Best Roguelike Games for PC, Switch, PS4, X1 and Mobile to Play

Ali Hashmi
Best Roguelike Games

Slay the Spire

Rogue-like games are undoubtedly one of the most popular games available in the market and offer a substantial amount of endless content due to their procedurally generating levels. There have been many games over the past few years that have gained both critical and user acclaim, and today we’ll list down what we feel are the best roguelike games for you to try out.

We’ll try to highlight games that have come out recently, but there will be obvious mentions of games that have made the genre itself popular and are still played and loved by many. The genre isn’t limited to a singular form of gameplay, as over the years, there are rogue-like titles in almost every subgenre of video games, from turn-based strategy to deck building.

Contents hide
1 Best Roguelike Games
1.1 Risk of Rain 2
1.2 Slay the Spire
1.3 Enter the Gungeon
1.4 Dead Cells
1.5 Darkest Dungeon
1.6 The Binding of Isaac
1.7 Spelunky
1.8 Into the Breach
1.9 Crawl
1.10 Nuclear Throne

Best Roguelike Games

The games we’ll list are in our opinion the best games you can get right now, and the majority of these are available across multiple platforms.

Risk of Rain 2

Risk of Rain 2 is one of the best games of 2019, and it’s basically the 3D version of the first game. While that may sound like it doesn’t bring anything new to the table, the change in perspective has actually created a brand new experience while retaining the core mechanics of the first game that made it so special.

The game’s loop is quite simple. Select a character, kill enemies, grab loot to earn passive abilities, find the teleporter, kill the boss and move to the next planet. This loop is so satisfying because of the sense of progression that comes with collecting the passive abilities, and killing bosses.

The game’s soundtrack is also phenomenal, and you can give it a listen below.

Slay the Spire

Imagine fusing deck-building mechanics with rogue-like, and what you get is the most addictive game to come out in 2019. Slay the Spire has multiple characters, each with their own cards that you collect and unlock during your run.

After you’ve completed or died during a run, the cards you did unlock will be available in your next run. Enemies get stronger as you progress, and boss battles require a good amount of strategy. Seeing your card combinations do insane damage is really something to witness, and it makes you want to keep playing.

This is a personal favorite on our list of the best roguelike games.

Enter the Gungeon

Enter the gungeon is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a game where everything is a gun, and you use guns to fight guns and kill them. The game has amazing pixel art design and features some of the toughest boss battles in any rogue-like. You will die a lot in this game, and you’ll flip a lot of tables for cover.

There is a crazy amount of weaponry in this game, and each run feels fresh and explosive as the first. While the beginning of the game may feel frustrating, if you stick to it, you’ll get hundreds of hours of content out of this one.

Dead Cells

Do yourself a favor, and get Dead Cells. It’s a phenomenal game with smooth free-flowing combat, and traversal, and a vast variety of weapons. Each run offers you something new and its combat is fast, engaging and your movement manages to retain the pacing even after you’ve spent hours in a single run.

The game also features metroidvania elements and borrows a lot from souls-like games, when it comes to its combat and blocking. The game’s promotion is some of the best you’ll see as well, with animated trailers like the one posted below.

Darkest Dungeon

Do you like Lovecraftian horror? Are you ready to sacrifice your characters to gain any sense of progression? Are you ready to face absolute death and failure? Well if you answered yes to all of those, you’ll love the heck out of Darkest Dungeon. A rogue-like dungeon crawler with an emphasis on your character’s sanity and mental health as they traverse some of the hardest dungeons in any game.

Prepare to face all sorts of monstrosities, and lose your characters to death, insanity, and disease. Who will you protect, and who will you kick out? It all comes down to how bad you want to uncover the secrets of the cosmos, and what you’ve inherited.

The Binding of Isaac

Only a few rogue-like games have ever reached the heights of popularity than the Binding of Isaac. A rogue-like dungeon crawler with a plethora of abilities, monsters, playable characters, and endings.

The game features an Abrahamic story, where a mother is told by God to kill her son, and in an attempt to escape her, Isaac, falls into the basement of horrors, where he uses his tears to fight with all sorts of monstrosities and satanic entities.

The game is available on a variety of platforms and has multiple expansions, with a lot of endings.

Spelunky

Spelunky needs no introduction, and the reason it’s on this list is quite obvious, it’s just a very good game. The game is one of the more earlier rogue-likes and is known for it’s crushing difficulty, randomized platforming levels, and a very good amount of content.

The game has been released on multiple platforms over the years, and you can play it easily on current generation consoles, and easily get lost for hundreds of hours. This is why we believe that Spelunky despite being a fairly old game, deserves a spot on our best roguelike games list.

Into the Breach

FTL already has a lot of praise, and its follow-up is Into the Breach that came out last year. The game is a turn-based strategy game where you control mechs to fight off aliens.

Each level is randomly generated, and you have to figure out how you’re going to counter the alien threat. Use a variety of gameplay mechanics all the while ensuring that you’ve defended civilians.

Just like FTL, the game offers a great amount of replayability, and you can sit back and play this game for hours without ever losing interest.

Crawl

Crawl is a local multiplayer dungeon crawler, where you fight monsters, and your friends can control those monsters. After death, you can become the monsters, and terrorize your friends. Despite the game not having online multiplayer, it’s such a polished experience that even with couch co-op it’s worth it.

The game has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam, and you can run it on a potato. You can also get it on all other platforms as well.

Nuclear Throne

The final game on our list is Nuclear Throne, and it’s another fantastic game worth checking out. Fight your way through various enemies in a top-down shooter style, similar to entering the Gungeon.

This is another rogue-like we recommend because of its gameplay loop. You can collect radiation and mutate your limbs and get new abilities.

What do you think about recommendations for the best roguelike games? Let us know in the comments below and share your thoughts.
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