Bite-sized Review:
Codex Mortis

By Chris Picone, 24 September, 2026

Codex Mortis was released in Early Access 6 months ago and is just hitting full release now.  I suspect it's going to be a controversial title due to the fact that, as the developers have declared on the game's Steam page, "AI is used for entire code of the game, text, arts, sounds and music."  But I'm not here to judge the ethics around any of that, I'm just here to review the game.

Aesthetics

For a game with artwork made entirely by AI, it's pretty good.  I think part of the secret to its success is that they haven't tried too hard; backgrounds are suggestive of the environment they're supposed to be in, whether that's the desert or some hellscape, without being overly detailed or noisy. There are a few scattered objects and obstacles in the shape of urns and sarcophagi but it's fairly spartan because there's already a lot going on the screen. The characters and monsters all look like they've drawn heavy inspiration from games like Blasphemous, although drawn in a much simpler Vampire Survivors-type style with very basic animations. It might be disappointing elsewhere but, again, it works in this genre. And while there might be a snippet of "oh, that's AI art for sure" here and there, it's honestly fairly elusive. I think another thing that helps this is that the key art, menu interfaces, cards, and story screens all have slightly differing art styles.  The story screens are much more pixel art-oriented, for example, while the cards are more glossy and detailed.  It all stil fits together and feels integrated, but it gives an illusion of multiple artists working on their part of a larger project.  All in all, it's a great looking game with just the right sort of dark, unholy blood-soaked vibe I'm sure the devs were going for.

Gameplay

Similar to any survivors-like, obviously, so I'll focus on the differences.  There's an endless mode where you can replay levels to rack up souls which can be used to purchase new cards to upgrade your heroes across runs.  More interesting is the story mode, in which each level not only has a different biome and matching monsters but also comes with a little bit of a story and a mission which might require you to collect artifacts, kill bosses, or even run escort. It gave me a genuine sense of progression that I didn't expect.  Another cool thing is that you can unlock heroes which you can not only play as but also build a party out of.  When characters are in your party you can even deck them out with spells and artifacts as you choose, although they only get limited options compared to when you run them as your main character.  The character abilities are great too, because they encourage different playstyles. 

Verdict

Given both the nature of survivors-like games being a dime a dozen at the moment, and also the heavy involvement of AI in the development process, I'm surprised at both the quality of Codex Mortis and how much fun I had with it. AI purists obviously won't want to touch this one but otherwise I think any fans of survivors-like games will find a lot to love here.

Links: 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4084120/CODEX_MORTIS/