Guildrun — everything we know
Everything that’s known about Guildrun, the PvE auto-battler roguelike from the small Munich-based studio Leyline, in one place — updated as news drops. You turn a simple team into an unstoppable force, bend every hero out of their class roles, and seal the rifts at your own pace. A free demo is out now on Steam; a full release is planned for 2027, with no date confirmed yet.
Where things stand
Guildrun news and updates
A dozen runs through the free Steam demo, and it now has a score: our Guildrun demo review lands on 7.5 out of 10. The relic and item economy is the strongest part — relics that change a whole run, items that answer a specific board problem, and quests attached to both — and the four-row hex board gives positioning real weight. What holds the score back is the rank ladder: a C-rank hero contributes almost nothing and the interesting upgrades only start at B, so the first third of a run is spent waiting to be allowed to have a build. There is also no trait system, confirmed by a Leyline developer on the Steam forum, which leaves a team without an identity. Both are fixable before the 2027 release.
The developer FAQ has now been read directly rather than quoted second-hand, and it says, verbatim: “We are aiming to release Guildrun in 2027.” The tighter “first half of 2027” wording appears only in the boilerplate at the foot of a press release, so it carries less weight than the FAQ line and is not treated as a separate commitment here. Steam still lists no date at all. A new demo build was pushed on 4 September at 09:43 UTC with no patch notes, no announcement and no video — the same pattern that followed patch 0.5.6, which points to a hotfix, though the studio has not said so. Demo reviews stood at 2,015 on 5 September, 1,805 of them positive, or 90%; the recent 30-day figure was 536 reviews at 86%.
Leyline shipped demo patch 0.5.7 on 1 September. The quality-of-life change is small — the Red Rift screen now shows your best win streak alongside total wins — and it comes with about eleven fixes, among them Shard Maximizer, Pimenta’s regeneration, Burn and Poison triggers, Ring of Leech, the Mystic relics, Nyx scaling and a performance problem around Burn Conduit. The framing matters more than the notes: “This week we worked internally on some of the pieces of the full release of Guildrun.” That continues the shift Leyline described a week earlier, when it said it would leave the demo’s content as it is. Still no beta date and still no release date. The demo now sits at 1,990 user reviews, 89 per cent positive, with 586 reviews in the last 30 days at 87 per cent.
Buffs for Pollen and Zuri, bug fixes, and the Rift Seal now equips itself from the second Red Rift run onwards. The more interesting part is what Leyline wrote around the patch notes: “We are slowly moving into a phase where we’ll leave the demo’s content as it is, and start focusing our work on the full version of the game.” Bugs and balance still get attention, but the demo is close to done. The studio also mentioned a beta for the first time — “We’ll let you know when there’s a chance to play the beta and test content ahead of release” — without naming a date.
The fifth demo patch keeps the Tuesday rhythm. The headline is a new stun resistance system: every stun you take leaves a stack for fifteen seconds, each stack cuts the next stun’s duration by a quarter, and four stacks make you immune outright. Kai, Skorn, Yuuna, Karsu and Tilly are also immune while their active ability is running. The demo now sits at 1,868 reviews, 89% of them positive.
Leyline’s fourth demo patch lands a week after 0.5.3. Frost is now half as effective on the Act 2 boss in the Red Rift — four stacks instead of two to cut its defence or attack — and the Red Rift leaderboard resets weekly with every patch from here on. Ten heroes were touched: Karsu gets a mini-rework, Logan’s The Iron now grants an extra item slot, and Niklas’ Red Hot Deals drops from a flat 100% to 50% plus 25% per rank. Seven rings were buffed and the power crystals trimmed. Lead designer Aleco calls several of the changes band-aids ahead of a deeper pass.
Leyline shipped the demo’s third patch on 4 August, a week after 0.5.2. The lead designer leaned on buffs this time round, after players said the previous balance pass was too nerf-heavy, alongside fixes for the Strange Fruits relic event, a hero-growth bug that blocked the crossroads buttons, and Russian and Chinese localisation errors. Both patches got a notes video on the studio’s YouTube channel.
A week after the demo went live, Guildrun climbed into Steam’s most-followed weekly trending games. The demo holds a "Very Positive" rating (96% of 107 reviews) and picks up coverage from creators like Retromation, Wanderbots and Gohjoe.
Leyline releases a free demo packing 25 heroes, 300+ relics and 100+ items, with eight escalating difficulties plus an Endless mode and global leaderboards — no timer, no queue, no PvP, and you can save mid-run.
The small Munich studio Leyline starts an open alpha and commits to weekly patches, building the game in the open with its community.
What’s confirmed about Guildrun
Here’s everything known about Guildrun so far — the concept, the build system, how a run plays, the studio behind it and the demo — with the one open question, a release date, flagged at the end.
The concept — seal the rifts
Guildrun is a single-player PvE auto-battler roguelike played on a hex board. Rifts have torn open in cities across the world and no one knows what’s driving them — your job is to build a guild of heroes, level them into wild power spikes, and crush waves of monsters to seal the rifts and uncover what tore them open. Because there’s no PvP meta forcing "correct" strategies, no two runs feel the same.
Build freedom — bend heroes out of their roles
Every hero starts with a class and an ability, but you choose where they end up. With over 500 unique ways to level up and shape a hero, you can turn a backline healer into a frontline tank, push a ranged DPS into a melee brawler, or pair two heroes for rapid scaling bonuses. Under the hood there are 25 heroes across 75 spec paths, plus a modifier pool that stacks across classes — so a build is never locked to a hero’s starting role.
How a run plays
Combat resolves automatically once a fight starts; the real decisions happen in between. You draft heroes, spend on items, and stack relics that rewrite how the whole team plays, then watch the fight resolve and adjust for the next one. Draft, level, respec, and build unfair comps — the skill you build is knowing when to pivot as the run throws new options at you.
Play on your clock
Guildrun is built to respect your time. There’s no timer, no queue and no PvP — you can think as long as you like, save mid-run, and come back when life lets you. Clearing a run unlocks the next of eight escalating difficulties, and each success lets you stack fresh modifiers to climb the ladder. Beyond the eight sits an Endless mode with global leaderboards.
The studio — Leyline
Guildrun comes from Leyline, a small independent studio based in Munich. Its lead designers have credits on Hearthstone and The Bazaar, and the wider team includes veterans from Riot, Konami, EA and Activision Blizzard. Leyline started an open alpha in January 2026 and has shipped patches every week since, building the game in the open with its community.
The demo
A free demo has been on Steam since 16 July 2026, and it’s generous: you unlock new heroes, relics and items run by run to discover 25 heroes, 180 specializations, 300+ relics and 100+ items in the demo alone, across the full eight-difficulty ladder plus Endless mode. Within a week it had climbed into Steam’s weekly top-trending games and sat at "Very Positive" — 96% of 107 reviews (as of 28 July 2026), with early coverage from creators like Retromation, Wanderbots and Gohjoe.
Who Guildrun is for
No PvP, no timer, and no confirmed date yet — here’s who that suits, and who might want to wait.
- You like thinking at your own pace — no timer, no queue
- You love deep build theorycrafting (500+ ways to shape a hero)
- You play in short bursts and want to save mid-run
- You chase leaderboards — Endless mode is built for it
- You want PvP or competitive multiplayer — there’s none
- You want fast, twitch action — combat is automated
- You need a confirmed release date and roadmap right now
The one thing not confirmed is a release date. Leyline is targeting 2027 and Steam lists it as "to be announced." This page updates the moment that changes.
More Guildrun videos
Videos via YouTube · they only load when you press play.
Guildrun questions, answered
What is Guildrun?
A PvE auto-battler roguelike from the small Munich studio Leyline. You build a guild of heroes, bend them out of their class roles with relics and items, and crush waves of monsters on a hex board to seal the rifts — and find out what tore them open.
Is there a demo?
Yes. A free demo has been on Steam since 16 July 2026, with 25 heroes, 300+ relics, 100+ items, eight difficulties and an Endless mode. It holds a "Very Positive" rating on Steam.
Is Guildrun free?
The demo is free to play on Steam. The full game is a planned paid release for 2027 — no price has been announced yet, and Steam still lists the release as "to be announced."
Does Guildrun have PvP?
No. Guildrun is single-player PvE only — there’s no PvP, no timer and no queue. Combat resolves automatically, you can save mid-run, and clearing runs unlocks eight escalating difficulties plus an Endless mode with global leaderboards.
Who makes Guildrun?
Leyline, a small independent studio in Munich. Its lead designers have credits on Hearthstone and The Bazaar, and the wider team includes veterans from Riot, Konami, EA and Activision Blizzard. The studio has patched the game weekly since its January 2026 alpha.
When does Guildrun release?
No date is set. Leyline is targeting 2027, and Steam currently lists the release as "to be announced." This page is updated the moment a date lands.
What platforms is it on?
PC via Steam — Windows and macOS. No console versions have been announced.