Culdcept The First Becomes Playable in the West with New Demo Today
- Jun 4
- 3 min read
Experience the Board Game/Card Game Blend with Culdcept The First and Keep Your Cards for the Full Release!
Karlstad, Sweden – 4 June, 2026 - Clear River Games, a video game publisher specialising in classic and retro games, in partnership with developers City Connection and series creators Omiya Soft, announced today that a demo of Culdcept The First, the return of highly-regarded 1997 SEGA® Saturn title Culdcept The First, is available to download today!
With its engrossing deck-building gameplay, enchanting fantasy setting and beautiful artwork, Culdcept The First grew a cult following upon launch and has long been the envy of digital board game fans in the West. However Clear River Games and City Connection are fulfilling those long-awaited wishes by bringing it to a new audience with Culdcept The First. The new release will include the original classic with English subtitles, a first for the game, plus quality of life features.
Entering the Culdra Space universe, players will need to fine-tune their Book, a 50-card deck, to traverse the map and strategically wield their cards in battle. Placing a creature is a claim of territory and using Spell Cards can have monumental impact from manipulating dice rolls, supporting creatures to sabotaging rivals. In Culdcept The First players are guided by the roll of the dice, to their victory or defeat.
Players of the Culdcept The First demo will experience first-hand the highly tactical nature of the game, and although progressing across the map is no easy feat, players needn’t go down without a fight. Those who snatch victory from the jaws of defeat will be rewarded with a random set of cards based on ranking which they can integrate into their Book and strengthen their abilities ready for the next encounter.
While the demo is a work in progress, any cards obtained in the Culdcept The First demo, which includes one stage of Story Mode and one map in Battle Mode, can be carried over to the full Steam version.
Culdcept The First features quality-of-life enhancements including:
Rewind the game to any point where a Checkpoint was passed at a Fort or the Castle.
Quick Save & Load* enables gamers to save and load at any time, independent of the main game's standard save function.
Bonus Pack increases the number of Reward Cards received at the end of a match. (can be toggled ON/OFF in the options menu).
Reveal Hands is a brand-new feature allowing gamers to constantly display both their own and their opponent's hand on-screen—information that was only visible at specific times in the original version. Reveal Hands can be toggled ON/OFF, and the display size adjusts automatically depending on the game's screen layout.
Language Switching allows gamers to play the game in either Japanese or English.
Culdcept The First will launch on Steam on 30th July and will be coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S systems soon after.
*The new Quick Save & Load feature cannot be used in the demo.
Try your hand at Culdcept The First with the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3825600/Culdcept_The_First/
For more information on Culdcept The First, please visit Clear River Games’ social media: X, Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky.
For more information on Culdcept The First, please visit: https://clearrivergames.com/games.html
Press Contact:
Overload PR on behalf of Clear River Games
All copyrights, trademarks, logos and brands are property of their respective owners.
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About Clear River Games
Clear River Games is a publisher with love for classic retro games. We are a small team in Karlstad, Sweden, founded by the Freemode Group (part of Embracer Group). Our vision is to bring the joy of experiencing vintage retro games and revived classic game franchises to players all over the world. We focus on publishing high-quality classic game franchises, modern retro and pixel art games and indie games that inspire gamers and bring back great memories of the past or discover new great games. With physical editions distributed online and in retail stores, we want to make great and unique games accessible to retro game fans around the world.
About City Connection
City Connection was founded in 2005 and owns the IP of long-established game maker ‘Jaleco’. The name ‘City Connection’ is reference to a previously released game by Jaleco, much loved by the City Connection president. City Connection is a game developer and publisher, as well as a soundtrack business (Clarice Disc), licensing business, publishing/editing/writing business, and engages in all manner of activities relating to video games. City Connection specializes in increasing the value of much-loved IP, utilizing some of the industry’s most experienced talent and reinventing games for a modern audience. City Connection strive to deliver quality games which delight gamers and respect original IP.
© 1997, 2026 Omiya Soft / © 2026 CITY CONNECTION CO., LTD. / Music: Copyright © 1997 Yuzo Koshiro / Published by Clear River Games
