in this game, you’ll find rooms or Clusters connected to each other via Gates. By default, you can’t see adjacent rooms, so you have no clue what lies beyond a Gate. That said, each room typically contains several Data Nodes that you can hack for a variety of useful items, ranging from Intel, which functions as cash in this game, to helpful Tools, Upgraders, and Hashkeys. Note that Tools are powerful consumables that can allow you to bypass a Gate requirement, insta-kill a Sentinel (the enemy), or disable a Watcher (more on this in a bit), while Upgraders are what you use to upgrade your cards. Hashkeys, on the other hand, are like premium currency that you can sometimes use to get better rewards or open Gates.

However, to get better rewards, which would usually include these Tools, you’ll have to take a strategic risk and raise your Trace Level by one and sometimes even two. Trace Level is how the enemy tracks you in this game. Every 10 Trace Levels earned will raise the Alarm Level by one. If you’re familiar with stealth games and some specific turn-based tactics game in general (see The Stone of Madness), you’ll instantly know what that means - you’ll face tougher and possibly more enemies, and in some cases, though not in this game, suffer a penalty.

This is why you typically don’t want to raise the Alarm Level here, but the game does try hard to tempt you with rewards or place challenges that will try to extract as many Trace Levels from you as they can. For instance, some of the Sentinels are unavoidable, meaning that you’ll have to fight them to go through or access a Data Node you want, and each fight will cost you at least one Trace Level. On a similar vein, some Clusters will have Watchers that will increase your Trace Levels if you perform the activity they are watching for, like extracting a node, opening a Gate, or fighting a Sentinel.

Thankfully, there are ways to overcome this, either by using an Icebreaker Tool that can disable the Watcher or using a Log Scrubber afterward to reduce your Trace Levels by a bit… though, I have to say, these are super hard to come by. If you’re lucky, you may come across a Sur.face Node, which allows you to access an online store when accessed, and the store itself may have some Log Scrubbers for sale, along with Tools, Drivers that confer permanent perks for that run, and Programs, a.k.a. cards that you play when battling a Sentinel.

Now, your Alarm Level is tied to your Skills – a panel of three unique Skills of which you can use only one per Alarm Level. These Skills, which are randomly assigned to you, can be pretty powerful, allowing you to teleport between rooms or even “peek” at adjacent rooms. In a way, Skills are more like a one-off aid from the game in response to ramping up the difficulty of your current run, but personally, I don’t think it’s worth increasing the Alarm Level just to refresh your Skills and use another one unless you’re very near to your final goal.

One of the best parts of the game, I’d say, is its deckbuilding and combat system. If you’re a fan of any deckbuilding roguelikes, you’ll find many aspects of its combat system familiar despite their unique theme-appropriate names, such as the Clocks needed to “play” a card (you get three by default), or the active and discard decks a.k.a. Repo and Recycler. However, that’s where the similarities end.

In Into the Grid, there’s another combat-tied resource called VIM that is generated and accumulated by playing cards. These VIMs can then be used strategically to deploy Commands, basically special abilities that can sometimes really change the tide of combat. There are three Command tiers, namely Minor, Major and Critical, with each higher tier costing more VIMs to activate. And the best part? You can customize what Commands you want to bring with you into battle.

The enemies you go up against are very well-designed too. The combat here isn’t just “tank and spank”, but it requires the player to really take into consideration which part of the enemy you should destroy first, what order of cards to use, and of course, the chance factor of whether drawing a new card may give you the card you want. This is especially important for enemies with peripherals that can really do some damage in the long term, such as filling your deck with junk cards that amplify the enemy’s damage or bolster its shields.

Ultimately, the goal in this game is to reach the mainframe room, where you’ll have to defeat the core keeper (boss). Depending on the difficulty of the run, this may take you across layers of dungeons, which gives the system more chance to hike up the Alarm Levels that, in turn, make every encounter that much more challenging.

Graphics/ Sound

Into The Grid embraces a stylized cyberpunk aesthetic that blends neon-soaked environments with sleek, futuristic interface and character visuals. The art provides the player a sense of plunging into a digital “Grid,” where each node and encounter feels part of a vast, neon labyrinth filled with hostile programs and corporate security forces. I also love the cool 3D assets for the various Sentinels in this game, along with the amazing animations and effects during combat.

In terms of sound, the game features a selection of techno music that goes well with its cyberpunk theme, as well as the action, if any, on-screen. Not to mention, the sound effects are all very well used here, giving players a sense of what actions their character is executing, be it extracting a node or taking down a Sentinel.

Conclusion

Into The Grid offers a visually engaging and strategically rich cyberpunk deckbuilding experience that stands out by blending tactical card combat with rogue-lite map exploration. While still in Early Access, the core systems, from dynamic card battles to meaningful decisions on tactical grids, already present a satisfying fusion of strategy, customization, and replayability, rewarding both careful planning and adaptive play. For fans of cyberpunk settings and deep deckbuilding gameplay, Into The Grid shows strong potential as it evolves toward a fuller narrative and expanded roguelike experience.