Hell Maiden, the roguelike bullet heaven from AstralShift that reimagines Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy with an all-anime-girl cast, is out now in early access on Steam for £10 — with a price increase planned at the 1.0 launch.
The setup: Dante is now an amnesiac anime girl who has somehow ended up back in hell and needs to fight her way up through the nine circles to reach Paradiso again. Mechanically it sits between Vampire Survivors and Hades — you build up auto-firing attacks and effects in horde-survival style, with some deckbuilding layered on top, and the Hades influence shows in the roguelite loop of dying, growing stronger, and running again. The poets of limbo each shape your playstyle, acting as the character-build anchors across runs. At early access launch the game includes the first two circles of hell, four poets of limbo, two bosses, and one mid-boss.
The Divine Comedy is a surprisingly natural fit for this kind of game — nine distinct circles of hell map cleanly onto a progression structure, and the source material is packed with named characters and factions that can feed build variety. AstralShift's take leans into the self-insert absurdity of the original poem rather than fighting it, which at least gives the concept a coherent internal logic.
The first content patch, due sometime in 2026, adds a new story chapter and circle, another poet of limbo, more weapons, a new boss, and achievements. A second patch follows without a confirmed date, matching that scope, with later updates adding difficulty modifiers and a compendium. The full early access window is planned at roughly one year.
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