The shared engine
All three modes use the same bones: a linear board you traverse, skill-based mini-games for movement and combat, a boss at the end of each stage that rewards a permanent card, and a roguelike structure where death sends you back to the start. Your card collection and meta upgrades (purchased with soul stones) carry across all three. What changes is the theme, the stat you manage, the feel of the events, and the type of challenge the bosses pose.
Concretely, the shared systems include the Demon Duel movement games, the crisis/combo mechanics (3/5/7-streak bonuses and the +30% crisis reward), the Critical/Fumble dice rules (a natural 6 plus a win doubles healing, a natural 1 plus a loss doubles damage), the consumable inventory, the Soul Merchant shop, and the five meta upgrades (HP Boost, Dice Stabilizer, Starting Consumable, Starlight Box Quality, Blessing of Revival). If you learn these once in Inferno, you do not have to relearn them in Purgatorio or Paradiso — you only have to learn what each realm layers on top.
Inferno — survival and power
Inferno is the foundation and the recommended starting point. The board is the 9 Circles of Hell, each 12 tiles long (five monster tiles, a midway event, five more monster tiles, a second event, then the gatekeeper), with a gatekeeper boss at the end. You start at the bottom (Circle 9, Cocytus) and ascend to Circle 1, where beating the Shadow of Virgil escapes Hell. The core loop is the Demon Duel — fifteen rotating skill mini-games that decide movement — followed by monster fights, events, and gatekeeper battles.
The stat you manage is HP. Combat is frequent and punishing, elite monsters hit hard, and the crisis zone (HP at or below 25%) is a constant threat. The reward cards are the nine guardian cards, which stack into the builds described in the Guardian Cards guide. The tone is gothic survival horror, and the difficulty curve rewards learning the mini-games. Roughly 15–25 minutes per clear.
Inferno’s identity is pressure. Because every tile can hurt you and the only resource is HP, the mode forces you to make micro-decisions every turn: fight the elite for triple HP, or play safe and route around it? Spin the Wheel of Desire for a possible jackpot, or walk past? Take the cursed-altar card for immediate power, or stay clean? These decisions compound, and a run that makes consistently good micro-decisions will finish far stronger than one that plays on autopilot.
Purgatorio — virtue and choice
Purgatorio unlocks after you clear Inferno. The board is the 7 Terraces of Mount Purgatory, each 8 tiles long, each themed on one of the seven deadly sins in order: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, and Lust. You climb from Terrace 1 (Pride) to Terrace 7 (Lust), and beating the Angel of Purity on the seventh terrace reunites you with Beatrice in the Earthly Paradise. The direction flips from Inferno: you climb up rather than escape up.
The defining feature is the Sin Projection. Instead of pure combat monsters, Purgatorio tiles present moral-choice dilemmas tied to the terrace’s sin — the Stone Giant asks what your heaviest burden is, the Serpent of Envy tempts you to steal another soul’s light, the Tempest of Rage tests whether you can find stillness, the Gold Worm on the Greed terrace offers wealth that bites if you clench your fist. Each choice has an outcome that affects HP, a new stat called virtue, and movement (some choices grant +3 tiles, others cost −4). The terrace itself adds an environmental effect: on Pride a failed choice lowers your D6, on Wrath a rage gauge escalates with each failure, on Greed rewards are doubled or zeroed, on Lust the choice difficulty is at its maximum.
Bosses are the seven Angel Guardians, each with a signature trial that matches its sin: the Angel of Humility uses an O/X quiz that widens the green zone on correct answers, the Angel of Mercy is a card-match among six cards with two tries, the Angel of Gentleness runs a timing slider with 30% obscured by smoke, the Angel of Zeal demands 30 taps in 8 seconds, the Angel of Poverty offers a safe-versus-gamble choice (80% safe vs 40% for a 4× payout), the Angel of Temperance is a 3-of-5 quiz, and the Angel of Purity is a two-stage timing trial with a reverse slider that gates the Earthly Paradise.
Reward cards are the seven purification cards. Several directly support this mode’s choice system: the Eye of Mercy (from the Angel of Mercy) negates bad choice outcomes 50% of the time and immunises you to trap damage, the Breath of Gentleness (from the Angel of Gentleness) boosts virtue gains by 50% and immunises you to wrath-event damage, the Hand of Poverty (from the Angel of Poverty) gives D6 +2 when you are at half HP and +50% to choice rewards, and the Kiss of Temperance doubles all healing and previews choice outcomes. The Flame of Purity, the final reward, doubles all purification effects. The Inquisitor’s Lantern guardian carried over from Inferno is quietly excellent here because of its trial-success bonus.
Paradiso — grace and ascension
Paradiso unlocks after Purgatorio. The board is the 9 Spheres — Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, and the Primum Mobile — each 10 tiles long. You ascend from Sphere 1 to Sphere 9, and reaching the Empyrean completes the trilogy. The aesthetic shifts to light: silver mist, crystal palaces, rose-petal skies, radiant nebulae. Each sphere is also themed on a virtue — Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom, Courage, Justice, Contemplation, Hope & Faith, and the Angelic Orders.
The stat you manage is grace. Grace is accumulated from light spirits on the tiles (each sphere has a tier-A spirit granting 3–8 grace and a tier-B spirit granting 7–16 grace, with the higher spheres paying more) and from events, and it is the currency that lets you pass the archangel trials and claim relics. Each of the 9 archangels runs a signature trial: Gabriel and Raphael test lore with O/X quizzes (2 of 3 correct), Uriel and Michael demand two consecutive golden-slider timings, Samael requires 25 taps in 8 seconds, Zadkiel offers a justice choice (a safe guaranteed +10 versus a fair 50/50 for +20), Cassiel quizzes on contemplation (3 of 4 correct), Sandalphon uses two consecutive reverse sliders, and Metatron’s final ascension combines a quiz, a timing, and a 15-tap challenge that all must succeed.
Reward cards are the nine celestial relics. They lean toward grace and information: the Lunar Chalice (Sphere 1) grants +1 grace every turn, the Compass of Hope (Sphere 2) lets you adjust your position by ±2 tiles, the Rosary of Love (Sphere 3) raises grace gains by 50%, the Prism of Wisdom (Sphere 4) reveals all trial hints, the Sword of Valor (Sphere 5) raises the 3D4 minimum by 1, the Balance of Justice (Sphere 6) has a 50% chance to negate bad outcomes, the Censer of Meditation (Sphere 7) grants +10 grace when you rest a turn, the Mantle of Stars (Sphere 8) raises the grace cap from 100 to 150, and the Key of Light (Sphere 9) opens the Empyrean gate. Paradiso is the gentlest mode on HP but the strictest on consistency — the multi-stage archangel trials punish a single miss.
Paradiso’s identity is momentum. Because grace compounds (the Rosary and Mantle multiply and raise the cap), a run that accumulates early relics smoothly snowballs, while a run that stalls on an early trial can fall behind the grace curve and struggle to pay for later ones. The mode rewards steady, consistent execution more than bursts of brilliance.
Side-by-side comparison
A quick reference for how the three realms line up, with the concrete numbers.
- Board size: Inferno — 9 Circles × 12 tiles (108 tiles, ascend to escape). Purgatorio — 7 Terraces × 8 tiles (56 tiles, climb to purify). Paradiso — 9 Spheres × 10 tiles (90 tiles, ascend to unite with the light). Inferno is the longest, Purgatorio the shortest.
- Core stat: Inferno manages HP. Purgatorio adds virtue alongside HP. Paradiso manages grace (with a cap of 100, raised to 150 by the Mantle of Stars) while HP stays relevant.
- Movement: Inferno uses the fifteen Demon Duel skill mini-games for movement. Purgatorio and Paradiso use dice-based movement modified by terrace effects and relics (e.g. Pride lowers your die on failed choices; relics like the Compass of Hope let you adjust position).
- Boss style: Inferno gatekeepers each use a unique skill mini-game (timing, card-match, rapid-tap, quiz, choice, multitap, and a final combined trial). Purgatorio’s seven Angel Guardians use themed trials matched to their sin. Paradiso’s nine archangels run multi-stage trials that demand consistency (Metatron’s final trial is quiz + timing + tap, all must succeed).
- Reward cards: 9 guardians (Inferno), 7 purifications (Purgatorio), 9 relics (Paradiso) — 25 collectible cards across the trilogy, plus shared consumables and curses.
- Difficulty feel: Inferno is the hardest on resources (HP is the only stat and everything costs it). Purgatorio is the hardest on judgement (most tiles are non-combat dilemmas with multi-axis outcomes). Paradiso is the hardest on execution (multi-stage trials punish any single miss).
- Dice rules: Inferno uses a single D6 for combat, modified by the crisis bonus (+30% rewards at low HP) and Critical/Fumble on natural 6/1. Purgatorio keeps the D6 but adds terrace die-modifiers. Paradiso uses a 3D4 for some trials, modified by relics like the Sword of Valor (+1 minimum) and the Light of Martyr spirit (+1 minimum).
- Clear time: roughly 15–25 minutes per realm.
Which mode to play first
Play them in unlock order: Inferno, then Purgatorio, then Paradiso. This is not just gating — it is the intended learning curve. Inferno teaches the mini-games, the feel of combat, HP discipline, and how guardian cards combine. Purgatorio then builds on those habits by adding moral choices and a new stat, and its purification cards synergise with guardian cards you already understand (the Inquisitor’s Lantern’s trial bonus, for example, is a quiet standout in Purgatorio). Paradiso rewards the full toolkit; going in cold would mean facing multi-stage archangel trials without the card literacy the first two modes teach.
If you are returning after a break and want a gentler session, Paradiso is the most forgiving on HP — combat is rare and grace is generous. If you want to test your judgement, Purgatorio’s sin projections are the most interesting decisions in the game, because every choice trades between HP, virtue, and movement. And if you want the pure roguelike pressure that defined Abyssos at launch, Inferno remains the mode that punishes mistakes the hardest.
A note on crossover planning: because guardian cards carry into the other realms, an Inferno run built with the trilogy in mind is meaningfully stronger than one built in isolation. Value guardians that translate — information (Inquisitor’s Lantern), consistency (Collar of Cerberus, Grace of the Storm), and crisis recovery (Blessing of Blood, Heart of the Ice Goliath) — over Inferno-only damage. Those four guardians will quietly carry weight all the way through Paradiso.
After the trilogy
Clearing all three realms unlocks New Game+, where monsters have +2 power and rewards are 1.5×, and the hidden Abyss Challenge against Corrupted Virgil. New Game+ is the mode that rewards everything you have learned: the same boards, but with tighter margins that expose any habit you got away with the first time. The Corrupted Virgil fight at the end is the hardest single encounter in the game and the true skill check.
The meta upgrade system (soul stones spent on HP Boost at 5 stones per level for +10 Max HP, Dice Stabilizer at 10 stones per level for +1 minimum die, Starting Consumable at 8 stones, Starlight Box Quality at 12 stones, and Blessing of Revival at 30 stones for a one-time respawn) is what turns a first clear into a reliable one, so spend between runs rather than hoarding. HP Boost and Blessing of Revival are the two highest-impact purchases for players pushing toward a full trilogy clear, because they directly address the two most common death causes (chip damage and single-Fumble spikes).
The trilogy is designed to be replayed — the card pool, event order, and boss mini-games keep each run meaningfully different, and the meta upgrades compound so that run 20 is noticeably smoother than run 1. Even after a full clear, there is usually a faster, cleaner, higher-combo line of play to find, which is what keeps the loop worth coming back to.