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The roguelike and roguelite genres have been a staple of gaming in recent years. Many popular titles, from large AAA publishers to small indie developers, have contributed to the evolution of the genre, and with games such as Hades 2 released in early access, the hype for the compelling play style offered by these games is at an all-time high.
Whileroguelike is an umbrella term given to most of these games and often used interchangeably with its subgenre, roguelite, there is a clear distinction between the two genres. Most of the games we know as roguelikes in modern titles are likely roguelites. So, what are the distinguishing criteria between the two?
What Are Roguelikes?
While a clear definition might not be important to the players, a favorite pastime of many gamers and nerds is being pedantic and hitting our friends with the dreaded “Um, Actually…”.
The defining criteria of a roguelike was established by a development conference back in 2008, known as the Berlin Interpretation. This interpretation requires eight design principles for a game to be considered roguelike:
While many games share some of these design principles, to be considered roguelike on a technical level, a game must include all the criteria listed above. That is why most of the games we know today as roguelikes, are actually roguelites, and games that are considered roguelike by the Berlin Interpretation, such as Dungeons of Dredmor or Tales of Maj’Eyal, are also referred to as traditional roguelikes.
A common misconception about the difference between roguelikes and roguelites is that in roguelikes you don’t keep any progression between deaths, but in roguelites, you do keep some form of progression and get stronger the more you play. While this is true, it’s not the only thing that separates the two genres.
What Are Roguelites?
By definition, if a game only has some of the design principles of roguelikes combined with design elements from other genres, they are called roguelites.
Thereal-time action of HadesandReturnal, the card-based combat ofSlay the Spireand Griftlands, and the poker-inspired gameplay ofBalatro, to name a few, have created brilliant combinations of roguelike elements and brought excitement and innovation into the roguelite subgenre.
The first two design elements, random environment generation and permadeath, to an extent, are the most common aspects of popular roguelite games. These are the main ways of creating the replayable cycle that we are fond of in the genre, and the combination of other mechanics gives the subgenre the variety that we see in modern roguelites.
