Buy The Flesh Beneath PC key

The Flesh Beneath is a body-horror deck-building roguelike in which you choose one of thirteen ruined souls and descend into a cathedral beneath an old village. You fight waves of enemies, sacrificing pieces of yourself to gain powerful cards, and face permadeath: each death is recorded for the darkness to remember.

Choose your sacrifice

Each run begins with three candidates drawn from the bloodlines. The description names Cleaver, Hexweaver, Sister, Bonewright, Penitent, Sin-Eater, Bleeder and Whisper; candidates receive new names with thematic epithets, such as Masha, Sorrow-Bringer, Yelena, of the Wet Wheel, and Boris, the Twice-Buried. After choosing one, you receive One Last Gift from an altar. You can sacrifice an arm, an eye or your heart for a powerful flesh card drawn from a pool of possibilities. Each sacrifice reduces your maximum HP for the entire run, and there are fourteen body parts to choose from.

Descend through the cathedral

The cathedral branches, and every two steps you choose what to encounter next:

• Combat against multiple waves of detailed enemies that emerge from the dark.
• Elite fights against fewer, tougher monsters.
• Shrines where you can sever another piece of yourself for a card.
• Rest stops where you can heal, meditate or pray for souls.
• Omens with three choices and more than 40 unique events.
• Gemcutters who press a blood-stone into a card socket.
• Traders who sell cards and gems for souls.
• Bosses, with a named foe waiting every seven floors.

Face the bosses

The bosses include THE BUTCHER, THE MOTHER OF WOUNDS, THE WARDEN and THE QUEEN OF SORROWS, whose bridal veil drags on stone as knife-tipped fingers and orbiting runes surround her. Defeating each unique boss for the first time unlocks a new hidden bloodline for future runs. The Door of Gems opens after three successful runs through the Mother; reaching it lets you face the Queen and end her.

Build your deck

Cards come from your class, shrines, shops, random events and the dark within your own body. The game has around 200 base cards across 13 bloodlines, more than 20 body-part flesh cards and six gem types. Each card's socket cap scales with its cost. Cards can stun, weaken, poison or drain enemies, summon allies, block damage or heal, with visible animations and per-target slash arcs.

Return to Carrion Camp

Souls brought back from a run can be spent in Carrion Camp, a hub with five buildings:

• The Tavern: a five-path RPG skill tree with 50 tiers total. Path of Flesh improves maximum HP, regeneration and revival; Path of Bone focuses on sacrifice mechanics; Path of Iron improves blocking and damage; Path of Shadow concerns cards and energy; and Path of Souls focuses on the economy.
• Blacksmith: permanently upgrade individual cards with extra gem sockets.
• House of Litany: records each death by name, depth and cause, along with the body parts missing when the character fell.
• Hall of Deeds: tracks 14 achievements.
• Gates of Hell: begin the next descent.

The camp remembers your runs, and every death is recorded in the Litany of Suffering. Combat features sequential enemy animations for telegraphs, lunges, recoils and slashes, curved slash arcs, visible armor on enemies with block, and a three-step camera Z-line on each melee hit. The camera rotates to face whichever camp building you select, while the procedural soundtrack changes with the scene and combat depth. Fourteen rotating monster death roars and human death screams accompany the encounters, and every card has a crafted icon.