‘The 10 best roguelikes of the last 10 years’-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Returnal – a fantastic roguelike (Sony Interactive Entertainment)

A reader ranks their favourite roguelikes of the last two generations, from the recent Balatro to the classic Slay The Spire.

The rougelike and rougelite genres have become increasingly popular over the last decade, to the point where there is now an incredible variety of top notch titles available to play. So here is my personal top 10, plus a few honourable mentions.

Balatro

Balatro is a deck builder in which you play a series of poker hands in order to beat a set score. As you progress you can level up hands and add powers to individual cards so that they earn more points and higher multipliers. The intricately constructed systems and almost infinite combinations of modifiers and upgrades makes for a very addictive game.

Monster Train

Another deck building game (technically it first came out in 2020), this time one in which players use cards to summon creatures and cast spells in order to defeat a series of increasingly difficult enemies. The money earned after completing each stage is then used to upgrade your cards or purchase artefacts which provide a variety of advantages. The impressive variety of factions, cards and, artefacts provide plenty of opportunities to try out a variety of different strategies and provide a good few hours of entertainment.

This War Of Mine

In This War of Mine you play as a group of civilians trapped inside a city torn apart by war and have to try to keep them alive as they struggle with a lack of food, medicine, and the constant danger of hostile soldiers and civilian scavengers. With character deaths being permanent and tough choices having to be made constantly it provides a completely different perspective on war from the usual shoot first, ask questions later gameplay of other video games and makes for a tense and enthralling experience.

Sifu

Built around one of the most satisfying combat systems you’ll find in any game and a unique mechanic in which your character ages each time you die, Sifu can be punishingly difficult at times, but the quality of the gameplay makes it worth the effort.

Loop Hero

Each expedition starts with an empty landscape and a single path that the hero will continually loop around. As enemies are defeated (in turn-based battles that play out automatically) the player is awarded with better weapons/equipment and terrain cards that can be used to start rebuilding the world. Each terrain type grants different benefits, and these effects can be modified depending on their placement. What at first seems like a relatively simplistic concept soon reveals that it does indeed have plenty of depth, as you try to figure out how to complete each of the game’s four levels.

Dead Cells

A fast paced and incredibly entertaining action platformer, Dead Cells offers a variety of different play styles depending on the upgrades chosen; the many different enemy types each require the player to learn how to best handle them. Much the like many other games on this list it’s incredibly addictive, as you challenge yourself to push on a little further each time, and when you do finally make it to the end, it’s a great feeling of accomplishment.

Returnal

Returnal begins with astronaut Selene crash landing on a mysterious planet where she soon learns that she is trapped in a time loop. Some of the runs can be a little too long, especially when combined with the high difficulty, which can see death strike at any moment, but it’s hard to think of a game with more satisfying shooting and movement. Returnal is without doubt one of the best shooters, and best roguelikes you’ll find on any console.

Into The Breach

A turn-based strategy game played on an 8×8 grid with a limit of five turns per mission, Into The Breach may seem rather simplistic at first but the variety of moves and enemy types brings an almost chess-like quality to proceedings. Figuring out how to best coordinate your three mechs each turn is both challenging and entertaining, and it’s easy to get sucked in for hours at a time as you try to improve your performance.

Slay The Spire

As with most deck builders, players start each run with a set of basic cards which they must use to defeat various enemies and subsequently improve their deck. Of the many deck builders available, Slay The Spire is without doubt one of the most addictive and rewarding and trying to piece together that perfect deck, full of cards that complement each other, kept me coming back for well over 50 hours.

Hades

For my money this is the undisputed king of rouguelikes. The combat is fantastic, with an amazing variety of weapons, and offering endless combinations of play styles to be experimented with, and the multiple enemy types each requiring different tactics to defeat efficiently. Add to this an interesting narrative, told through a humorous and well voiced script, and you have one of the very best games ever made.

Honourable mentions:
If you like these you can also check out; Curse Of The Dead Gods; Vampire Survivors; Papers, Please; The Binding Of Isaac; FTL; Spelunky 2; and Rogue Legacy.

By reader drlowdon

Slay The Spire – another rogue classic (Mega Crit)

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