Don't Slay the Spire, defend it! This mod turns you evil so you can fight the invading heroes

Instead of fighting your way to the top of the Spire to slay it, how about starting at the top and fighting your way down to protect it from invaders? That's the idea behind the Slay the Spire: Downfall mod, which lets you align with the Corrupt Heart and destroy the do-gooder heroes trying to destroy it.

Slimes and Sneks and other monsters have been modded into playable characters in Slay The Spire before, but in Downfall's new mode you're actually on the side of evil. The Heart is the one who awakens you and sends you on a trip down the Spire to defend it. Check out the mod's trailer above.

Many of the monsters you'll face as you fight your way down will be the same enemies as in standard mode, but there are plenty of new twists. The Merchant, for example, won't sell you anything but will immediately fight you. I played a few rounds this morning and managed to do enough damage to the Merchant to send him fleeing, after which the Heart itself reappeared and sold me some new cards and items in exchange for the souls I'd gathered. Thanks, Corrupt Heart! You're not such a bad guy after all.

As you play Downfall mode you'll unlock new playable characters like the Guardian, Hexaghost, and Snecko, and you'll face the various Slay the Spire heroes like the Ironclad, Claw Defect, and Watcher at the end of each level as bosses. There's lots more included in the Downfall mod, like tons of new cards, relics, events, and potions that can be used in standard mode, too. You can even unlock new monster skins while you play. Check out and subscribe to the Downfall mod here on its Steam Workshop page.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Latest in Card Game
The jester from Balatro, portrayed in unsettling detail in real life, wears an uncanny smile and stares at the viewer.
Balatro's LocalThunk isn't 'trying to pull a Banksy', he just 'wanted to be left alone to make his game'
Hands pushing poker chips on a table
Winning $2.6 billion in this poker videogame has completely ruined fake poker for me
A pack of real life Balatro cards.
The official Balatro Timeline documents the history of 2024's biggest game as its developer went from 'obsessed' with making it to 'shocked' at the reception
Mage cards from Hearthstone's Into the Emerald Dream expansion.
Hearthstone card reveal: If it's wrong to love a magic blue owl, I don't want to be right
Characters in The Bazaar, a Hero-Builder game by Tempo, stand confidently with their weapons of choice raised.
Early backers of game decry 'bait and switch' after it backtracks on monetisation promises, dev chooses to stir the pot: 'Seeing Reddit lose it today lets me breathe a huge sigh of relief'
Yu-Gi-Oh! EARLY DAYS COLLECTION screenshot showing a character complaining about losing a battle
This Yu-Gi-Oh! retro collection transported me to a simpler time in TCGs, before Pot of Greed was banned and the Avengers were in Magic: The Gathering
Latest in News
Union organizers and game developers gather at GDC 2025.
Game dev union marches through industry event to demonstrate that it's about 'taking action and organizing change'
The jester from Balatro, portrayed in unsettling detail in real life, wears an uncanny smile and stares at the viewer.
Balatro's LocalThunk isn't 'trying to pull a Banksy', he just 'wanted to be left alone to make his game'
Two characters from Warframe 1999 lounging in a bar.
The warframe with a guitar that shoots fire is out today alongside a bunch of metalcore-inspired skins, cementing Warframe's spiral into Y2K madness
A Minecraft movie promo image of the main cast standing side by side,
This is why the Minecraft movie is called A Minecraft Movie
helldivers 2 democratic detonation
Johan Pilestedt warns that Helldivers 2 took 4 more years than planned because Arrowhead skipped pre-production and dove right in: 'Always do your homework before you start spending millions and millions and millions of dollars in making a game'
helldivers 2 arrowhead CCO johan pilestedt
Helldivers 2's Johan Pilestedt says developers need to start taking more risks: 'Safe bets are a death sentence for the studios that try to make them'