Atelier QBD has announced TOKENS, a new roguelike deckbuilder that swaps traditional cards for, well, tokens. As per the press release, the game was revealed during the 2026 Pégases ceremony, with a demo available now on Steam ahead of its Q3 2026 launch.
So yes, the deckbuilder genre has decided cards are old news. Fair enough.
A fantasy roguelike deckbuilder with roaring twenties flair
TOKENS drops players into a fantasy world inspired by the exclusive clubs of the roaring twenties, including the rather secretive Token Club, a circle apparently reserved for exceptional artists and adventurers. Naturally, your job is to earn a place inside.
Players step into the shoes of an ambitious hopeful looking to prove they belong, taking on a series of strategic challenges laid out by the mysterious dealer Mister Mirage.
Build a deck of tokens, not cards
The big twist here is right in the name. Instead of building a deck of cards, players create a deck of Tokens, then enhance them with Arcanas for special abilities and Effigies for item-based effects.
The goal in each run is to line up tokens on the table and beat the required score to move forward. Every run brings a different setup of challenges and opportunities, so adaptation sounds like it will be part of the deal from the start.
Then, every three rounds, a boss encounter shows up to make sure things do not get too comfortable.
Demo out now, full launch planned for Q3 2026
The TOKENS demo is available now on Steam, with the full release set for Q3 2026.
As per the press release, the game will support 10 languages at launch, including French, English, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
Atelier QBD wants to bend the rules of the genre
Quentin De Beukelaer, founder of Atelier QBD and developer of TOKENS, said the studio wanted to put gameplay at the centre of this project after making the narrative horror games Narcosis and Decarnation.
He also explained that, as a fan of roguelike deckbuilders, he wanted to twist the formula by replacing cards with tokens and use that as a way to explore randomness and how players can manipulate it to shape their run through the Token Club.
It is a neat hook, to be fair. Roguelike deckbuilders are hardly a rare sight these days, but tossing out the cards entirely is at least one way to make your hand stand out.