Annihilated is a roguelite RPG where you carry one broken hero out of the dark

What if the worst possible day for a hero's party had already happened, and your only job was to drag one survivor out of the dungeon alive? That's the setup for Annihilated, a story-driven roguelite RPG from Flashlight Games, and the final trailer just landed.

It's the last video before launch on November 10, and it's built from illustrations drawn only for the trailer, plus a few scenes that hint at what's waiting in the full game. The pitch: the Hero's party has been wiped out deep in a cursed dungeon. You're the lone survivor of the rescue team, you pick one member to bring home, and the two of you try to escape together while the sins and fateful ties you'd rather not discuss start bubbling up.

Annihilated visual novel scene with a red-haired priest in dark robes speaking closely with a brown-haired companion — Partners don't stay strangers for long.

The fighting is turn-based and card-driven. Every item you carry becomes a card with a limited number of uses, and enemies telegraph their next move before they act. Your partner fights beside you, too: the Hero shrugs off death, while the Priest heals like no one else.

Annihilated battle screen with a row of item cards beneath a goblin and a kobold — Items become cards, and cards run out.

Break your gear on purpose

Here's the twist I like most. You get new gear by taking it from enemies: stagger a foe, then land a weapon's final use to trigger a Fatal Strike, which kills instantly and steals their equipment. Every weapon hits hardest on its last use, so shattering them on purpose often pays, even when supplies run thin.

Annihilated combat with a cyan ring and a sword slash arcing across a skeletal enemy — Timing-based combat draws a ring around the fight.

Every shattered item leaves a Curse behind, and Curses let you Defy fate. Rolled the worst result? Spend one and it never happened. Die, and you retry from the floor where you fell. Spare Curses can be forged into the items you need, and the rest turns into experience, so every death makes the next run stronger.

Annihilated's Dead or Alive roulette wheel with success and failure segments and a red START button — Leave your luck to a winged roulette wheel.

Between fights, the story takes over. Every conversation digs into who your partner really is, their secrets, and what actually happened to the party. Whether trust, doubt or dependence grows between you depends on how you feel, and so does the ending. You can pick either the timing-based or the probability-based battle style, and both will take you to the end.

Annihilated scene of a witch-hatted mage standing behind iron bars with chains hanging in a dim dungeon — The Mage has opinions about your choices.

There's a lot of game here. Flashlight Games promises more than 200,000 words of branching story across four routes with multiple endings, roughly six hours each, along with 100-plus weapons and items to steal, break and turn into Curses, and over 400 hand-drawn illustrations.

Annihilated stylized clash between a hooded fighter and a spiky-haired soldier with pink and red sword trails — Hand-drawn art does the heavy lifting in the story scenes.

Early interest is healthy. The game has passed 150,000 Steam wishlists, and the demo, which is available now, is rated "Very Positive" with more than 70 reviews, all of them positive at the time of writing.

Annihilated scene with the blue-haired Hero shouting in delight beside a tilted comic-style panel — Meet the Hero, loud as ever.

Annihilated launches on Steam on November 10. You can wishlist it or try the demo here. Stay tuned to GamingTrend.com for our review, and for all your upcoming reviews, previews, and gaming news!