Absolum arrives on Android and iOS on November 5, 2026, so we grabbed the existing build early. A couple of hours in, our opinion was already firm. This Absolum review covers how the fighting feels, how a run is built, and where the design starts to strain. We also flag what the touchscreen version still has to prove before launch. If your finger is hovering over that pre-registration button, read this first.
The Terrifying Backstory Behind Absolum
Talamh is a fantasy world that already lost its big war. A magical cataclysm turned ordinary people against magic itself, and Sun King Azra used that fear as a ladder. His Crimson Order enslaved wizards, swallowed kingdoms, and installed loyal princes everywhere.
You play as outcasts serving Mother Uchawi, the last Root Sister. She binds your heroes to a Ritual of Rebirth, which is the story’s polite way of explaining respawns. Dying is not a failure state here; it is the premise.
That framing matters for a beat ’em up. Guard Crush Games built the combat in Streets of Rage 4, and Absolum is their first original world. It is a side-scrolling brawler stitched to a roguelite loop, and the two halves do not always agree.
Our First Absolum Run Went Badly, and That Was the Point
We picked Galandra, the two-handed swordswoman, because big sword. The first stretch through Grandery felt like a normal brawler stage, and then Absolum started layering systems on us.
A crystal cracked open and offered two Rituals. A sub-boss dropped an Inspiration that quietly rewrote one of our attacks. A merchant wanted gold we had barely collected. Then we died to a group of shielded enemies and lost every single one of those upgrades.
Back at Uchawi’s Hearth, the run converted into Radiance Points, and those points paid out permanent currency. We bought a stat node, shrugged, and immediately queued another run. That loop is dangerously easy to repeat.
Absolum Combat Is the Reason to Care
The moment-to-moment fighting is superb, and it is not close. Every hero has a Strike, a heavy Skill, grabs, throws, air attacks, and mana-fueled Arcana. Landing hits fills your mana gauge, and Arcana can erase an entire wave.
Combos stay alive even after an enemy dies, so you can keep swinging at nothing to bank mana. It sounds silly, and it is enormously satisfying.
The system also pushes back. Hitting one enemy fills a hidden Pressure bar, and a full bar launches them into Overpressure recovery. You cannot loop the same move forever, so you learn to rotate tools instead of mashing.
Defence in Absolum Has 3 Options
Absolum gives you three defensive answers, and each one covers a different problem.
- Deflect – Dash into an incoming attack, and you cancel the damage outright. This became our default panic button within ten minutes.
- Dodge – A vertical roll that repositions you and sets up a counter. It has no invincibility frames, so timing genuinely matters.
- Clash – Time a Skill or Arcana into an enemy attack and you stun them for a big punishment. It is the hardest option and easily the most rewarding.
Some attacks refuse to be deflected, others refuse to be dodged. That forces you to actually read enemies rather than lean on one habit.
Our one real complaint is crowd pressure. Get surrounded, and the screen becomes a blender, and there is no cheap panic move to reset it. You do get rare Stars for a screen-clearing special, but they run out fast.
Four Absolum Heroes, Four Different Games
Galandra and Karl are available immediately. Cider and Brome join later through story progress, and they are worth the wait.
| Hero | Weapon of choice | Playstyle | Suits players who |
| Galandra | Two-handed sword, cursed arm | Balanced all-rounder with strong reach | Want a safe, flexible start |
| Karl | Fists and his blunderbuss “Beste” | Heavy damage, close-range firepower | Prefer hitting hard over hitting fast |
| Cider | Clockwork gadgets and a grapple hook | Fast, mobile, combo-hungry | Chase long, stylish strings |
| Brome | Staff and ranged sigils | Spacing and crowd control via Arcana | Like controlling a fight from range |
We spent most of our time with Galandra and Karl. Even so, the gap between her grounded swings and his shotgun pressure was obvious within one stage.
How Absolum Builds Power Across a Run?
Absolum splits progression into two layers, and understanding that split makes early runs far less frustrating.
Inside a run, everything is temporary. Rituals are elemental passives offered after certain rooms, and they imbue your attacks with fire, lightning, and stranger effects. Inspirations come from sub-bosses and rewrite character-specific moves. Trinkets are flat stat boosts you find or buy. Die, and all three vanish.
Between runs, everything sticks. Here is where your earnings actually go.
| Resource | Spend it with | What you get |
| Crystals | The Soul Tree | Permanent stat upgrades, extra lives, in-run rerolls |
| Primordial Seeds | Ederig the Stalwart | New Arcana and new Inspirations |
| Imbued Fruits | Vikhana, the Joyful | Upgraded Ritual bonuses that mix elements |
| Gold | In-run merchants | Trinkets and Rituals during the current run only |
The synergy hunting is the good part. A lightning Ritual on a character who already chains strikes turns a normal run into a fireworks display.
Where Absolum Starts to Wobble
Early runs cannot fully judge a roguelite’s long tail. Treat this as an early warning, not a verdict.
The run structure is thinner than the combat. You choose between branching paths, but the rewards along each branch sit in roughly fixed positions. Rituals arrive before rest stops and bosses, which means most runs hand you a similar shape of power.
That predictability has a cost. Once you find a route you like, there is little reason to gamble on another one. Beat ’em ups usually earn their difficulty through hand-placed enemy groups, and randomising those groups pulls against that strength.
Armoured enemies were our clearest early irritation. They shrug off hitstun and break your combo flow. Stack two together and a fun fight becomes a chore.
Side content also leans on luck. Several optional objectives need specific encounters to spawn on specific routes. Progress can stall through no fault of yours.
What the Absolum Mobile Version Still Has to Prove?
The mobile port is not a lazy screen-stretch, at least on paper. Playdigious rebuilt the interface for phones and tablets, added full touch controls, and kept controller support intact.
Here is what Android players get at Absolum’s launch:
- Buy once, play anywhere – Purchase on Google Play and your progress can move between mobile and PC on the same Google Play Games account.
- Cloud save – Progress syncs across your devices, so a phone run can continue on a tablet.
- Google Play Games achievements – Standard, but nice to see supported properly.
- Two-player online co-op – The full campaign travels with you, including the elemental combo synergies.
One existing design choice matters enormously here. You can quit mid-run without losing your progress in that run, outside of online co-op. That single feature makes Absolum far more commute-friendly than most premium ports.
The open question is input. Deflect, dodge, and Clash all run on tight timing windows, and touch controls historically struggle with exactly that. We cannot judge the touchscreen build yet, and neither can anyone else outside the studio.
Pricing for the mobile version is TBA. Absolum is a premium, one-time purchase with no in-app purchases attached.
Absolum Review Verdict
Absolum is one of the best-feeling brawlers we have played in years. That becomes obvious fast. The combat has depth, expression, and a genuine skill ceiling, and it never felt cheap.
The roguelite wrapper is the weaker half. It gives you build variety, but it does not deliver the surprise that keeps great roguelites spinning for fifty hours. Expect a strong ten-to-fifteen-hour ride, not a forever game.
For mobile players, that trade is arguably fine. A premium brawler with real depth, no ads, no energy meters, and resumable runs is a rare thing on Android.
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