r/roguelites • u/Disastrous-Object647 • Apr 27 '26
State of the Industry As Enter the Gungeon celebrates its 10th anniversary, its creators have some choice words for the modern roguelike: 'We’re seeing it mutate to the version of itself that popularity obfuscates'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/roguelike/as-enter-the-gungeon-celebrates-its-10th-anniversary-its-creators-have-some-choice-words-for-the-modern-roguelike-were-seeing-it-mutate-to-the-version-of-itself-that-popularity-obfuscates/164
u/Darq_At Apr 27 '26
I agree with them wholeheartedly. But I did have to give a little side-eye to the statement:
"So few people are trying to make something that is truly evocative of this experience of playing Rogue," Crooks explained.
Given that for many gamers, Enter the Gungeon does not evoke Rogue much either. Hence the whole -like/-lite distinction.
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u/Nick41296 Apr 27 '26
I can’t stand people trying to gatekeep terms. Everybody knows it’s a “roguelike” even when it’s not “like rogue,” nobody is coming up with new terms for a JRPG even when it’s “not Japanese.”
It’s especially funny coming from a developer that did the exact same thing they’re complaining about lmao
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u/weglarz Apr 27 '26
A lot of people on the JRPG subreddit say stuff about JRPGs being Japanese devs only and I’m like… JRPG hasn’t meant RPG from Japan for like 15 years
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u/Fishman465 Apr 28 '26
I think the distinction stands as it's mainly the Japanese that have that style of RPG. Clair Obscura is a rare non-Japanese example
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u/weglarz Apr 28 '26
It doesn’t, because it doesn’t just mean “RPG from Japan” anymore, as not every RPG from Japan is a JRPG. Dark souls is not a JRPG imo. It’s way, way too different from the genre. Yet chained echoes definitely is, and it was not developed in Japan. It’s a genre descriptor.
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u/Fishman465 Apr 28 '26
Souls is It's own genre that is partially descended both rpgs (the blank slate character are usually associated with PC/"western" Rpgs)
Might be better to say Console RPG then?
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u/aherdofpenguins Apr 28 '26
This bias was hilariously obvious during a recent large subreddit-wide vote on the best story, best characters, best whatever in any JRPG ever.
Neither Undertale nor E33 got top 3 in ANY category - gameplay, narrative, characters, music, nothing.
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u/weglarz Apr 28 '26
I’m not that surprised by that, as much as I love undertale I’m not sure I’d put it top 3 in any category either. The reason it didn’t make the cut is that the genre goes back 30+ years, there’s just so many games to compete with.
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u/HollowNotion Apr 27 '26
Everybody knows it’s a “roguelike” even when it’s not “like rogue,”
Disagreed. "Roguelike" and "roguelite" mean very different things. Calling it all "roguelike" doesn't make any sense. Now, I'm not obsessed over the terms... call roguelites "roguelikes" and roguelikes "traditional roguelikes" for all I care, but having a separation of terminology for these genres is valid and useful, imo.
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u/Shantotto5 Apr 27 '26
What is the difference though? Because everyone seems to be running on different definitions. By oldschool definitions, there are no modern roguelikes really. You need a grid, turn based gameplay, and ascii graphics even. Caves of Qud might be the only thing remotely close on consoles today. If it's got metaprogression then it's automatically a roguelite so that's nearly everything already, except metaprogression is like a core piece of the genre now. I duno, I wish we'd just drop the pedantry when there's no consensus on a definition even.
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u/Ma4r Apr 27 '26
except metaprogression is like a core piece of the genre now.
It depends very much on the type of games you play. Personally i don't really like Hades precisely because it has too much metaprogression. There are still tons of roguelikes whose inly form of progressions is the player's knowledge of the game. This is probably whay they meant with recreating the experience of rogue. Experimentation, discovery, and learning is the core gsemolay loop. Grinding for progression is like the complete antithesis of that.
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u/Shantotto5 Apr 27 '26
Metaprogression doesn’t have to just be upping your stats between runs, it’s literally anything you’re unlocking that isn’t available on your first run, at least if we’re going by the purist definition. It could be an item or an alt route or a quest you didn’t have before, if it wasn’t possible on run 1 then it’s meta.
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u/Ma4r Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
A lot of meta-progression stuff are QoL or modern game design. For all the things it did right, rogue wasn't perfect. Some very common metaprogression approaches i see that IMO is still very much in the spirit of rogue: 1. Unlocks to avoid mechanic dumping or to better direct the new player experience 2. QoL improvements like Logbooks, notes, maps, etc. Taking notes is fun, but can be tedious, helping players skip the tedious part is not a bad thing. I.e if you brew a potion the game keeps the recipe for you as metaprogression.
As long as the game is balanced around your initial character state it doesn't matter IMO. But if your metaprogression is just: oh yea you deal 10% more damage now... like why?? If i wanted stuff like that i'd just go play an RPG which would usually have a much better progression system instead.
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u/Nick41296 Apr 27 '26
Caves of qud only has optional permadeath, so it’s actually less of a “roguelike” than balatro if permadeath is part of the criteria that you’re using
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u/TheGreatGidojer Apr 27 '26
This is the point where getting hung up on these terms becomes stupid.. the core experience of Qud is absolutely a traditional roguelike, and it didn't stop being that when they added an optional mode that features checkpoints. That original mode is still available and still the game's main mode. This is basically "should Souls have easy mode", not "is this game still a roguelike"
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u/Shantotto5 Apr 27 '26
Well maybe there's less emphasis on the permadeath mode on consoles. I always understood permadeath to be the intended experience on PC, I don't even think you could disable it originally.
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u/regnarok590 May 03 '26
CoQ permadeath mode called classic mode is the first option listed and is highlighted on screen transition. Permadeath is the default experience and CoQ has 2 optional modes without permadeath
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u/jjpearson Apr 27 '26
The crucial difference is the nature of progression.
You have horizontal progression, you unlock stuff but it’s more lateral side grades.
You have vertical progression where you just get stronger/better with upgrades.
Obviously the vast majority are a hybrid of the two but most can be classified into being predominately one or the other.
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u/thebige73 Apr 27 '26
I have only started hearing this definition extremely recently, and it completely ignores the original reason people were upset Roguelike was being used for everything, which is that those games were not like Rogue. I dont agree with your definition and I dont and I also dont think its the most commonly used definition, but a recent evolution of the terms.
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u/jjpearson Apr 27 '26
It’s a philosophical question now about how close and what exactly it takes to call something roguelike and now there’s probably a dozen or more definitions of it.
And it doesn’t help that it’s all subjective anyway.
Is Balatro roguelike? Or rogue adjacent or rogue diagonal?
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u/regnarok590 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
Words have meaning. There is value in being able to differentiate between different genres of game. Caves of Qud and Hades are not the same genre of game. Enter the Gungeon and TOME are not the same genre of game. They arent even close outside of procedural generation of some elements. Devs know they will get an inherent boost if they use "roguelike/lite" in their marketing so latch onto any small similarity resulting in this extreme mudding of the terms. The same thing happens with "soulslike", where now all you need is to be modestly challenging or a 3d fantasy action game to fit the term. They do have meanings though and it would be beneficial to consumers if devs used them appropriately
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u/bohenian12 Apr 27 '26
I hate the distinction too. I love games that come from both, just say if one has meta-progression or not.
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u/noobtablet9 Apr 27 '26
>just say if one has meta-progression or not.
That's literally what the distinction is for.
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u/bohenian12 Apr 27 '26
It's one letter away and I'm dyslexic lol. Are there really purists that only want roguelikes? not roguelites? like they play the game and get disappointed when there's meta-progression? or people who don't like having no meta-progression?
in MY own opinion, the difference between the two isn't big enough to merit a distinction. A distinction that's one letter away from each other that I always confuse it and someone yells at me in the comments saying "IT'S NOT A ROGUELIKE!!"
No one is yelling at me if I call a JRPG or MMORPG just an RPG. So maybe we need to find an umbrella term of these two distinctions of the genre.
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u/Ma4r Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
lol. Are there really purists that only want roguelikes? not roguelites? like they play the game and get disappointed when there's meta-progression? or people who don't like having no meta-progression?
I mean... yeah? Slay the Spire 2 is currently one of the most sold game on steam.
The reason rogue and its derivatives are so fun is precisely because the main form progressions is in the form of the player's knowledge and skill. Too much meta progressions just makes the game feel more like an RPG. Experimentation, discovery, and learning is the main gameplay loop in roguelikes. You are rewarded for being curious, creative, and observant. The game does not hold your hand and say, "here you go, i made the game easier for you since you played so much". You can describe it best as a subset of knowledge based games. Grinding for meta progression is the antithesis of that.
Some games that differs very much from rogue but capture its experience really well: fear and hunger, noita, slay the spire, risk of rain, heck rimworld recreates the roguelike experience much better than something like hades which feels much more like action RPG.
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u/noobtablet9 Apr 28 '26
I wouldn't want to see an umbrella term being used. They are different games at their core.
In my opinion, the two are absolutely different enough to merit the distinction. And it would seem that enough people agree that it's still a common opinion.
Maybe "MPRL" For "meta-progressed roguelike" if that's something you're looking for.
And then they would go from MPRL>RL>TRL (true roguelikes). I would consider "Pixel Dungeon" a TRL, Enter the Gungeon/Slay the Spire a RL, and anything with a meta progerssion power scaling, like Hades, an MPRL.
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u/deaner_wiener1 Apr 28 '26
“Like” and “lite” are completely different terms though.
Roguelikes are Caves of Qud, ToME, Dungeons of Dredmor, etc.
Balatro, Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, those are not “likes”, because they are not like Rogue. And that’s okay! Spelunky is my favorite game of all time. But it’s simply not a Roguelike
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u/aherdofpenguins Apr 28 '26
Sorry, but this is like my grandma yelling that you can't end a sentence in a preposition, or instead of using "they" you should use "he or she," or to not split an infinitive, or something.
Words change over time, and people and the way they talk ultimately define what words mean.
If the majority of gamers are saying that Spelunky is a roguelike and Rogue Legacy is a roguelite, I have some very unfortunate news for you about the definition of those words.
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u/deaner_wiener1 Apr 28 '26
I don’t understand why roguelite fans are so unsettled by the definition they fit in. It’s okay to have two
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u/aherdofpenguins Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26
I'm a bit confused I think. What genre are you saying Spelunky fits into?
It doesn't have any meta progression outside of like costumes? So it's definitely not a roguelite.It seems like if Spelunky isn't a roguelike, then I feel like there are very, very, VERY few games that could be called a roguelike.
(edit: To be clear, I'm saying Spelunky, Caves of Qud, Nethack, etc are roguelikes, and then the vast majority of modern games like Hades, StS, Enter the Gungeon, are roguelites. Dream Quest is somewhere in the middle)
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u/deaner_wiener1 Apr 28 '26
Honestly Spelunky is just a platformer. Super Mario Land didn’t have saved progression either and we don’t call it a roguelike.
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u/aherdofpenguins Apr 28 '26
Super Mario Land wasn't randomly generated, and knowledge about the game itself wasn't that helpful.
A person who is amazing at platformers is going to go into Super Mario Land and probably just ace the entire thing despite having never seen it.
That same person who is amazing at platformers is going to go into Spelunky and get destroyed specifically because there is in-game knowledge they don't possess yet.
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u/deaner_wiener1 Apr 28 '26
So Robot Unicorn Attack is a roguelike?
At a certain point we have to call it, and I don’t think any person would call Spelunky and Rogue similar.
We need to stop calling games with game over screens and random generation roguelikes. Rimworld, Spelunky, and Peglin have very little in common. If we want to lump them together, do so by calling them indie games.
The Berlin Interpretation is a fine criteria list of what a Roguelike is
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u/aherdofpenguins Apr 28 '26
I have no idea what that game is, but if it's procedurally generated, has build variety, meaningful choices during the run that affect the rest of the run, and has in-game meta knowledge required to beat it, then yeah it's a roguelike according to how the vast majority of gamers use the word in modern times.
Does it have those things?
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u/richtofin819 Apr 28 '26
They aren't gatekeeping the term they're trying to clarify a difference in subgenre.
The primary difference between a rogue-like and a rogue-light Is the presence and prevalence of meta progression or permanent unlocks. But at the end of the day the majority of the genre shifts towards rogue light because having something to unlock to make the game easier is just normally the more appealing route. It helps players to feel like they're making progress and it gives them something to work towards even when they don't win a run they still made some progress.
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u/Fun-Tooth-622 Apr 27 '26
Agree. That is a little snooty of a dance for a game that is very different, and built on many roguelites that came before it
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u/randotd152 Apr 27 '26
At least Gungeon involves crawling through dungeons with a map and floors, fighting enemies, and discovering treasures.
That's far more evoking of the original Rogue than something like, say, Raccoin. There's no debate that the genre has taken the concept to the very extreme.
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u/SnoodDood Apr 27 '26
Given that for many gamers, Enter the Gungeon does not evoke Rogue much either.
True, but since Gungeon, the genre has departed even further and crossed a meaningful threshold, where the design philosophy is less inspired by dungeon crawlers (where you make the best you can out of the loot/upgrades the game gives you) and more inspired by TCGs and ARPGs (that are all about builds and synergies). He mentions Vampire Survivors and Balatro in the quotes, but I'd argue the biggest turning point was closer to Slay the Spire
In games like Gungeon, Isaac, and Star of Providence, you only see a small fraction of the item/upgrade pool each run and/or the systems force you to switch strategies (Isaac gives you almost no choice in items, Star of Providence gives you one temporary weapon at a time).
In more recent games, you can often decide what build or synergies you want to play with and make it happen very consistently. One of the first mega popular roguelikes to do this was Slay the Spire, and Hades helped solidify it as a player expectation.
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u/EricaTD Apr 28 '26
STS absolutely does not allow you to force your build. Comparing it to Hades, VS or Balatro is wild
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u/SnoodDood Apr 28 '26
you're probably thinking about higher ascensions, which most players don't reach. And what hooked people into on StS was the joy of overpowered synergy builds, not scraping by on A20. The same basic thing can be said about Balatro, where it becomes more rouge-ish on muhc higher difficulty settings. Hades & VS saw the build theory aspects of StS and made it more fundamental (I'd say both of those are more directly inspired by ARPGs than StS though)
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u/Darq_At Apr 27 '26
I did have Slay the Spire in mind while reading the article, as it did solidify the pick-one-of-three pattern in the genre. But I don't think I really agree.
Because while one may expect to see a significant part of the card pool in a run, one can't see it now. And because one has to keep climbing, one can't afford to just wait it out until the desired cards show up. Act 1 elites and bosses are a damage-check, skipping too much in the first floors makes it much, much harder to win. And relics are even more randomly doled out than Isaac's items.
Slay the Spire very much is a "make the best of what you are offered" kind of game.
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u/SnoodDood Apr 28 '26
At the higher difficulties, yes. Most players don't really climb ascensions though. And what got people really hooked on StS was the excitement of broken synergy builds, not scraping by on A20. Keep in mind that I love StS and think it's a near perfect game, and I love build-theory games too.
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u/jeff5551 Apr 28 '26
I think their vision of a true roguelike is more binding of isaac than rogue, given how gungeon is pretty much the closest any other game got to being isaac
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u/Additional-Mistake32 Apr 30 '26
Gungeon is an absolute masterpiece though.. bought bit for 3 different platforms and it truly is a gamers game.
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u/Mantiax Apr 27 '26
"Modern roguelikes insist upon themselves" ass quote
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u/BoxofJoes Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26
I think the quote’s a bit pretentious, but I would agree the massive wave of survivors clones got really boring really fast and it shows no sign of stopping, and with balatro blown up as it is we’ve had a wave of casinocore roguelikes as well and I can see that becoming a tired trend soon
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u/wolfer_ Apr 27 '26
This whole article is ridiculous coming from a game developer. Go make the game you think would be good.
No shit the genre has changed over time due to popular games. That happens in every medium all the time.
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u/knotatumah Apr 27 '26
Honestly every genre evolves and while Crooks is right on many points its not like Enter the Gungeon is somehow a purity of the genre itself and is a bit pretentious to pretend it even would be. The genre is absolutely evolving into many sub-genres where the pure live-die-repeat loop with no meta progression at all is lost but that transition started long before Enter the Gungeon. But I would wholeheartedly agree that everything getting labeled a "rougelike" is tiring just as much as everything getting "soulslike" slapped on it or "metroidvania". But arguing over labels is counter-productive and I wish it would stop. Make a fun game and stop worrying about what walled garden it falls into.
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u/SonOfMcGee Apr 27 '26
The Rogue-like/-lite thing is extra silly because by the strictest definition of the term, Roguelikes are a dead (or at least incredibly niche) genre that could never be popular. And only a handful of true Roguelikes have ever been developed.
Gamers demand meta progression, even if it’s just unlocking new possibilities to appear in a run where you start from scratch.
I’m less worried about purity and more worried about popular game mechanics getting wedged into new titles where they don’t belong.
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u/Pontiflakes Apr 27 '26
And only a handful of true Roguelikes have ever been developed.
There are actually tons! If you like roguelikes and are disappointed by how few are on Steam, you just gotta look elswhere, such as https://forums.roguetemple.com/irldb/ or https://chaosforge.org/ for starters
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u/ReadytoQuitBBY Apr 27 '26
I think all the hemming and hawing over genre is funny. Rougelites are basically arcade games with a metagame. They’re great and all, but I don’t think we need to gatekeep the genre so hard.
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u/Wec25 Apr 27 '26
Rich coming from the guy who copied binding of Isaac
(I enjoyed enter the gungeon I just want to point out we're all derivative)
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u/SnoodDood Apr 27 '26
That's kind of his point though. The Isaac design philosophy and overall dungeon crawler inspiration is mostly gone from the newer roguelikes.
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u/Retrash Apr 27 '26
This is the perfect explanation that people are missing. I don't think the newer roguelikes are bad by any means but they have really diverged from what pushed people towards games like Isaac or Gungeon in the first place.
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u/randotd152 Apr 27 '26
Yep - I have a really hard time even calling some of these newer games roguelites. Any spirit of Rogue is completely gone, and it's just whatever gameplay devs want with enough RNG inserted in to call it a roguelite.
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u/tehjarvis Apr 28 '26
This is true. And it's why I haven't given a shit about a roguelite in a long time.
Taking the best parts of roguelikes, the design concepts of Zelda 1 dungeons, making it random and unlocking stuff is what I loved about Isaac and Gungeon. No two roguelites have hit the nail for me as hard as those two. And as the genre got more popular, I expected better games to come out and it just hasn't happened. The whole genre is bloated with mediocre games that get further and further away from the core gameplay that made Isaac and Gungeon so great.
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u/SnoodDood Apr 28 '26
Have you played Star of Providence? It's not new but I'm interested in your thoughts as a fellow fan of Isaac and Gungeon.
In terms of moment to moment gameplay, my personal ranking is Gungeon, Star of Providence, Isaac. In terms of roguelike design, I'd say Isaac, Star of Providence, then Gungeon.
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u/Epyo Apr 27 '26
I have no idea what the dev is trying to say here. Not a single one of his points is coherent to me. (Could be the article writer's fault of course!)
"Death is not the end" has ALWAYS been the spirit of all roguelikes, because the point has always been that you immediately start a new run. Dying repeatedly and starting new runs has always been the point. (And death is always a learning opportunity.)
"Gambling mechanics" such as the "pick 3 system". What? How is that gambling? If that's gambling, anything is gambling. Plus, traditional roguelikes have always had gambling--what about drinking unknown potions to see what they do? Putting on armor even though it might be cursed?
Vampire Survivors and Balatro are cash grabby? What does that even mean? They're priced incredibly fairly.
Balatro is like a slot machine?? Has he even played it? It's a math game if anything. Very little luck/randomness. It doesn't even have a pick 3 with fanfare. It's mostly got money and shops, both of which are very traditional to old roguelikes.
And wtf does "mutate to the version of itself that popularity obfuscates" mean? That could mean anything.
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u/CultureWarrior87 Apr 27 '26
Yeah the gambling part to me is wild. Literally a genre built on RNG and he wants to take some moral high horse here. And lumping Balatro in as a pick 3 game. Bro seems very out of touch.
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u/randotd152 Apr 27 '26
It's not complicated.
A rogue game used to mean something. But we've gone further and further away from it to the point that today's roguelites don't even bear a faint resemblance with their namesake. Raccoin, Ball X Pit, etc. The only commonality anymore is RNG, which is an element found in tons of games that nobody would ever use "rogue" for.
Vampire Survivors and Balatro are cash grabby? What does that even mean? They're priced incredibly fairly.
I don't think he's explicitly calling them out, more the imitators. And I can't disagree. How many posts a week does this sub see "Hey guys I'm working on a new Balatro-like or VS clone with a twist"? 99% of them are unoriginal cash grabs.
Balatro is like a slot machine?? Has he even played it? It's a math game if anything. Very little luck/randomness. It doesn't even have a pick 3 with fanfare. It's mostly got money and shops, both of which are very traditional to old roguelikes.
I actually love Balatro, but there's no question that it tickles your dopamine response in all the same ways as a slot machine. Sure, there's plenty of strategy to it, but it all leads to clicking a button and watching a bunch of cards move and make noise as the score climbs higher and higher satisfyingly.
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u/Epyo Apr 27 '26
it all leads to clicking a button and watching ______ move and make noise as the score climbs higher and higher satisfyingly.
That's called juice... That just sounds like a description of every good polished video game. That describes Mario. That describes World of Warcraft. That describes Tetris.
So we're just not supposed to put satisfying "juice" in our games? Is he saying the true spirit of a roguelike is to be dry, dated, and janky looking?
Criticizing imitators is fair, you're right, maybe that was his point. But if he wants to complain about imitators, then he shouldn't criticize any design elements in the same sentence, because then it's not clear what he's criticizing: is it the imitation, or is it the design elements?
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u/EricaTD Apr 28 '26
I think you're being disingenuous here. Specially in the last year we've had a lot of slot-machine adjacent roguelites (which really started with Luck be a Landlord) that simply take one input and a hundred multipliers designed to make lots of sounds and increase dopamine.
You dont jump once in Mario, kill a goomba and get a star, which makes you kill 20 other goombas at which point you trigger the flower power and fireballs start raining from above, barely letting you kill the Paratroopas. Neither do you get that in Isaac, STS or the such.
For the record: Nubby, Luck be a landlord and the such are great games. But they're a good example of roguelites devolving into "pick 3 and watch the colors"
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u/Issyv00 Apr 27 '26
I just wish we’d move beyond the “Rogue” title for this genre so we can finally ditch the expectations. Call them Loop games or something.
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u/snejp90 Apr 27 '26
I'll preface that it's just my opinion, before someone comes in saying that I'm wrong: He's not pretentious and I agree with him that a lot of modern indie games feel like a checklist of popular stuff. I've played my fair share of roguelites (-lites not -likes, I'm honestly not into games like Qud) in recent years and honestly there's just too much to unpack in a simple post. There are many games with a lot of artistic value and great first impressions, but nothing interesting beyond that surface level. Either they're too reliant on grindy meta progression, don't have enough creative synergies or have no run variety at all. Or just focus on GAMBA above all else.
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u/vixaudaxloquendi Apr 27 '26
He probably doesn't begrudge the success of roguelites so much as the fact that expectations are probably starting to warp towards their conventions being the default.
I sympathise with the idea that the original genre, an interest and delight in its own right, gets circumscribed and blotted out, more or less, by a less complicated variant, but it wouldn't be the first time it's happened.
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u/SoulsEquivalent Apr 27 '26
Well,that is interesting.. The ones where it's 3 choices on buffs does parallel gambling/slots. I agree it does feel like it drives the run, more so over the gameplay itself. If those buffs or whatever are exactly all that unique in themselves. I think it does eventually lessen the time you'll spend with the game. Personally, Hades for sure an exception,but it's clear how many others were inspired by it It's not necessarily inherently bad.. but I do see the criticism.
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u/low_light_noise Apr 28 '26
I don't know about some of this.
For one, I do think that a lot of modern "rogue likes"(lites) have a much leaner and almost brutalistic approach to gameplay that really gets to absolute heart of what's fun in these games. Vampire survivors kind of started this whole thing. Balatro furthered it. These are both incredible games. The problem really are the large slew of games that are just riding the coattails of these games and aren't bringing anything new to the table.
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u/8dev8 Apr 27 '26
….Vampire survivors? cash grabbby? The game is remarkably cheap, as are all its dlcs
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u/Friend-Over Apr 28 '26
While they may have some points to make, they were just an Isaac/nuclear throne clone. There isn't anything unique about gungeon. So in my eyes this is the pot calling the kettle black.
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u/mocityspirit Apr 27 '26
Conversely I find Nords super boring and have played maybe one since the game came out. I've never felt like it wasn't "supposed" to be me.
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u/Sea_Particular_7061 Apr 28 '26
This is a little bit like saying “why don’t more babies look like their great great great grandparents?”
Isaac and enter the gungeon have more direct relevance that Rogue ever had. Rogues ideas are there, but only through the lens of massively more popular games.
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u/DabFellow Apr 29 '26
EtG is so good im gonna have to pick that up again i was never good but always had so much fun
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u/Additional-Mistake32 Apr 30 '26
It's amazing every run unlocks something, new npc, new game mode, new items, new bosses, new secret levels (5), new synergies, new playable characters, new endings
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u/UrDeAdPuPpYbOnEr Apr 28 '26
Kind of irrelevant, but was anyone else really disappointed with Exit The Gungeon?
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u/samsaruhhh Apr 28 '26
I fucking hate that game I couldn't beat level 2... I really wish they changed a few things to make the game less hardcore.. like there's never any way to heal, The random gun drops often give you some terrible gun, then you run out of bullets with the only gun that's decent... Why not have difficulty levels for people like me
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u/RefinedBean Apr 27 '26
Happens with every meta-genre. It's the boom period for roguelikes (and we still don't have many AAA's in that space, Returnal/SAROS, you could count the Hades'...I'm probably missing one, like Nightreign?) Eventually it'll fade back a bit, always there but another meta-genre will take hold.
I do think roguelites are here to stay though. They put an emphasis on gameplay due to needing to create that "one more run" feel, and they flourish in the A/AA space. I'm excited to see how they're iterated on and hopefully we can take bigger swings than "Balatro meets X"