Summary
Roguelikegames have had multiple golden ages and produced some of the best games in the genre. While they aren’t exclusively indie games, roguelikes have pushed the indie gaming industry a bit more into the spotlight than it might have otherwise.
Relying on randomized gameplay elements, permadeath (or something very much like it), and player-controlled character upgrading, roguelikes are easy to pick up and less easy to put down. For most roguelikes, no one run is a significant time investment, meaning it’s very easy to see the fruits of your labor quickly and ensure you want to do just one more run.
One of the most popular roguelikes of the last decade, Enter The Gungeon sees you gathering an arsenal of new weapons to fire your way through a sprawling labyrinth, each floor ending in a new boss.
With one of the most charming art styles of all of the games on this list, Enter The Gungeon might not be the most complex roguelike out there, but there’s still a lot of meat on the bone. The intricacies of the Gungeon slowly reveal themselves to you, and your twentieth run is going to be a lot different than your first.
Risk Of Rainand its sequel, Risk Of Rain 2, are some of the more complex games on this list when it comes to building your character throughout a run. While the first Risk Of Rain is a platform game and the second a third-person shooter, they have a lot of intersecting elements, making them clearly part of the same franchise.
Runs in Risk Of Rain can be some of the longer runs of all of the games on this list, with length largely determined by how long it takes you to perish. It makes runs more intense, and a bit more fun, the longer they go, and each decision a bit more momentous. There areplenty of charactersto unlock that play wildly differently, giving the game a ton of replay value.
A DLC for the criminally underratedPrey, Mooncrash can be played standalone and doesn’t necessarily require any knowledge of the game proper to play. The only FPS on this list, Mooncrash remixes a lot of the elements from Prey, and utilizes a kind of Live, Die, Repeat setting for the roguelite element.
Mooncrash is also one of the only examples of a triple-A developer delving into the roguelike genre. Arkane did a great job with both Mooncrash and Prey in general, as they’ve done with more or less everything else they’ve worked on.
One of the deck-building subgenres of roguelike’s Slay The Spire brings turn-based gameplay back to the roguelike space. One of the most popular games in the genre, Slay The Spire has an extremely satisfying gameplay loop, with the benefits of your build being supremely obvious because of the deck-building element.
Stretched across different characters who all have their own unique mechanics, there’s a lot to get through in Slay The Spire, and it can keep you playing for a long, long time to come.
While definitely not the first roguelike, few have amassed the popularity that The Binding Of Isaac has achieved. With multiple re-releases that refreshed the game each time, Isaac has a depth to its gameplay that exceeds many others, not just in the roguelike space but in gaming in general.
Isaac has a ton of different characters to play, which will change the game pretty dramatically, and a wild amount of different items that not only have their own unique mechanics but can interact in unique ways in combination with other items. It’s a game where no two runs are going to be the same.
Balatro joins Slay The Spire as a Deckbuilding roguelike, though Balatro has another wrinkle to its gameplay: it’s a poker-themed, deckbuilding roguelike, making it a roguelike the likes of which that world had not seen previously.
Just like Slay The Spire, Balatro is an extremely satisfying time to play due to the deck-building elements. There are a plethora ofdifficult challenges to pursue, some of which are going to take quite a while to pull off, making Balatro one of those games you can play for dozens upon dozens of hours.
A Metroidvania-flavored roguelite, Dead Cells is a platformer unlike any other. While Dead Cells does feature permadeath, it also features a permanent upgrade system that carries through between runs, making it roguelite as opposed to roguelike.
With cool procedurally generated levels containing weapons and tools to use on your run, Dead Cells has a very fun-to-explore world. The gameplay is satisfying, and for those who don’t like starting from ground zero every run, the permanent upgrades are there to hold your hand just a little bit.
What is possibly the most brutal roguelike ever created, Spelunky can go from a great run to a dead run in absolutely no time at all, with just the most minor of mistakes. There is a real discipline that is required to do well in Spelunky, or its sequel, due to the extremely unforgiving mechanics.
Though things can go from very great to very not great in no time flat, the ways in which you end up dying in Spelunky are often so ridiculous that it’s pretty easy to avoid being enraged by your deaths.
Probably the most out-of-the-mold game on this list, Darkest Dungeon is avery challenging game. This roguelike has you gathering a group of travelers and dungeon delvers for runs through monster-infected dungeons, where the penalty for failure is oftentimes permissible for the characters involved.
While characters might die, the campaign does continue, adding a very interesting metagame mechanic that other roguelikes don’t always have. It can be heartbreaking to lose a character you’ve grown attached to, but don’t worry! you’re able to always visit their grave.
Hades is not just one of the best roguelites ever released, but one of the best games ever released, period. With an impressive art style, fun gameplay, great writing, and a fantastic sequel, Hades is undoubtedly one of the best roguelites to pick up.
It’s not often a roguelike hits you with a brilliant and emotionally-told story. Hades has that in spades, but it doesn’t detract from the gameplay in the least. It’s a perfect blend of a lot of different things, all working together like a symphony, and it’s well worth the investment.
