Blood Dungeon brings 2D autoshooting to Xbox and Game Pass

Messhof's 2D action roguelike Blood Dungeon has officially launched on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, and PC, alongside a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass. The studio first announced the game in June during Day of the Devs. It takes the automatic monster-clearing formula of games like Vampire Survivors and flips it sideways. You aren't just walking around a flat arena. You have to actually jump.

Movement over manual aiming

The core loop relies heavily on parkour and verticality.

Your weapons fire automatically, which frees you up to focus entirely on wall-climbing, scrambling up chains, and dodging the hundreds of enemies flooding the screen. Messhof built the arenas to force constant repositioning. You have to move. The environments are packed with hazards and platforms. You'll encounter over 100 enemy types like exploding eyeballs and bats. They all track you differently across the terrain. Some will fly straight through walls to get to you. Others will stick to the ceiling and drop down when you pass underneath.

The bone economy

Surviving a run requires collecting blood from defeated monsters to power up your immediate build.

Death is inevitable, but it feeds the meta-progression system. You earn bones during your attempts. You then take those bones to the Bone Shop to buy permanent upgrades for future runs.

The game includes nine playable characters. Each one has specific movement perks and a preferred starting weapon. One character can spin climbable webs to create custom escape routes. Another can fly for short bursts. The progression system doesn't just hand everything over immediately; it hides six different survival arenas behind a list of over 100 in-game quests. You have to actively complete specific challenges to see the whole game. There are also over 100 unlockable weapons and upgrades to find.

Cross-platform launch

The game is available for $9.99 across all platforms. It's Messhof's first fully independent, self-published release in a while. The Day of the Devs reveal earlier this year only mentioned PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, but the final release quietly added both the current Nintendo Switch and the upcoming Switch 2 to the roster. That makes it one of the earlier confirmed titles for Nintendo's next hardware. Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can also play it via cloud streaming. It's a smart fit for a portable or cloud setup. The rounds are fast and chaotic. This makes it easy to pick up for a quick ten-minute session.

That Messhof style

The studio's best known for the frantic fencing game Nidhogg.

Blood Dungeon shares that same chaotic energy and gross-out pixel art. The visual clutter gets intense quickly. The animation has a weird, fluid quality that makes the violence look almost comedic. To match the pace, composer Thomas Hooey put together a soundtrack he calls "dungeon dnb" (drum and bass). The heavy electronic beats kick in as soon as the monster swarms start closing in around you.

The autoshooter genre is incredibly crowded right now. Most of them don't ask you to move much. You just steer a little circle around a big flat rectangle. By forcing players to actively navigate a 2D platforming space instead of just wandering a flat field, Messhof has found a mechanical hook that actually demands your attention. You can't just zone out and let the game play itself.