Devolver Reveals Its First “AAA” Game: All Army Attack Has Hundreds of Troops and a November Demo

When Devolver Digital promised to reveal its first AAA game, expectations were probably not centered on a commander leading hundreds of animals into battle from a chicken coop.

That was the point. On November 10, 2026, the independent publisher revealed All Army Attack. Its initials spell AAA, giving Devolver a perfectly reasonable excuse to use an expression normally associated with lavish blockbuster productions.

The announcement follows the company's familiar taste for industry parody. But beneath the joke is a genuine new project from BlackLight Games, the studio responsible for Cluckmech Oasis.

All Army Attack is a large-scale roguelike auto-battler in which players recruit animal and plant units, combine cards and build an increasingly enormous force capable of confronting a cosmic threat.

The full game is planned for PC through Steam in 2027. A playable demonstration is coming much sooner, during Steam Auto-Battler Fest from November 16 to November 23.

From a small chicken coop to hundreds of soldiers

Players take the role of a Commander assembling troops and artillery through a broad selection of cards.

The basic progression begins with a relatively modest force. Victories provide resources, allowing the army to grow and its units to become stronger.

BlackLight Games says players will eventually be able to field hundreds of soldiers. The objective is to create forces capable of defeating increasingly formidable bosses rather than simply assembling the largest possible collection of units.

As an auto-battler, the game's main strategic focus is on recruitment, preparation and combinations between units. Combat itself relies heavily on the behavior of the assembled troops.

Players can modify their cards and units, customize individual soldiers and introduce mutations intended to create different tactical effects.

Different characters, factions and battlefield configurations can also influence which combinations become available.

This makes the composition of an army especially important. Simply adding more soldiers may not be as effective as finding interactions that allow a smaller number of carefully selected units to perform better together.

Sometimes sacrificing troops is the right decision

One of the more interesting ideas involves choosing when to preserve soldiers and when to accept their loss.

Devolver describes a system in which battlefield decisions affect the income earned from encounters. Players may need to sacrifice part of their army to generate resources for stronger future units.

Alternatively, withdrawing or preserving valuable troops could provide a better foundation for subsequent battles.

That distinction adds an economic dimension to the strategy. A soldier is not valuable only because of its combat performance. Its survival or sacrifice may also influence what the player can afford later.

The game therefore promises decisions that extend beyond a single encounter. Winning immediately may not always be the best option if the victory leaves the army too weak for the next challenge.

The exact calculations behind those choices have not been fully disclosed. It remains unclear how much income individual sacrifices can provide or how sharply the game penalizes a poorly timed retreat.

Those details will matter when assessing whether the system produces meaningful decisions rather than a straightforward optimization puzzle.

Cards, characters and mutations change every run

BlackLight Games is building much of the game's variety around different card pools.

Characters and maps come with their own selections, encouraging players to adapt their strategies to the options available during each run.

A particularly powerful combination in one configuration may be unavailable or less effective in another.

Unit mutations add another layer. Instead of treating every soldier of a particular type as interchangeable, players will be able to modify individual troops and experiment with different builds.

The developer also emphasizes interactions between factions and battlefield layouts. The goal is to support a wide variety of strategies without requiring every run to follow the same recruitment pattern.

Of course, managing hundreds of automated units introduces its own design problems. Players need to understand why a particular army succeeds or fails, particularly when several effects are triggered simultaneously.

The announcement establishes the intended scale and customization options, but it does not yet demonstrate how clearly all of these systems communicate information during the most crowded encounters.

A persistent home base keeps progress moving

All Army Attack includes progression between individual runs.

Resources earned through battle can be invested in a home base, where players develop their town, unlock additional content and strengthen bonuses for future attempts.

This provides an alternative form of progress beyond building the immediate army.

A failed run may still contribute to long-term development if it earns enough resources to purchase a useful upgrade.

Devolver is also particularly pleased with one additional feature: hats.

Characters can wear different headgear, some of which provides useful bonuses. It is an amusing detail that also fits within the broader progression system.

The developers have not provided a complete breakdown of the town-building mechanics or the cost of individual upgrades.

For now, the confirmed approach is that players will have some freedom to prioritize different forms of improvement, developing their base at their own pace.

The November demo contains 60 unit types and more than 70 cards

Devolver is using Steam Auto-Battler Fest to provide the first public opportunity to try the game.

The demonstration will be available from November 16 to November 23, 2026, and includes substantially more than a single introductory battle.

The officially announced content comprises:

- Three playable characters. - Sixty types of units. - Twenty-five unit enhancements. - Forty treasures. - More than seventy cards. - A playable Prologue. - The Arid Wastes region with six difficulty levels. - A demo-exclusive Treasure Shop for adjusting strategies.

The progression begins with the Prologue before advancing into Arid Wastes, giving players the opportunity to experiment with different armies across several difficulty settings.

The demo's Treasure Shop is designed to let players fine-tune their approach. It is a feature specifically identified for the demonstration, rather than a confirmed description of the final game's exact shop structure.

The publisher's promotional material also mentions challenging friends online. However, the complete rules and availability of any associated multiplayer functionality have not been established in the announcement.

As of November 11, the demo remains scheduled for the following week. It is not yet publicly available through the announced festival period.

A new direction for the Cluckmech Oasis studio

BlackLight Games previously developed Cluckmech Oasis, an action-oriented roguelike with defensive strategy elements.

All Army Attack retains the studio's enthusiasm for animals, machines and exaggerated battlefields, but shifts the main structure toward card-based recruitment and automatic large-scale combat.

That background helps explain the project more clearly than Devolver's deliberately misleading AAA joke.

This is not being presented as an enormous photorealistic production. The appeal lies in the possibility of creating increasingly strange armies, discovering combinations and watching different strategies collide with large enemy forces.

The Steam listing currently identifies Windows as the supported platform. No console versions have been announced, and Devolver has not disclosed the full game's price.

The 2027 release window is also broad. There is no confirmed month or exact launch date.

For now, the most useful test of All Army Attack's ambitions will be its November demonstration. Devolver has already delivered the joke. BlackLight Games now has to show whether building an army of hundreds of chickens, plants and modified soldiers is as entertaining to play as it is to describe.