The Devil’s Due (PC) Demo Preview

I’m occasionally reminded by an email from Steam that game demos are still released outside of the three annual Steam Next Fest events. That’s how I discovered my subject today: The current demo version of The Devil’s Due, developed and published by Games People Play. In The Devil’s Due, you play as Jack, an infamous cheater at poker who winds up in Hell because you lost a poker game to the Devil himself. Your skills in cheating at poker are your only hope to escape as you ascend through the seven layers of Hell, one poker hand at a time.

I don’t know enough about gambling in order to know exactly what form of poker is being represented in The Devil’s Due, but I do know that this version of poker involves a lot more math than you might expect. You’re not just trying to win each hand of poker by having better cards than your opponent: Each player’s cards are used as physical attacks and defenses. I’ll attempt to explain what’s meant by that as best I can, but I’ll have to ask you to bear with me as I do so.

As I mentioned, I have a very rudimentary understanding of poker. I’m going to go forward under the assumption that you at least know the basics, since that’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge. So, you likely know that there are several different types of hands of cards you might have in poker, and that they’re all arranged in a certain hierarchy – pairs, two pairs, straights, flushes, full houses, and whatnot. In The Devil’s Due, the rarity of your hand dictates how much damage you’ll deal to your opponent and how much damage you’ll be able to negate from their incoming attack.

For example, say your opponent plays a hand with one pair, and you have a full house. Since a full house is several steps above a pair in the hierarchy of poker hands, there’s a significant difference between the damage you’ll deal and how much your opponent will deal to you. Depending on how big that difference is, one participant may not take any damage at all that round. Each player has a glass of wine at their side of the table that displays their current health; the first player to reduce their opponent’s health to 0 wins the poker game.

In order to return to the mortal plane of existence, you’ll have to gamble your way through all seven layers of Hell – one for each of the seven deadly sins. At the start of each run, the Devil will lay out a set of tarot cards in front of you that show you what you’ll be up against. These can include regular poker battles, shops where you can purchase helpful items, chances to restore your health, and games of chance other than poker that can give you more advantages. Each layer of Hell ends with a poker game against a boss.

The Devil’s Due is a poker-themed Rogue-lite deck-building game. I’m sure much of our readership knows what that means: You’re expected to fail frequently, especially early on, with the understanding that you can use resources you gather during each run to obtain permanent upgrades that help you fail progressively less often in future runs. I mentioned that Jack is infamous for his ability to cheat at poker. That knack for dirty tricks plays an important role in the core gameplay loop within The Devil’s Due. You can acquire various different ways to cheat as you progress.

The catch is, each time you cheat, your opponent is likely to see you cheating and call you out on it. Each opponent has a number of clouds above their head that represent their suspicion meter. When you’re caught cheating, a certain number of those clouds will turn gray. If you cheat often enough that all those clouds turn gray, your opponent will lash out and deal heavy damage to you. This means you’ll have to carefully consider when and how to cheat and balance your cheating with how much damage you can afford to take before you fail the current run.

You’d be forgiven for automatically thinking of Balatro when you hear the phrase “poker-themed Rogue-lite deck-builder.” Balatro is the main reason why The Devil’s Due will have to overcome — or, at least, manage to coexist with — a lot of strong competition in order to make a name for itself within its niche. In fact, I think I spotted a cheeky reference to Balatro during my time with the current demo of The Devil’s Due, so I’m sure developer Games People Play knows what they’re up against. That being said, there are a few notable differences between Balatro and The Devil’s Due.

For starters, The Devil’s Due features a really catchy and enjoyable song that plays during its opening cutscene. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’ll give Charlie Daniels a run for his money, but I would almost guarantee it’ll get stuck in your head for at least a day whenever you listen to it. The Devil’s Due also contains quite a lot more in-game text than Balatro, which (unfortunately) gives me a reason to get on my “proofreading soapbox” once again. I’ve spotted quite a few errors in in-game text within The Devil’s Due. Nothing game-breaking, but certainly numerous and disappointing.

I hope those issues will be addressed before The Devil’s Due eventually launches on Steam. That’s one reason I’m glad The Devil’s Due is still “just” a demo at the time of writing. That will give its developers a chance to implement feedback from players and improve the final product before it goes up for sale. As of the time of writing, the most concrete information we have about when The Devil’s Due is planned to launch is a rather vague “Q3 2026.” That’s a ways off, so I hope Games People Play takes advantage of that time to polish The Devil’s Due.