The SorcMerc title screen: the SORCMERC wordmark and menu beside a painting of four adventurers at a campfire at night.
Volume I

SorcMerc

A tactical fantasy RPG on the 2024 fifth-edition rules
In development

Found a mercenary company, hire its blades at roadside inns, and take work from town notice boards. Every fight is turn by turn on a hex board, and every spell you cast stays spent until you can afford a proper night's rest.

What sets it apart

  1. Combat in the Sunken Shrine: the cleric's portrait counts her remaining spell slots, and the spell bar runs along the bottom.
    The Sunken Shrine. The cleric's card counts the slots she has left.
    Magic you have to ration

    Spell slots come back only on a long rest, and a long rest costs eight hours of world time, an inn fee or a camp with a chance of ambush. Most 5e games hand slots back after every fight.

  2. The muster roll: five mercenaries with their gear and health, and Vera Kord's character sheet with her traits and relations.
    The muster roll. Each sheet tracks traits, relations and a fight record.
    Mercs who remember

    Your company earns scars, banes and veteran traits. They form opinions of each other: friends cover each other in a fight, rivals get in the way.

  3. The 3D overworld turned to a new angle: a walled town at a crossroads, grassland, and roads to Ashfell, Oakford and Dun Arrow.
    Riverhold at the crossroads. The map turns and tilts.
    An open world of roads

    March between towns on a living clock. Four countries get harder the farther you go from home, factions go to war, and towns remember how you treated them.

  4. A road fight on the Open Downs: the company faces assassins and bandits on a hex board, with an assassin's stat block open.
    The Open Downs: assassins and bandits on the road.
    Full 5e rules on hexes

    2024 character creation and the real action economy, played on a hex grid. Surprise, cover and the ground you stand on all count.

  5. The Play together screen: a six-letter room code and a choice of company, in front of a campfire painting.
    Play together: one room code, one company.
    Online co-op for up to four

    Share a room code and run one company together. The host leads the march, and everyone fights.

  6. The Campaigns and mods screen listing bundled campaigns, with a button to open the mods folder.
    Campaigns and mods, side by side.
    Built to be modded

    Campaigns, monsters and items are plain data packs. The bundled content uses the same tools players get.

More from the road

The company's marker on the road between Ashfell and Riverhold, five minutes' march from town.
Between Ashfell and Riverhold.
An inn in Riverhold: the innkeeper talks, rumours from the common room, downtime options, and mercenaries looking for work.
The inn: rumours, downtime, and swords for hire.
Marlow's notice board: a finished job paid out, and three new jobs with their pay in coin and experience.
The notice board: jobs pay coin, experience and standing.

Every screenshot opens at full 3840 × 2160.

Horde key art: the HORDE title over a fire mage, a swordsman, a crossbow archer and a bard standing back to back in a sea of grinning goblins.
Volume II

Horde

A bullet-hell roguelite, set beside SorcMerc's world
In development

Twenty waves, mini-bosses at waves 7, 12 and 16, a boss at 20, and then a final swarm that never stops. You lead a small warband through it, hire and pay companions at camp between waves, and build a squad that can stand in a sea of up to fifteen hundred monsters. Horde is a working title.

What sets it apart

  1. Wave 12: the hero and three companions fight together, with the Command All panel listing each companion's order key.
    Wave 12. The companions' panel sits bottom left, one key each.
    A warband, not a lone hero

    Most survivor-likes give you one character. Here you fight beside companions with their own auras and skills, and you can order them around mid-wave.

  2. Camp after wave 3: the squad list marks one companion as unpaid, with a button to pay them.
    Camp: Isolde the Hedge Witch is unpaid.
    Wages, deserters and rivals

    Companions expect pay at every camp. Skip it and they leave, then come back later as rival mercs you have to beat.

  3. Camp with three carried relics and a newly found relic, the Bloodied Chalice, showing its boon and its curse.
    The Bloodied Chalice: more crit, less health.
    Every relic has a catch

    Relics carry a boon and a curse together, and you carry only four. Swapping one out is a real decision.

  4. Four-player couch co-op: four hero panels along the bottom, each with its own controller label.
    Four players, keyboards and gamepads mixed.
    Couch co-op for up to four

    Two to four players on one screen, each playing a hero. Any empty seat is filled by an AI companion.

  5. The memorial: named mercs who fell, each with their quirk, where they were lost and a line about them.
    The memorial keeps every named merc you lost.
    Mercs who level up

    Train a class at camp and its basic attack evolves at level three. Named mercs earn quirks and scars, and the fallen go on a memorial.

  6. The Horde title screen with Play, Daily and Weekly buttons and today's daily rules in a panel.
    The title screen, with the daily and weekly runs.
    A weekly challenge

    Each week brings one fixed squad and set of rules for everyone, and any run can be shared by its seed.

More from the field

Wave 18: a small band of heroes in the middle of hundreds of goblins, skeletons and wolves, with a 166 kill combo.
Wave 18, an elite wave.
The Wyrm, a coiled green serpent boss, fights the warband on wave 20.
Wave 20: the Wyrm.
A level-up banner over a crowded field, with a 601 kill combo.
A 601-kill combo, and a level up.

Every screenshot opens at full 3840 × 2160.

The studio

Lorebound Games makes fantasy games about mercenary companies: the people you hire, what they cost you, and who comes home.

Both games are built in Godot. They are still in development, so the screenshots on this page come from current builds and will change before release.

Press, publishers and players: write to hello@loreboundgames.win.