Every step forward in Emptiness Sire gives the enemy a chance to respond. Brazilian indie developer Oaks Games Studio and co-publisher Bright Gambit have announced that the turn-based tactical puzzle adventure will launch on Steam on Tuesday 12 January 2027, and a new demo is available to play now.
The game combines grid-based puzzles with a cosmic horror story, and has players coordinating a squad of three survivors: the Knight, the Explorer and the Guardian. Each move is followed by the enemies’ turn, so players need to read enemy patterns and work out the right sequence of actions using the Knight’s sword, the Explorer’s flute and the Guardian’s directional shield. Positioning matters, and one wrong move can ruin the squad, but an unlimited undo feature lets players step back and try a different approach without restarting the whole puzzle. There are no turn timers or random elements.
The developers point to Into the Breach, Lara Croft GO and The Last Campfire as reference points, describing a mix of deterministic squad-based strategy, step-by-step handcrafted puzzles and a quiet, melancholic narrative set in a world of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
Emptiness Sire features more than 160 handcrafted puzzles across four corrupted worlds, ranging from acid deserts to cultist ruins. It has been in development for two years by a 10-person team in Brazil, and was named a finalist in two categories, Best Brazilian Game and Best Casual Game, at BIG Festival 2026 (Gamescom Latam).
Gabriel, Game Director at Oaks Games Studio, spoke about the effort the team has put into its first commercial release.
For our first commercial game, we poured our hearts into every aspect of the experience, always prioritizing quality and how players would feel at every step of their journey. Two years of work and the result is a game with 160+ tactical puzzles, hand-crafted art and gameplay systems that we’re incredibly proud of.
The demo for Emptiness Sire can be played now, and the game can be wishlisted on Steam.
