Hobby Japan Shows Queen's Blade Re:Build at BitSummit PUNCH
Hobby Japan is using its long card-game design experience to enter the digital publishing space with a roguelite twist on its own IP, aiming to attract both series fans and Steam players unfamiliar with Queen's Blade.
Reporting from 1 sources: Inside.
Hobby Japan exhibited its upcoming digital card game Queen's Blade Re:Build at the BitSummit PUNCH event in Kyoto from May 22 to 24. The game is a roguelite armor-break card game, the company's first self-published title, developed by its card game division. The build on display was the same one planned for the June Steam Next Fest. Players control characters from the Queen's Blade series, including the playable fighter Leina, and battle enemy Beautiful Fighters in real-time card combat. The armor-break mechanic is central: damaging an opponent's armor allows subsequent attacks to deal direct damage. Hobby Japan producer Yoshihiko Uto said the team first prototyped the game with physical cards and a rulebook, then handed those to an external developer for digital implementation. The company retained control over balance and item tuning. The game will launch with three playable characters: Leina, Tomoe, and Iri. A hard mode with seven escalating difficulty stages is planned, with the hardest level set so that even the developers clear it only 60 to 70 percent of the time. Hobby Japan chose the Queen's Blade IP because of its existing fan base for attractive female characters. Queen's Blade Re:Build is scheduled for a summer 2026 release on Steam.
The BitSummit PUNCH booth featured a playable build, key visual art, standing illustrations of the Beautiful Fighters Kunne and Nenne, and a cosplayer portraying Iri. Uto explained that the team built the core system on paper first, then passed analog kits and rulebooks to an outside developer for digital production. Hobby Japan handled all numerical tuning and digital-only elements like items internally. The real-time card combat can be switched to turn-based mode in settings. The roguelite structure includes deck-building between battles and character growth across runs. After clearing the normal story mode, players unlock a hard mode with seven stages that add new rules each time. In hard mode, characters start at level one with no carryover growth, forcing players to rely on skill. Uto said the hardest difficulty was tuned so that internal testers win roughly 60 to 70 percent of the time. The team left room for DLC, including additional playable characters and card types, contingent on sales performance. The game is Hobby Japan's first self-published digital title, and the company selected Queen's Blade as the launch IP because of its established audience for content featuring attractive female characters.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.