Verdict: Slay the Spire is a deckbuilding climb up a monster-filled tower. The four playable characters are a man, two women and a robot. Nothing in the cards, events or credits is a queer relationship, a they/them identity, an anti-capitalist lecture or a caricature of a real politician. Mega Crit did not hire a sensitivity consultant for this game. That credit appears on the sequel, which has its own page.

Woke Score: 0/100. Every line below was checked. None of them scores.

Woke Score graphic

This is the standing page for Slay the Spire (Mega Crit). Early access began in November 2017. Version 1.0 shipped on 23 January 2019 for PC. Consoles followed in 2019, iOS in 2020 and Android in 2021. The Watcher joined in 2020. New evidence gets merged here; the URL stays fixed. The sequel is Slay the Spire 2.

How the score breaks down

Scored against our How we score rules:

• Characters and pronouns: 0. Mega Crit’s own Neowsletter (August and October 2025) refers to the Ironclad as “his” and the Watcher as “her” when a reader asks if they have real names. Anthony Giovannetti’s answer is that they do not. PC Gamer (2020) calls the Watcher a blind ascetic who climbs “so she can evaluate” the tower. The Silent is drawn and described throughout as a woman; we found no official they/them line for her. The Defect is a construct. Fan jokes that it is non-binary are jokes. We found no developer statement, no romance, and no identity speech for any of the four.
• Politics in the text: 0. The lore is a dark-fantasy loop. The Cursed Tome says Neow, an exiled Ancient, resurrects outsiders who “remember only fragments of their past selves, cursed to fight for eternity.” Cultists, a corrupt heart and a whale at the bottom of the tower are the story. That is not an anti-capitalist moral, not a white-supremacist joke, and not a parody of a living politician. We found no card or event that is.
• Women (rule E): 0. The Silent and the Watcher are a fantasy assassin and a fantasy monk. Strong women in that register are neutral.
• Consultancy (rule A): none on this game. The Windows credits on MobyGames (46 people) are Giovannetti, Casey Yano, art, audio, playtesters and a short thanks list. No sensitivity reader, no Sweet Baby Inc., no Anita Sarkeesian. She is credited on the sequel only.
• Track record (rule B): not applied. This is the studio’s first game in the series. The sequel’s consultant does not get charged to the 2019 release.
• Remake rule (rule C): doesn’t apply.
• Press (rule D): not applied. We found no progressive-press campaign against the game. Reviews argued about balance and difficulty.
• Ports: 0. We found no report that the console, iOS or Android versions rewrote text or removed content for politics. China was a large part of sales after a Chinese streamer picked the game up (Casey Yano to VentureBeat, as relayed in later coverage). That is an audience, not a censored build.

Total: 0. Every line above scores zero.

Confirmed findings

• Who made it: Anthony Giovannetti and Casey Yano, as Mega Crit. They design it and publish it on Steam. Humble Monthly carried a copy. Humble is not the studio that wrote the cards.
• The cast: Ironclad (he), Silent (woman, no pronoun essay), Defect (robot), Watcher (she, added 2020). No canon personal names, per Giovannetti.
• What the text is actually about: Neow uses the climbers. The Heart is the tower’s core. Memory is wiped on death. That is the lore, and it stays inside the fantasy.

Checked and not confirmed (or ruled out)

Talking point	Finding
Any climber is written as non-binary or they/them	Not found. Official copy uses he for the Ironclad and she for the Watcher.
A queer romance or bisexual subplot	Not found. There is no relationship system.
Political cards, anti-capitalist events, or a politician caricature	Not found.
Sarkeesian or Sweet Baby on this game	Ruled out. Not in the 2017/2019 credits.
China, Japan or mobile builds cut content	Nothing found.
Mod drama adopted into the official game	Nothing found.

Cleanest version and regional notes

Play the current PC version on Steam, or the console and mobile ports. We found no cleaner or dirtier edition. The text is the same fantasy either way.

DEI Detector scorecard

Signal	Present?
Queer, bisexual or trans writing	Not found
They/them or identity speech	Not found
Anti-capitalist or anti-politician moral	Not found
Girlboss writing (rule E)	Not found
Sensitivity consultancy (rule A)	Not found
Regional or mobile censorship	Not found
Progressive-press attack (rule D)	Not found

Open to update

This page will be revisited if a card, event or patch adds identity writing, or if a credit for a sensitivity reader turns up on this game rather than the sequel.

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Sources: Mega Crit Neowsletter, August 2025 and October 2025 (Giovannetti and Yano on names and pronouns); PC Gamer on the Watcher beta (2020); Slay the Spire wiki, Cursed Tome event text; MobyGames Windows credits for Slay the Spire (2017 entry, 46 people); Steam and Mega Crit for release dates; later VentureBeat reporting, via coverage of Yano, on the Chinese audience after launch. The sequel’s consultant is documented on that page, not this one.