About Wickshore - Developer, Release and Verified Facts

Wickshore is a fantasy tower defense roguelite by Cygnian, released on Steam on October 30, 2026. A wizard raised a dome over a small coastal town — partly to protect it, but mostly because the town produces mana, and he has grand plans for it. Every fact in the table below is sourced from the official Steam store page (retrieved October 30, 2026).

Verified Fact Sheet

Fact	Value	Source
Title	Wickshore	Steam store page
Developer	Cygnian	Steam store page
Release date	October 30, 2026	Steam store page
Platform	Steam (PC); Steam Deck optimized	Steam store page
Genres	Casual, Indie, Strategy	Steam store page
Format	Tower defense roguelite	Steam store page
Run length	10 nights per run, 5 waves each night	Steam store page
Night finale	A devastating champion at the end of every night	Steam store page
Wave filler	“A few hundred toothy horrors in between”	Steam store page
Buildings	17 upgradeable buildings	Steam store page
Maps	5 unique coastal locations	Steam store page
Meta currency	Champions pay Salt when they fall	Steam store page
Meta system	The Astral Chart, spent between runs	Steam store page
Failure rule	Lose mana, buildings and wave progress; keep permanent upgrades	Steam store page
Progression	Deep prestige tiers with permanent trait selection	Steam store page
Input	Full controller support, Steam Deck optimized	Steam store page
Languages	Multiple localizations	Steam store page

The Premise, Officially

The town produces mana; the wizard’s dome keeps the harvest safe. When night falls, creatures emerge from the dark to pillage and steal the town’s magic — the dome holds only if you help defend it. The core economy loop is stated plainly: zap enemies to collect mana, then invest it back into the town to upgrade structures, build offences, and fortify shields. And the stakes are total: “Lose the dome, and you lose the town: the buildings, the mana, and the entire coast.” (All: official page.)

Spells Are Confirmed Too

Your wizard is not a bystander: officially, you zap foes, summon storms, or repair the dome directly, and personal abilities upgrade via the Astral Chart “so your personal lightning remains lethal even when the town is doing the heavy lifting.” (official page)

The Five Coastal Maps

Five maps are officially confirmed as “unique coastal locations” — the settlement-levelling fight happens across all of them over the game’s life, not on one repeating shore. What distinguishes them mechanically is in-game knowledge; what is certain is that “Zap & Expand” across 5 maps is a headline feature, so expect the dome-defense loop to recontextualize per shoreline — different approaches, different build pressures, possibly different night pacing. (map count and description: official; per-map differences: community framing)

The Seventeen Buildings, Officially Framed

Seventeen upgradeable buildings are confirmed, with the official guidance that they let you “tailor your strategy every run — focus on pure economy, automated offensive towers, or impenetrable defenses.” That is three named strategic pillars:

• Pure economy — buildings that turn the town into a mana engine;
• Automated offensive towers — buildings that fight without you;
• Impenetrable defenses — buildings that make the dome unbreakable.

The full 17-building roster with costs and upgrades lives in-game; this wiki will not invent it. What the count itself tells you: at 17 buildings across three pillars, builds are meant to differ run to run — the number is a strategy space, not a checklist. (pillar framing: official verbatim; interpretation: community)

Salt and the Astral Chart

Two meta-systems are confirmed. Salt is paid by falling champions — a run-scoped reward for the hardest kills of each night. The Astral Chart is where Salt is spent between runs, on permanent upgrades: officially it powers both your personal abilities (“so your personal lightning remains lethal even when the town is doing the heavy lifting”) and, per the feature list, deep prestige tiers “with a vast selection of permanent meta-progression traits tailored to your playstyle.” In short: the town is rebuilt every run; the wizard grows forever. (all: official page)

The Roguelite Contract

The failure rule is unusually clearly stated: lose the mana, the buildings and the wave progress — retain the permanent upgrades. Combined with 10-night runs and prestige tiers, the intended rhythm is: run, defend, probably die at your frontier, bank Salt, chart an upgrade, push further next time. See our nights and waves guide for how that rhythm plays out across a run. (rules: official; rhythm framing: community)

Where Wickshore Sits in the Genre (community positioning)

Tower defense roguelites usually pick a lane: the defense is either hand-played action or built automation. Wickshore’s officially confirmed loop — zap for mana, invest mana into automated buildings, personally cast storms and repairs — splits the difference deliberately. The zap layer makes it an action economy; the 17-building layer makes it a builder; the Salt-and-Chart layer makes it a metagame. If you arrive from action roguelites, your zap discipline transfers immediately. If you arrive from tower-defense builders, your build-order thinking transfers. The game officially wants both: “your personal lightning remains lethal even when the town is doing the heavy lifting” is a design promise that neither playstyle is the wrong one. (positioning: community analysis; quoted mechanics: official)

Release Context

Wickshore launched October 30, 2026 (official), in a crowded autumn for indie strategy. Its most differentiating confirmed assets are the coastal-dome fantasy premise, the 10-by-5 run structure with nightly champions, and the explicit failure contract — mechanics usually left to wikis to reverse-engineer are stated on the tin. That transparency is why this wiki can be precise: nearly every structural claim here is quotable from the store page rather than measured from play. What remains for the community to document — per-map pressure differences, building-by-building costs, champion behaviours, prestige tree depth — is exactly what our nights and waves and town builds pages will grow as evidence arrives.

Community Reception

Steam reviews are visible on the store page; this wiki could not retrieve the aggregate at publication time (October 30, 2026) and will not estimate it.

What This Wiki Is

An unofficial fan wiki: verified facts carry sources, and every recommendation is marked (community estimate). Not affiliated with Cygnian or Steam.

Sources

• Official Steam store page — Wickshore, retrieved 2026-10-30

Related Guides

• Getting Started
• Nights and Waves
• Town Builds

FAQ

Who made Wickshore? Cygnian (per the official listing).

Is there a demo? None listed at release.