Shadow Dungeon Demo

Yes — Shadow Dungeon has a free demo, and it is a separate Steam application (app 4563350) rather than a downloadable slice of the main game. SteamDB records its store release as April 14, 2026, weeks before the full game launched on August 26. The demo's job is narrow and useful: let you play all four classes and decide which one you want to spend 30–50 hours on before paying for the full release.

This page covers what the demo contains, how it differs from the 1.0 release, and the one question everyone asks — whether progress carries over — answered exactly as far as official sources go.

What the demo is

The demo is free — Steam's packaging data labels it "Free on Demand" — runs on Windows, and lives in its own store entry beside the paid game. Its recorded history is short: SteamDB first saw it in a changelist on March 27, 2026, it went live on April 14, and its last public build is dated May 19, 2026. The depot data shows a Windows build of roughly 5.93 GiB with cloud-saves support — a substantial client, not aslim teaser.

It was updated once in a major way: version 0.4.0 on May 2, 2026, announced as adding a new chapter, 10 bosses, and 30 levels, and completing localization for all 24 languages. After 0.4.0, fan wikis following the developer's posts report that the demo would receive no further major updates so work could focus on the full release — which is exactly what happened next.

In content terms the demo is a snapshot of the game as it stood in spring 2026. Steam community players posting in May described it generously — one player with nine hours in called it "quite big in terms of content and offers the first 3 acts free" — but that phrasing is a player measurement, not an official spec. The store publishes no exact content list for the demo, so claims about its precise boundaries stay attributed to the players who tested it.

Demo vs the full game

The differences are about version and scope, not class availability. All four classes are playable in the demo; what differs is everything the 1.0 release changed around them. The full game rebalanced the entire campaign to roughly 30–50 hours across seven chapters and 160+ maps, tied monster levels and drops to each map, added over 1,000 weapon affixes and 2,400 weapon-granted skills, and set the level curve to end near 100 — where Paragon progression and the four-difficulty Greater Rifts endgame take over. The demo's older slice contains none of that post-story layer.

	Demo (app 4563350)	Full game (app 4423580)
Price	Free	$9.99 (10% launch discount to $8.99 until September 9, 2026)
Released	April 14, 2026	August 26, 2026
Last update	0.4.0, May 2, 2026	1.0 at launch; patch 1.0.1 on August 27, 2026 per fan-tracked notes
Classes	All four	All four
Content	Older slice of the campaign	Full 7-chapter campaign, 160+ maps, 60+ bosses
Endgame	None	Paragon + Greater Rifts (Normal, Master, Nightmare, Inferno)

One mechanical difference matters beyond the table: the 1.0 release changed equipment affixes, weapon-granted skills, progression, and the endgame relative to the demo era, so a build that dominated the demo may behave differently at 1.0. Treat the demo as a class try-out, not a balance preview — a point fan guides covering both versions make explicitly.

Small quality-of-life notes from demo-era players, for completeness: the loot filter and auto-pickup existed in the demo by mid-May 2026, and one video creator observed the starting-area stash chest linking across characters. Those are demo-era observations; the full game's systems have moved on since.

Does progress carry over?

No official source — store page, launch notes, or developer posts captured in our research — documents save transfer from the demo into the full game, and none promises it. The safe plan is the one fan guides converged on: play the demo to pick a class, then start a fresh save in the 1.0 release. A carried-over character would be mis-tuned anyway, since the demo predates the rebalance of gear and progression.

Class choice is permanent per character — there is no class-change mechanic — which is exactly why the demo matters despite its age. Ten minutes per class converts the best class comparison into a decision you have felt with your own hands, and the classes page gives you the official one-liners to compare against.

Should you play it in 2026?

If you have not bought the game, yes: the demo is the only free way to feel the difference between the Sorcerer's casting, the Holy Warrior's dual blades, the Archer's range, and the Necromancer's summons. If you already own the full game, the demo has little to offer — its content is older and smaller than what you own.

For scale, SteamDB recorded the demo's all-time peak at 1,293 concurrent players on August 26, 2026 — the day the full game launched. For the paid game itself — content, price, and what reviews say — continue to game info, the review hub, and the release date page for version status.

The demo's patch record

The demo's short life is fully documented in platform data, and it is worth laying out because it explains the demo's age. SteamDB first caught the client on March 27, 2026; the store release followed on April 14; the last public build is dated May 19, 2026. Between release and freeze, one major update landed: version 0.4.0 on May 2, 2026, with a new chapter, 10 bosses, 30 levels, and the completion of 24-language localization. That localization figure matters — it is why the demo reached more languages at freeze than many full games ship with.

The freeze itself is fan-documented rather than captured from a direct developer post in our research: fan wikis following the news report that OO Cat announced no further major demo updates, with work moving to the full release. The full game then absorbed and rebuilt what the demo taught — the 1.0 notes describe a campaign rebalance, map-tied drops, over 1,000 weapon affixes, 2,400 weapon-granted skills, and the Greater Rifts endgame that the demo's older slice never contained.

What demo players said

The demo period's player record is thin but consistent, and it is the closest thing to hands-on impressions that predates the paid game. The most detailed community report came from a player nine hours in, in May 2026: "The demo is quite big in terms of content and offers the first 3 acts free", with bosses described as fun to fight and kite around. The same threads praised the loot filter and auto-pickup that had arrived by mid-May, while criticizing hero attack animations, similar-looking tile sets, and thin lore — critiques the full game's reviews would revisit with mixed verdicts.

Video creators documented the demo too, including one noting a starting-area stash chest that linked across characters — a small quality-of-life detail from the demo era whose status in 1.0 is not officially documented. All of these are player and creator observations, not official specifications; they are recorded here because the demo's own store page publishes no content list to check them against. For the full game that superseded the demo, game info holds the facts and review holds the verdicts.