Hooded Horse to publish roguelite kingdom-builder 9 Kings

Hooded Horse’s carefully curated portfolio of promising strategy games is growing once again thanks to the addition of Sad Socket’s 9 Kings, a roguelite strategy deck-building game due to come out in Early Access on May 19, 2025, for PC.

Developer Sad Socket explained that this move would enable it to localize the game into more languages, sustain a more thorough quality assurance pipeline, and port the title to additional platforms, all while having more time to actually spend on development work.

9 Kings fuses elements of city-builders, auto-battlers, and roguelite deck-builders into one fun cocktail. Players get to choose from a number of kings (you may be able to guess how many), each having their own starting deck of buildings, units, and spells. Naturally, you can acquire a fresh influx of cards, looting the tools of your enemies once you’ve beaten them into the dirt.

Countless challenges arise for your kingdom, so careful management and a little bit of luck to draw the right cards at the right time will be necessary for your realm to stand the test of time.

9 Kings attracted over 200,000 players with its demo during the latest iteration of Steam Next Fest, making it to more than 170,000 Steam Wishlists.

“I have already lost countless hours to the 9 Kings demo, and my productivity has ground to a halt,” commented Hooded Horse CEO Tim Bender. “I sought bonuses and combos to break the game, but the game broke me. I’m left with no choice but to publish the game so I can pretend my endless play sessions qualify as work. Don’t tell the shareholders.”