Underboard review: Your terrible formation has consequences

The big picture

Underboard gives you a team, lets you arrange it, and then allows that team to demonstrate precisely what was wrong with your arrangement. Its characters handle the fighting themselves. You handle the decisions that put them in front of something unpleasant. It's a wonderfully convenient division of labor until everyone starts looking at the person who selected the labor.

Headless's single-player roguelike auto-battler is built around assembling combinations rather than personally landing blows. Drafting, positioning, equipment and spell choices all feed the machine. The appeal is the opportunity to make a group more dangerous than its individual members suggest, preferably before the monsters offer their own constructive feedback. Underboard's most interesting distinction is that stepping back from combat doesn't necessarily mean abandoning it. Even the decision to leave your mana alone can contribute to your plan.

The formation is part of the argument

Positioning matters because the combatants act according to their placement and aggression. Reading the enemy arrangement belongs to the job, rather than treating your own formation as a decorative shelf. A team that makes sense in the abstract still needs to make sense in front of the particular things trying to kill it.

That creates a satisfying conceptual balance between building and deployment. Your choices aren't finished when you've collected a set of matching labels. Equipment can supply additional Traits, effects and statistics, so the roster and its gear become connected decisions. The interesting question is less “Which item has the largest number?” and more “What does this let the rest of my nonsense accomplish?”

The flip side is that this is a game for people willing to read what their toys do. A large menu of interacting effects can become homework if you only want to watch little fighters collide. The automatic fighting removes direct attack inputs, not the obligation to understand why your carefully assembled group has become a cautionary tale.

Four zones, then more trouble

The full Windows release arrived on February 6, 2026 with four zones, expanding beyond the first-zone demo. Runs lead toward Pinnacle bosses, with victories opening the next zone. Randomized maps and fog of war give team construction an exploration framework: you're making decisions within a run, not simply designing an ideal lineup in an empty room and declaring yourself undefeated.

The distinction matters for the game's identity. Unknown territory means the build has to encounter the world before receiving its final grade. Unlockable Masteries also carry specialization into future attempts. Repetition has a planning component, giving another run a reason beyond insisting the previous outcome was clearly the monsters' fault.

Underboard: Omen, the earlier standalone public demo, shouldn't be mistaken for an earlier full release. The name makes it sound like an ominous prequel. In practice, the relevant distinction is much less theatrical: the developer explicitly presented it as a demo. The full game is the 2026 release reviewed here.

The Endless adds more ingredients

August's The Endless update substantially widens the build workshop. Characters gained passive skills, items and spells gained a quality system, and new boss Masteries entered the mix. These additions strengthen the central attraction: finding interactions worth organizing a team around, rather than simply accumulating miscellaneous power until the inventory resembles a fantasy junk drawer.

The update also replaces reused Horizon Paths enemies with a new roster and opens Endless Runs after the four zones are beaten. Those runs allow continued exploration and escalating difficulty, with a new final boss providing a substantial target. “Endless” therefore doesn't mean the game has forgotten to provide something worth aiming at. It means your clever idea can keep volunteering for increasingly unreasonable examinations.

More systems are welcome if experimentation is the attraction, but they also reinforce the game's demands. Players who already find layered build games tiring won't be rescued by an additional layer wearing a little party hat. Underboard is getting deeper in the direction it was already digging.

The verdict

Underboard makes a persuasive case for the pleasures of preparation: a thoughtful formation, an unlikely Trait combination, a spell deliberately left uncast. Its personality as a strategy game comes from making those choices matter together. The expanded endgame gives the compulsive tinkerer somewhere to take the resulting contraption.

It's best suited to players who want ownership of a battle without manually swinging every weapon. The team does the dangerous work. You get to be the mastermind, which is excellent until somebody asks why the mastermind put everyone there.