How do you fight a planet? That’s the question posed by incoming Slay the Spire rival Zet Zillions, a new roguelike deckbuilder from developer Ota Imon Studios, published by Raw Fury. This bold, sci-fi card game lets you fuse your deck together in experimental combinations, making use of your own population as ammunition or resources to boost your ability to fight off dangerous planets. Hot on the heels of Balatro, Wildfrost, and Dicefolk, and ahead of the upcoming Breachway and Tendryll, the Zet Zillions release date has now been set.
The premise of Zet Zillions is bold and no-nonsense: Foam Gun, the intrepid pilot of the planet-ship Baby Violence, is on the lookout for a new home for humanity. To do so, you’ll set out across space, where you’ll have to fight off all manner of sentient planets and other troublemakers that stand in your way. It’s a colorful, brash deck-building roguelike game where your own population becomes ammunition to be used as experimental weaponry.
The Zet Zillions campaign wastes no time getting into the action. Faced with the threat of a giant, spacefaring hand belonging to an entity known as Thanatos, you fire your ‘trash’ population at it to deal damage. “Commander, may I remind you that code name Thanatos is not a planet, we cannot attempt to colonize it,” assistant Ziggy notes. “Who said anything about colonizing? Here comes my favorite part,” Foam Gun responds with a sharp-toothed grin, before detonating it in a vast explosion.
The real hook of Zet Zillions comes from its fusion system. As you progress through the sprawling map in a manner much reminiscent of FTL, trying to always stay one step ahead of Thanatos while exploring as much as you can, you’ll collect cards after fights or buy them from shops, and can combine them using the fusion system to unlock new and powerful effects – if the experiments go to plan.
Zet Zillions is set to launch on Steam Thursday May 23. Ahead of that, you’ll be able to get hands-on for yourself with a free Steam demo available from Monday March 25 to Tuesday April 2 as part of the upcoming Steam Deckbuilders Fest.
Until then, we’ve plenty more of the best card games to keep you busy, along with many more ways to explore the great beyond with the best space games to play in 2024.
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