The Devil’s Due first impressions: Perilous poker

The Devil’s Due is a uniquely disturbing twist on a poker roguelike, sending players to the pits of hell and tasking them with battling their way back out through poker matches. While the odds are stacked against them, one thing remains true – the player character is a notorious cheat and must rely on their sneakiest tactics to survive.

Below, you’ll find The Escapist’s first impressions of the demo for The Devil’s Due, looking at the core gameplay loop, the charming yet unsettling theming, and the level of challenge on offer. While there are a few rough patches in the game, the overall experience points to a promising full release.

The Escapist recaps

• The Devil’s Due is an upcoming poker roguelike, developed and published by the team at Games People Play. It’s due to come out in full in the third quarter of 2026. 
• In The Devil’s Due, you play as a poker player who loves to cheat during his games and gets sent to hell as a result. You’re tasked with battling your way out of hell using these sneaky skills, taking on all manner of grotesque enemies in a violent form of poker. 
• During a match, you’ll deal damage to your opponent with the strength of your poker hand – a straight deals more damage than a pair, for example – and you’ll have a defense stat based on the sum of your cards.
• Each enemy has its own perks and special abilities, along with a memorably disturbing design. The demo showcased a variety of enemies, many of which were inspired by the seven deadly sins.
• The Devil’s Due felt lively and polished, for the most part. There were a few minor quirks here and there, but overall, the demo looked great and felt consistently engaging to play through. 

A fever dream of cards and carnage

The Devil’s Due starts with a stylish cutscene that introduces the player character. He’s an infamously untrustworthy poker player who attempts to cheat in a game against the devil and promptly gets sent to hell.

The demo tasks you with gambling for your life and working your way back out of hell, playing a violent form of poker against demons, ghouls, and other hellish beings to progress through each level. In a match, you deal damage with the strength of your poker hand, and you generate damage mitigation with the sum of your hand’s value. 

Along the way, you’ll be presented with opportunities to enhance your cards, recover health, grab trinkets, and pick up new, sneaky tricks to help you cheat in your next match. 

Despite being a demo, there was a lot to unpack in The Devil’s Due. The world-building was fantastic, which can’t always be said for card games and dice roguelikes in the niche, and there were numerous matches and levels to enjoy.

Something that stood out about The Devil’s Due is the game’s sense of humour. The dialogue was funny and snarky; if you try to start playing the game without completing the tutorial, the game will remind you of the consequences.

This sense of humour carried through the game, with each character and enemy feeling equally lively and strange. There were a few small typos or grammatical errors dotted throughout the demo, admittedly, but they weren’t major.

A fresh experience for poker roguelike lovers

There was a nice difficulty spike to enjoy with The Devil’s Due. It started simply, with a cohesive introductory match, but the matches picked up in difficulty smoothly, with a good variety of enemies and abilities to mitigate. 

To match the steady difficulty increase, multiple options were presented to help build out your poker deck and set of cheats, including new trinkets, abilities, and opportunities to merge cards to make them stronger. While there were elements of luck to consider, it did feel as if creative builds were rewarded. 

Poker being used as a form of combat isn’t anything new in the roguelike world, but the way it was implemented in The Devil’s Due felt unique. 

Instead of standard health pools, enemies would drink from your wine glass to knock off health; you were encouraged to cheat, but enemies had a suspicion meter to manage, visualized by clouds floating above their heads. The flurry of smaller, meaningful changes to a tried-and-tested format helped the demo to feel special. 

The art style in The Devil’s Due was striking, with a visual direction that felt akin to paper dolls or classic animation. It was wonderfully wacky and weird, but it had clearly been made with love and attention to detail.

Performance-wise, The Devil’s Due looked good and ran well; there were no major issues to note. There were a few instances where an asset looked a little grainy or strained, like in the “add card value” box, but there weren’t any glitches, bugs, or crashes to note. 

The Devil’s Due was fun and engaging in its demo iteration, painting a positive picture for its full 2026 release. The gameplay was satisfying, and the demo had a good sense of humour. Despite a few minor quirks, such as typos or slightly rough visual edges, it felt cohesive and well-crafted overall. 

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References

1. The Devil’s Due on Steam (Steam Store)