Dice Throne Is Officially Entering A New Era With SAGAS: The Crimson Code (Exclusive)

A sleek comic book board and tightened dice combat invite newcomers and veterans into fast, tactical VR skirmishes.

Published Oct 9, 2026, 11:01 AM EDT

Ewan is Deputy Editor for ScreenRant's gaming section. He still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase, and knows more about The Legend of Zelda and Doctor Who than is probably healthy.

Ewan oversees the content operation of ScreenRant's gaming output, working with a talented team of writers and editors to cover everything from the latest GTA 6 news to the indie games you need on your radar. 

Former Editor of GAMINGbible, Ewan also has words at Kotaku, Den of Geek, NME, and UNILAD. He's appeared on various podcasts, including VGC's and BBC's Let's Talk About Tech. 

Since 2017, Dice Throne has constantly evolved, grown, and adapted — all while retaining its core sense of identity. This fast-paced, hero-based tabletop game has always been about blending tactical card-based combat with dice rolling, essentially an unlikely blend of Yahtzee and Magic: The Gathering. This is a game where the luck of the dice roll is a huge factor, but your ability to adapt to whatever the dice gives you is just as important.

Over the years, we've seen expansions, new modes, and even tie-ins with licensed properties. Now, ScreenRant can exclusively reveal what might be the most ambitious new Dice Throne line since the game came to life nearly 10 years ago: Dice Throne SAGAS.

Dice Throne SAGAS is a brand-new story-driven experience that aims to take the core Dice Throne gameplay and translate it to an even more focused and fast-paced tabletop game that can be played alone or with up to three friends. SAGAS will officially begin with The Crimson Code, and you can check out a trailer below.

This new story takes place in a futuristic VR realm called the Nexus, where technology, magic, and combat collide. Anyone familiar with Dice Throne Adventures will be aware of The Mad King. The villain has returned in SAGAS, and has swapped magic for the titular Crimson Code, with which he can manipulate the Nexus to shape the VR world to his liking. His goal is to completely take control of this digital universe. Your job is to fight through this corrupted world and put a stop to his nefarious scheme.

Dice Throne SAGAS: The Crimson Code Introduces Four New Heroes

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While you can absolutely bring your existing Heroes over to the Nexus to play with in The Crimson Code, this new adventure introduces four brand-new playable characters with their own unique combat styles and abilities. Let's take a look, shall we?

• Punch-A-Tron 3000: A rogue worker bot powered by a nuclear fuel cell who decided he'd rather box than build. Built for hard labor, Punch-A-Tron has found a much more satisfying use for his fists.
• Snyper: A trick-shot assassin who ricochets bullets off her own deck, turning every shot into an opportunity for a spectacular hit.
• Hacker: A holographic hacker who doesn't just fight with technology, she creates it on the fly, typing malware into existence and infecting opponents with viruses.
• Phantom Runner: A dimensional ghost who moves so quickly that she can phase straight through solid matter, making her nearly impossible to pin down.

The Crimson Code Looks Easy To Pick Up And Play

Having been shown a demo of The Crimson Code in action by CEO Casey Sershon and designer John Heidrich, I'm very happy to report that this looks to be the start of a super exciting new chapter for Dice Throne. The game takes place on a gorgeous new comic book-inspired booklet/game board hybrid that allows players to move through the cyberpunk world, taking on enemies and dealing with various objectives.

To be clear, if you know how to play Dice Throne, SAGAS: The Crimson Code isn't going to come as a huge shock to you. And if you've never played before? It's super easy to pick up. In The Crimson Code, you're tasked with taking out groups of enemies across the Nexus, which you'll do via the classic Dice Throne dice and card combat. Dice rolls dictate what abilities you can use, and it's up to you to balance your rolls with attacks. Do you re-roll for a more powerful attack, knowing you might risk losing the dice you need for a safer move? It's all about risk vs. reward, and making the best use of your Hero's unique abilities.

A universal status effect can have a different effect on each map depending on who you're fighting and what minions you encounter.

One new addition introduced in The Crimson Code has been designed to streamline status effects. Players will now have red bytes and blue bytes, little cube-shaped tokens that take the place of status effects and change every level in unexpected ways.

"In the past, you would have a whole list of status effects," John explains. "You know, there'd be like 20 different status effects, and you had like 10 pieces of cardboard. So here we did simplify it."

Casey adds: "That was a really brilliant solution from the design team, where a universal status effect can have a different effect on each map depending on who you're fighting and what minions you encounter. So it was a pretty efficient design solution to still have a lot of variety and fun."

As you move around the game board defeating enemies to complete the objective, you'll gain XP. Once you get 10, you can level up to pull new cards with their own buffs, be they passive upgrades or new attacks. After you've completed the objective, you turn the page, which will take you to the next act. There are five acts in total, including boss battles with particularly tough enemies. And that's pretty much it! It's simple, easy to pick up, and looks like a blast.

A Blend Of Old And New

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"We learned a lot of things from Adventures and Marvel Missions," John tells me. "We took a bunch of ideas that were in those expansions, amalgamated them and kind of made them better. In Adventures, we had minions that were differently shaped, like they have a different shaped card, but they have similar effects. They have a single-minded focus. What they were rolling for, they had defenses that they would roll for and activate, but it just extended the game a little longer. So we've quickened that process in SAGAS."

John adds that this streamlining extends to the boss fights in SAGAS, which serve as a blend between the large-scale encounters in both Adventures and Missions. "This one is actually more similar to what we have in our Missions product, which has a descending roll objective," he says. "A lot of it is just like taking ideas from our past products, yeah, and using the dice swim system and just making it combine them all together, making them easy to quick and easy and everything."

While The Crimson Code might follow a set story, it definitely lends itself to being replayed again and again. Obviously, RNG plays a big role here, but there's a lot more to it than that.

"This is, I think, the beauty of the game: You have infinite outcomes," says Casey. "While there is consistency and control put in, no matter what way you're playing, there's always variability. And when you roll the dice, you can't control that outcome, and that's a big part of The Mad King story. His desire is to understand the difference between fate and chance, and he actually, in our story, created dice as a tool to determine that... which is funny, because if you do a Google search on where dice originated, there isn't an answer to that."

"They existed before recorded history. So what we have done is use Dice Throne to tell you the story of how dice were created. But I think that's what people really love about it. You can be excellent at the game. You can have excellent strategy, and once in a while, game's going to throw you a curveball. And so between your dice rolls, between what minions you face, as John said, between what hero you're using or group of heroes. If you're playing cooperatively, the ingredients are always going to change up on you."

Dice Throne: SAGAS The Crimson Code will officially come to Kickstarter on October 13, and it looks to me like this could be the start of a fantastic new era for the tabletop RPG.

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