Caves of Qud is our favorite science-fiction roguelike, where you can clone yourself, befriend others, and eat your own flesh, will leave early access in December, after 15 years of development.

Freehold Games is the developer duo that created Caves Of Qud. They are almost ready to shed their early access chitin so they can present the world with a glistening, resplendent roguelike. Caves of Qud, which has been in development for more than 15 years, will be released on December 5, 2024. This release will bring hundreds of updates to the game and the long-awaited conclusion of its main questline.

It's hard to describe the depth of the surreal, emergent story and the systems-dense gameplay of the traditional, tile based roguelike, even after playing more than 100 hours of Caves of Qud. You can play as an interdimensional mutant whose DNA has been warped over millennia by dire radiations and interdimensional influence. This means that every level up could give you wings, horns or new limbs. These limbs will be available in your dynamic equipment screen. You can find hints to the location of legendary firearms in procedurally-generated books. You can either befriend a group of sentient plants or earn their hatred.
I could play Qud for hours and still not have scratched the surface. To give you a better idea of what Caves of Qud is like, I'd recommend the powerpoint presentation I made during my deliberations with colleagues as we formed the list of this year's Top 100 PC Games. Caves of Qud is currently ranked at #80.

Caves of Qud is now more accessible than ever thanks to a new UI, gamepad controls, and a current beta tutorial.

Caves of Qud will also release the Dromad Deluxe Edition on December 5, 2024. This edition includes the game, an updated soundtrack, as well as a Harvest Dawn DLC Pack that contains a collection of pets in-game you can select to bring along with you when creating your character. Qud's pet catalog, which includes a sentient antelope and "a highly-entropic chair," among others, was previously available only to studio backers via Patreon. Harvest Dawn will introduce a brand-new one.

Caves of Qud will increase its price to $30 on October 29, just before it leaves early access. Qud, however, will be on sale for $16.99 as part of Steam's Daily Deal to celebrate the announcement of the 1.0 release date. This is the lowest price Qud will ever be available for. Today is a great day to start getting comfortable with Qud before the final chapter.