Shard Squad gets trailer and release date: November 4 on Steam

After about two years of development and a very curious story, Shard Squad finally has a release date: November 4, 2025 on Steam. The console version will launch later, with the date yet to be announced.

The announcement came in a brand-new trailer revealed during Monster Taming Direct 2025, an event created by the community for fans of monster-taming games.

From experiment to original project

Rennan Costa, who previously worked on Bagdex, one of the biggest highlights of the monster-taming scene, is the director and programmer of Shard Squad. He explained how the idea of making a survivor-like with cute monsters was born:

“Shard Squad started as a Unity study, with absolutely no intention of turning it into a game, selling it, or anything like that. At first, it was literally a Pokémon Vampire Survivors that ended up going viral on the internet. I even took it down at the time because I was afraid of getting sued,” he explained.

The idea of actually creating Shard Squad only came after realizing there was demand for a Pokémon-style Vampire Survivors that didn’t exist:

“Many people asked me to give it its own identity, and one thing I didn’t like about most games in the genre was the heavy themes. I wanted something cuter. Another difference was replacing weapon collecting with building a team with its own synergies.”

See how the original version looked when it was still based on Pokémon:

A beautiful, varied, and strategic game

Rennan also explains that the goal of the team is to deliver an experience that goes beyond the usual formula of the genre:

“Our idea is to make the game both varied and beautiful. All shards are completely different from each other, and the synergy system makes team building something truly strategic. We created stories and backgrounds for all the characters, so the game doesn’t feel like just a succession of battles. Each stage has its own identity, with unique enemies, challenges, and bosses, avoiding the trap of being just a harder version of the previous one.”