The roguelike genre, or as people say "bagel", has always been popular with players. It is characterized by a variety of challenges, random situationality, and endless replayability. These games are known for their high complexity, procedural level generation, and permanent character mortality. That is, after the death of a character, the game will start over for you, but you will be able to get certain improvements that make it easier to continue trying to complete the game.
The name of the genre comes from the game Rogue (1980), which laid the foundations: turn-based battles, random dungeons, and character development in each new playthrough. Modern roguelike games have significantly expanded on these ideas, combining them with elements of RPGs, action, platformers, metroidvania, and even card strategies. Despite their complexity, they attract with their dynamics, variety of game situations, and a sense of constant progress even after defeat. By the way, the original Rogue is available on Steam.
In this article, we've collected 10 of the best roguelikes that have become cult and shaped the development of the genre. Get ready for tough challenges, because each of these projects will make you learn from your mistakes and come back again and again!
The Binding of Isaac
Release year 2011
Platforms Windows, OS X, Linux
The game tells the story of a boy Isaac, whose religious mother has gone mad and decided to sacrifice her son. The boy runs away to the basement where he has to defeat monsters to survive. The Binding of Isaac has a very provocative theme and an unusual style. You are literally greeted by a sea of blood, feces, and many very strange monsters. In the story, the initial weapon against them is the tears of little Isaac.
The game's creator, Edmund McMillen, admitted that Isaac's story is largely based on his own experience of a difficult childhood with very religious parents and family members addicted to alcohol and drugs. Constant confrontations with them, as well as a hobby of drawing scary monsters, found their way into one of the most original and shocking games.
The project raises the themes of violence, mental disorders and the search for inner balance. To a certain extent, The Binding of Isaac became a kind of trolling of religion, which is why Nintendo initially did not allow the game to be released on its consoles, but the great popularity made the Japanese change their minds. By the way, the project was originally conceived as a parody of the old parts of The Legend of Zelda, so it has a similar design of rooms with monsters.
In terms of mechanics and interesting game items, The Binding of Isaac has perhaps the greatest depth and capabilities in the genre. There are a total of 547 items in the game that you can pick up and get various improvements with them. These items need to be combined to enhance the effect and there are approximately four hundred and sixty quintillion, or 10 to the 18th power, combos that can be made from them. Some combos are so powerful that they will even make your game crash. You can turn Isaac into an angel or a demon, get laser attacks, hellfire poison, or the ability to fly. In addition to Isaac, 33 other playable characters are available. Additionally, the game has more than 500 types of monsters and 102 bosses. In short, when you start The Binding of Isaac, get ready to spend at least 50 hours of your life to get familiar with the game and decide to go all the way through.
This cult game re-popularized the roguelike genre, and each subsequent project was inspired by its structure, storytelling, and use of objects. If you're not afraid of a creepy story, I advise you to check out this masterpiece!
Enter the Gungeon
Release year 2016
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
I think the game was created by gun fetishists. You arrive at a citadel called Gungeon (literally, "Gun Dungeon") to find a weapon with a timed effect. On the way to the goal, you will be hindered by enemies-pellets and bosses-pellets. You can effectively dispose of your opponents with the help of an impressive arsenal of 200 barrels and various items that give you bonus abilities. In this game, even health indicators in the form of hearts are depicted as ammunition! Boss battles are made in the style of Bullet Hell and will get on your nerves.
Initially, there are 4 characters with different abilities to choose from. I have always liked the Huntress the most because she has a rather powerful auxiliary weapon - a crossbow, and a cool dog that helps to find game secrets.
Enter the Gungeon is an incredibly stylish and exciting game, shooting with new guns is a lot of fun, and the enemies surprise with their variety and complexity. Unlike most games on this list, the game supports cooperative mode, which makes it even more fun. For me personally, this project became one of the first "bagels" and it is still very interesting to return to it, so I recommend starting your acquaintance with the genre with Enter the Gungeon!
Hades
Release year 2020
Platforms Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, iOS
One of the most dynamic games in this genre.
The game tells the story of the son of Hades named Zagrei, who tries to escape from the underworld to find out the truth about his origins. His path runs through four dangerous areas of the realm of the dead, and hordes of enemies and many bosses stand in the way. The character is helped by the Olympic gods: Zeus, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and others. They give Zagrei various abilities that make the gameplay diverse and dynamic.
An important feature of the plot is the dialogues after each unsuccessful attempt by Zagrei to leave the realm of the dead. In particular, you can give the Gods various gifts for which they will definitely reward you. In this regard, the game is very different from other representatives of the genre, because after each attempt you have the feeling that you are still moving on in the story, even when you died very quickly and did not get enough resources to pump.
There are a total of 6 weapons in the game that Zagrei will use to fight his way to freedom, and each has a unique fighting style. I like the spear the most because it's the fastest and allows you to strike the enemy from a greater distance. The battles in Hades are as dynamic and effective as possible, especially when you collect abilities, but you always have room to grow, because the enemies are also becoming more difficult. The game even resembles the old God of War titles with its setting and overhead view. The ability to unlock new weapons and upgrade existing abilities adds depth to the combat system.
The game was developed by Supergiant Games, the creators of Bastion and Transistor, so Hades has a very similar style to them. It includes vivid special effects and fantastic art design. I am very surprised that there is no animated series on Hades yet, it would be very cool.
Hades is a great combination of dynamic and cool action, a deep plot, and a cool character development system. Before you know it, the phrase "one more time" will be said for the tenth time. Last year, the second part, Hades II, was released, but it is still in early access, so it was decided not to include it in this selection.
Dead Cells
Release year 2018
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
In Dead Cells, you control an unnamed creature that consists of a living mass of cells and occupies the bodies of the dead. Your task is to get off the island, which consists of various territories.
The game became a nuclear mix of roguelike and metroidvania and essentially created a new genre of roguevania. Dead Cells combines procedurally generated levels and permanent death from one genre with exploration and action elements from another. By research, we mean abilities. You can learn how to climb walls and open up previously inaccessible areas. Although the game world has a certain structure, Dead Cells skillfully changes the location of enemies, traps, and secrets, so each of your passages remains individual. You can learn the game's plot from the description of objects and various elements of locations, a feature the game copied from Dark Souls.
The graphics are made in detailed pixel art with smooth animation and look very cool and stylish. The game even feels the weight of your weapon, which is very difficult to convey through this type of graphics. And there are a lot of different weapons: swords, bows, shields, grenades.
There's a lot of content in Dead Cells, but if you don't have enough, you can buy all 4 DLCs for the game and significantly increase its amount. There are a lot of people who have played the game for more than 1000 hours, believe me, there is a lot to do in this world! It's worth noting that the authors are constantly collaborating with various indie developers, you can play as the main character of Dead Cells in a fighting game called Brawlout, and a collaboration with Terraria is coming soon.
Dead Cells is an incredible mix of genres that, at first glance, do not go together. But the developers from Motion Twin did it and presented the world with one of the most popular representatives of the genre, which opens up this incredible world of "bagels" for more and more people every day. If you want to get acquainted, then Dead Cells will be a great option!
Darkest Dungeon
Release year 2016
Platforms Windows, macOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, iOS
Once upon a time, the Rogue genre was exclusively turn-based, and Darkest Dungeon is the closest thing to a classic definition.
The essence of the game is that the player controls a group of four mercenaries who go down to the dungeon, destroy monsters and get valuable items. The battles are turn-based and very interesting, because each class (there are 18 of them with all DLC) is unique and has its own set of abilities. It is important, in particular, to assemble your team correctly, because the effectiveness of characters depends on many factors.
For example, the characters fight in a row, one after the other, and some characters are most effective in the front row, some in the back. Enemies can move your characters around, and this sometimes gets on your nerves. Random also adds spice to the game. It would seem that random and roguelike are almost synonymous, but when you have a chance to get the most difficult boss at the very beginning of the game, the concept of "expectation" disappears by itself. You can have a 90% chance of hitting the enemy and miss all the time. Or it can be the other way around. This randomness never lets your brain relax, because it requires you to respond to many unexpected challenges.
Nerves have already been mentioned above and I welcome you to the mental health simulator. You go down into a dark dungeon and this darkness makes your characters literally go crazy, increasing the stress scale. You can avoid this by using torches, but they burn out quickly and your inventory is very limited. And as soon as one of your characters reaches 100 stress points, he or she will in most cases suffer mental disorders. But there is a chance to overcome stress and get a boost. An example of a violation is kleptomania, or your character's insanity, when he can steal the gold you found or deliberately walk into traps, attack his comrades, etc. This creates a lot of crazy situations that you won't see in any other game.
When your stress level reaches 200 or your health drops to zero, your character dies forever. But don't worry, you will regularly be brought new characters to add to your squad. They won't necessarily be your favorite characters, so you'll have to learn how to play them all and their various combinations.
At the local base, you can treat characters for mental problems, level up heroes, and expand your gaming capabilities. For example, the Stagecoach, where you can hire heroes, brings three at first, but eventually you can choose from as many as seven characters, which increases the likelihood of getting a favorite.
Darkest Dungeon has incredibly stylish gothic graphics based on the works of Howard Lovecraft. One of the add-ons called The Color of Madness even refers to one of the author's most famous works, The Color from the World Beyond. The themes are also very close to the artist's work, including fear of the unknown and loss of reason.
If you think I've described all the mechanics of this game, you're very wrong, because Darkest Dungeon is a real treasure among video games that never gets boring and always surprises you with something. This is one of the most difficult games in this selection, and completing it in its entirety is a real achievement, the path to which will bring you a variety of emotions. In my opinion, the sequel Darkest Dungeon II turned out to be much worse and spoiled many of the mechanics of this wonderful game.
Balatro
Release year 2024
Platforms Windows, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch
If you are addicted to gambling, I suggest replacing it with an addiction to Balatro. At first glance, the game is not surprising, as it is a kind of poker. Each game starts with 9 levels, which are divided into 3 rounds, at the end of which you always have a "boss" (it's not a creature, you just get a restriction like "tambourine doesn't count in the score"). Each round requires a certain number of points to move on. The points themselves are scored from poker combinations, and the rarer the combination, the more points there are. And it is at this point that the fun begins.
Each round you earn money and can use it to buy modifiers, additional cards, upgrade your deck, combinations, and more. You can even cheat, for example, by adding identical cards to your deck and then making a flush, which is the most popular combination in the game in terms of probability.
The game becomes more and more difficult with each round, as you need to score more and more points, and the modifier that multiplies your score by 10 or 15 under favorable conditions becomes insufficient over time. You'll try dozens or even hundreds of combinations until you find the most winning option. You will always be hampered by randomness, because here it is even cooler than in real poker. The necessary modifier may not appear in the store at all, you could build your deck around one type of card and the "boss" cancels it. Balatro provides billions of possibilities and doesn't get boring even after dozens of hours of play. An additional advantage is that the game teaches you how to count cards, and over time, you will know all possible and impossible probabilities.
Balatro was nominated for the Game of the Year award for a reason, because if you play it for a couple of rounds in the evening, you won't notice the sun starting to shine. The project is available on all platforms, including phones. I believe that this is the most convenient format to play the game in, in particular because of the controls, because Balatro does not require quick actions.
As a reminder, we have a separate extensive review of Balatro, in which the game was awarded the Editor's Choice.
Vampire Survivors
Release year 2022
Platforms Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
Another game of the genre that is available on all platforms, but thanks to the controls, it is best revealed on phones. And one of the games that created its own Vampirelike subgenre.
In Vampire Survivors, you choose one of several available characters, each with different abilities. Then you have to destroy the hordes of evil spirits that are coming at you from all sides and are getting bigger and stronger by the minute. The character attacks automatically, so all you have to do is move him and avoid enemy attacks. Crystals fall out of killed enemies, which increase the level of the hero. Each new improvement opens up a choice of several passive bonuses.
This is the most interesting mechanic in the game, as it opens up many opportunities to create your own powerful image that will effectively destroy enemies. It's a very interesting and entertaining process, and it's not for nothing that after the game's release, many "clones" appeared that repeat this formula, but do not develop the ideas of Vampire Survivors, but only try to add more donations and advertising(there is nothing like this on normal, non-mobile platforms - ed.)
Sessions in the game are limited to 15 or 30 minutes, and after reaching this value, death appears and the game essentially ends. If you think that because of this limitation, you can complete the game very quickly, you are mistaken. Vampire Survivors with all the DLC has 27 game stages and 165 different playable characters. So believe me, you will definitely have something to do and try.
The game is distributed free of charge on phones and is free of unfair donations, so it will be a great option to kill time. On other platforms, Vampire Survivors costs money, for example, 79 UAH for Ukraine on Steam.
As a reminder, we reviewed Vampire Survivors and gave the game the Editor's Choice award before it received all its awards.
Crypt of the Necrodancer
Release year 2015
Platforms Linux, OS X, Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
Crypt of the Necrodancer tells the story of a girl named Cadence who is looking for her missing father. While trying to find him, Cadence enters a crypt controlled by the Necrodancer. The latter steals Cadence's heart, and now she must move through the dungeons to the rhythm of her heart to survive and defeat the Necrodancer.
This game will be a tough challenge for people without a sense of rhythm. In Crypt of the Necrodancer, everything happens to the beat of the music. You have to move and fight enemies to the rhythm. If you do everything without mistakes, you get game bonuses and easier dungeons, but if you make a mistake just once... The game will punish you severely for mistakes. In addition, the levels are built in accordance with the music, and if the song ends, you will be immediately sent to the miniboss.
As for the music, Danny Baranowski created the soundtrack for this game and it's just incredible. Danny is a legendary indie game composer who has created some really cool music for Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac, but he gave it his all in this project and you'll never get bored with these tunes.
Crypt of the Necrodancer has less content than other games in this selection, but this is compensated by the complexity and non-standard nature of this project. If you like rhythmic games, this "bagel" is for you! By the way, Crypt of the Necrodancer supports a dance mat if you want to increase the difficulty even more.
And for proud Nintendo Switch owners, a crossover game with The Legend of Zelda called Cadence of Hyrule was created, and in some aspects it is much better than the original, although it is no longer a roguelike because it mixes the gameplay of the classic two-dimensional parts of Link's adventures.
Rogue Legacy 2
Release year 2022
Platforms Windows, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
The first part of Rogue Legacy was very cool, but the sequel surpassed it, so it will appear on this list.
I'm not going to retell the plot because it's very complex and I don't want to spoil it, so I'll limit myself to a minimal description. The point is this: the protagonist of the game, Johannes, was once a legendary knight and died, but his experience was passed on. If you want to know more, look for game secrets.
The main feature of the series is that when your game character dies, you play as his descendant with a different personality and set of skills. You can choose one of three descendants according to the parameters you like best.
Rogue Legacy 2 has added even more character classes. There are 15 in total and they are quite different and make your game very diverse. And the improved system of personal characteristics multiplies this effect several times over. That is, your character can be a vegan, masochist, pacifist, suffer from panic attacks, etc. And these are not just words in the description, if you are colorblind, the game literally becomes black and white, and a perfectionist can only attack with critical hits. This makes your every playthrough as unique and fun as possible. And since the developers consider the aforementioned characteristics to be negative, you'll also get extra gold for completing the level.
The first part was seriously addictive and brought a lot of fun moments, and the sequel only got better in this regard in almost every way. Graphics, level design, amount of content and features, everything has become bigger and better! Therefore, I advise you to familiarize yourself with Rogue Legacy 2 and get a big dose of fun from the strange descendants you have to control.
Returnal
Release year 2021
Platforms Windows, PlayStation 5
The player takes on the role of astronaut Selena, who crash-lands on the mysterious planet Atropos. She encounters hostile life forms, strange architectural structures, and... her own corpses. The main intrigue is that after each death, Selena returns to the beginning of the cycle, waking up again near the wreckage of her ship. But is this just her imagination, or is it something much more terrible?
I would describe the gameplay of Returnal as a 3D version of Enter the Gungeon, because the game has many types of weapons, and the enemies turn any battle into a real Bullet Hell. Returnal is the most expensive game on this list in terms of production. This fact is evident at every stage of the game, starting with very beautiful and detailed graphics, including particle physics, and ending with expensive in-game videos. Everything is in the style of modern Sony games. If your friends or acquaintances are the kind of people who don't like pixelated or cartoonish graphics, this game will definitely be a window into the genre for them.
However, the game's impressive budget has ironically become its biggest problem, as the price for the game is considerable. While the conventional Enter the Gungeon can be bought for 325 UAH without a discount, Returnal will cost you 1699 UAH. Even during sales, the game costs almost more than half of the aforementioned games combined.
Sony essentially "buried" the game's future with a $70 price tag. The developers from Housemarque learned about this decision along with everyone else and were most likely shocked, because the game clearly does not qualify as a "blockbuster", although it has a great audiovisual part. Judging by the low sales(everyone would like to have such "bad" sales - 1.5 million copies - ed.), especially on PC(about 200 thousand only on Steam - ed.), even fans of the genre are not yet willing to pay so much for a "bagel". And among the audience that only plays expensive blockbusters for 200 million dollars, there are not many fans of repetitive gameplay, when you have to start all over again all the time.
Unfortunately, it is probably because of Returnal's low sales that we are unlikely to see representatives of this genre in AAA in the future, although the game itself is good and has opened up this genre to many people who were previously uninterested in it.
P.S. Just before the publication of this article, the authors of Returnal, Housemarque studio, announced a new high-budget "roguelike" Saros, which will develop the ideas of the previous game. Saros is due to be released in 2026 and, of course, on Sony PlayStation 5.
The roguelike genre has existed for over 40 years and, of course, contains a bunch of other very cool games that we haven't mentioned in this selection. Add your own options in the comments.