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The Black Pool

The Black Pool

In the forest outside of town, four friends discover a mysterious black pool that transports them to an unknown world. To fight their way home, they must unlock and master supernatural abilities. Play cooperative or solo in this high-paced action game of skill that varies each session.

Released Jun 19, 2024 Developer Smug Marmot Studios Platforms Windows Action RoguelikeRogue-liteCo-opRogue-likeCo-op Campaign
View on Steam ↗ $7.99 (US · as of 2026-05-18)

What players say

Steam review score and the most-helpful voices, which may include critical ones. Score via Steam as of 2026-09-26.

85.3%positive129 reviews
Recommended · 0 found this helpful

“Fun little co-op game where you use elemental attacks to take out large robotic looking enemies. Not the smoothest gameplay though as there is some SERIOUS input lag. I've had attacks not fire right away when pressing the mouse buttons and no amount of tweaking the sensitivity…”

— a player, Steam review · 37 hrs played
Recommended · 0 found this helpful

“The slop mines are lush, 0/10 game 10/10 time”

— a player, Steam review · 1 hrs played
Not recommended · 1 found this helpful

“Looks super promising but it's unplayable in its current state. Two major issues: 1. Even with the gamma at 100 in settings, it's extremely difficult to see where things are. 2. Massive input lag. Both keyboard and mouse have something like a 500ms delay before responding, which…”

— a player, Steam review · 0 hrs played
Read more reviews ↗

Player activity

Monthly average concurrent players. History through 2025-07 via SteamCharts; self-collected from the Steam API since Aug 2026.

29all-time peak
0 5 10 2025 No data collected for this period 7 avg · Jun 2024

Achievement stats

Global completion rates across all Steam players — a data view of how far people actually get. Source: Steam official stats · as of 2026-09-26.

42achievements
1.0%median completion
0.1%rarest: Complete challenge level 8 playthrough
91.1% of players 87.9% of players 72.9% of players 57.1% of players 54.7% of players 51.6% of players 49.8% of players 47.0% of players 45.9% of players 45.0% of players 44.2% of players 44.2% of players 32.4% of players 26.7% of players 24.1% of players 21.9% of players 18.3% of players 12.8% of players 7.1% of players 4.2% of players 2.8% of players 1.0% of players 0.8% of players 0.7% of players 0.6% of players 0.5% of players 0.4% of players 0.4% of players 0.4% of players 0.3% of players 0.3% of players 0.2% of players 0.2% of players 0.2% of players 0.2% of players 0.2% of players 0.2% of players 0.1% of players 0.1% of players 0.1% of players 0.1% of players 0.1% of players 91.1% 0% most earned rarest
Almost everyone has
91.1%Complete a level — Complete a single level in a playthrough attempt.
87.9%Complete multiple levels — Complete a multiple levels in a playthrough attempt.
72.9%Complete Molten Pillars — Complete the Molten Pillars world in a playthrough attempt.
Rarest badges of honor
0.1%Complete challenge level 8 playthrough — Complete a playthrough attempt on challenge level 8 difficulty.
0.1%Complete challenge level 7 playthrough — Complete a playthrough attempt on challenge level 7 difficulty.
0.1%Complete challenge level 12 playthrough — Complete a playthrough attempt on challenge level 12 difficulty.

Latest official news

Developer announcements via the Steam news API — links go to the original posts. More across all games on the news hub.

Oct 04, 2025
PATCH 1.5 - SHARPER HORIZONS

NEW ARENA: JAGGED PEAKS Prepare to face off in a brand new arena with combat progressing over six varied zones. PERFORMANCE AND FIDELITY This patch delivers a massive leap in visual fidelity, featurin

Apr 04, 2025
The Black Pool Soundtrack Releases May 21st!

UPDATE: The Black Pool Soundtrack by Angles and Under Sanction is now available on Spotify , Apple Music , and all other major streaming services. LISTEN TO SUIT UP AND STARECASE Stream the singles Su

Feb 04, 2025
PATCH 1.4 - THE SLASHER

NEW ENEMY: SLASHER A new enemy is on the prowl. Beware, they like to get up close and personal. ADDITIONAL FLUX EVENTS Additional common flux events have been added, increasing variety. ELEMENT GUIDE

Nov 29, 2024
PATCH 1.3 - SPEED AND PERFORMANCE

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS The Black Pool patch 1.3 brings many performance improvements. Following the last big content patch, we devoted substantial time to evaluate and tune both CPU and GPU performa

Oct 23, 2024
PATCH 1.2 - ARENA SURVIVORS

NEW GAME MODE: ARENA SURVIVORS The Black Pool patch 1.2 introduces an entirely new game mode: Arena Survivors— a fast and intense battle arena featuring rapid progression and randomized waves of incre

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Screenshots

Official Steam store screenshots — click any shot to enlarge.

Facts & details

From the Steam store record, snapshot 2026-09-26.

GenresAction, Adventure, Indie, RPG
Player tagsAction Roguelike · Rogue-lite · Co-op · Rogue-like · Co-op Campaign · PvE · RPG · Sci-fi · Procedural Generation · 3D · Controller · Action (SteamSpy community voting)
FeaturesSingle-player · Multi-player · Co-op · Online Co-op · LAN Co-op · Steam Achievements · Full controller support · Steam Cloud
LanguagesEnglish * , Spanish - Spain * , Spanish - Latin America * , French * , German * , Japanese * , Russian * , Simplified Chinese * *
ControllerFull support
Achievements42
Official sitehttps://smugmarmot.com/
Minimum system requirements (PC)

Minimum: OS: Windows 10 Processor: Intel Core i5-7600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Memory: 8 GB RAM Graphics: Nvidia GTX 1060 or AMD RX 570 Storage: 21 GB available space