What Are Roguelike Games and Why You Should Try Them

Most video games are finite, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. But imagine if your favorite video game—whether that’s Elden Ring, a Zelda title, or Animal Crossing: New Horizons—could still surprise you after dozens of hours of play, offering new stuff to find and a fresh experience every time you played it. A vibrant subgenre of video games, the roguelike, offers exactly that kind of experience.

In most video games, every surprise is a surprise only once, and almost everything you see is the result of meticulous planning by the people who made it. We love roguelike games because they take familiar traits from our favorite genres and games and put a twist on the formula by randomizing certain elements. Imagine if a game like Super Mario Bros. changed the order of its platforms and moved the locations of the hidden stars every time you restarted, and you had no way to predict what items you would pick up or where to find them. Then, raise the stakes so that dying and losing a run has more punishing consequences, and you have the premise for a quintessential roguelike. Wirecutter’s tech team has played a slew of roguelikes, and we recommend them if you’re looking for a unique—and challenging—take on the games you may already love.

The roguelike umbrella encompasses games that use specific mechanics modeled after a game called Rogue, which became famous in the ’80s. “A roguelike is a game structured around failing and restarting, in which no two play-throughs are exactly alike due to a design that randomizes various aspects of the experience,” said Greg Kasavin, the creative director of Supergiant Games, the studio behind the award-winning roguelike Hades.

A more rigid definition of the genre exists, but for our purposes, roguelike games take familiar genres and games and switch things up by randomizing certain elements. (These games are also sometimes called roguelites.) Here’s what to expect from a roguelike:

You’re not likely to pick up a roguelike that you can beat on the first try. If you enjoy games like Elden Ring or Dark Souls, where it’s essential to be cautious in gameplay, to nail the controls, and to memorize enemy combat patterns, you’ll feel right at home. But almost anyone can find a roguelike game to enjoy, because they span a diverse range of genres.

Dungeon crawlers, where your character has to navigate and battle through a series of progressively harder rooms or floors, are the most common types of roguelikes, and we recommend a few below. But you’ll also encounter roguelike shooters, role-playing games, side-scrollers, and even farming simulations. If there’s a specific genre you’re drawn to, a roguelike spin can spice up your regular experience by randomizing the maps or items. If the game randomizes your abilities or loadout at the beginning of each attempt you make, it may even push you to play with a different style than you’d normally choose.

It’s difficult to get away from some form of combat, so people who like only casual and peaceful games like Animal Crossing will have a harder time finding options. Cult of the Lamb, which we recommend below, is one of the best games for more passive players, as is Moonlighter, a Zelda-esque RPG in which you run a shop by day and explore dungeons at night.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox

Price: $25 at the time of publication

ESRB rating: T

Think of Cult of the Lamb as Animal Crossing’s morbid, roguelike cousin. The game sets you up as a lamb who has been sacrificed and brought back to life by an underworld deity under the condition that you start a cult in his name. To do this, you fight through procedurally generated levels to take down the rival cult, and you convert the adorable animals you find along the way into loyal followers. (Picture your Animal Crossing villagers but subjected to ritual sacrifice instead of your island design whims.) In your downtime, you manage your own little cult colony, assigning your followers to tasks like farming, mining resources, and worshipping you to generate points, and in turn you keep their devotion by cooking them meals and throwing them parties. The game blends roguelike and simulation elements tastefully, and there’s an impressive level of nuance to the decisions you can make as a leader. And though Cult of the Lamb sounds dark on paper, it’s a surprisingly cute and cozy experience.

A summary of Cult of the Lamb’s accessibility menu is available on Gamepressure.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox

Price: $25 at the time of publication

ESRB rating: T

Hades won nearly every Game of the Year award from critics when it was released in 2020, and then it continued on to win the same accolade at 2021’s Game Developers Conference. But take our word for it, too. You play as Zagreus, prince of the underworld, who tries to escape his home and the crushingly dull paperwork that comes with managing so much eternal damnation. During your escape you get help from the pantheon of Greek gods and legends, from Athena to Zeus. But Hades really shines when you die. Every time you start over, you reveal a little more of the overarching plot, which takes the sting out of dying to a jerk like Theseus. Just a bit.

An accessibility report for Hades is available on the Family Gaming Database.

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5

Price: $60 on PC, $70 on PlayStation at the time of publication

ESRB rating: T

When Returnal debuted on the PS5 in 2021, it proved to be an addictive combination of old-school arcade shooting and third-person action, albeit with a twist. In this game, set on an alien world with supernatural mysteries afoot, every play-through features a new world layout, different weapon and ability drops, and story progression that requires your expected, repeated failures to finish. Death isn’t just a possibility, it’s a necessity here as it tells the main character’s story.

An accessibility report for Returnal is available on the Family Gaming Database.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Android, iOS

Price: $25 on consoles, $9 on mobile at the time of publication

ESRB rating: T

Dead Cells is a side-scroller that’s punishing but not impossible, and it’s one of the best games to start with if you like platformers. As many times as we’ve died in the middle of a promising run, we’ve never wanted to throw the controller or quit for good. In this 2D game, you battle with randomly generated weapons through catacombs, ramparts, and royal halls to confront the king of a diseased island. But you have to be quick, because doors with precious upgrades lock if you don’t reach them in the allotted time. Or, if you explore every nook and cranny, you might be similarly rewarded. Most levels give you options as to which level to progress to next, so you can change up the environment or enemies you fight during each attempt. And trust us—you will make a lot of attempts.

An accessibility report for Dead Cells is available on the Family Gaming Database. The game is also tagged in the Xbox store with the following accessibility features: custom volume controls, single-stick gameplay, and steady camera.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation, Xbox

Price: $22 at the time of publication

ESRB rating: T

The storytelling and hand-painted artwork of Children of Morta are phenomenal, but this game is a favorite of ours because of its online and couch co-op gameplay. This game is well worth your time as a solo player, but it’s also an excellent option if you want an addicting and challenging adventure to play with someone else. The game is hard, and combat consists mostly of holding a joystick in one direction or another to unleash a flurry of moves and special attacks that you can use after a cooldown period. You’re likely to spend 30-plus minutes progressing through a dungeon just to reach the final boss and die after the first strike, which sounds awful, but the game is difficult to put down. Fortunately, the story advances even when you fail, so you can work toward unlocking new characters and cutscenes even if things don’t go your way.

Some accessibility features for Children of Morta are detailed in GameCritics.com’s review.

Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, Playstation, Xbox, Android, iOS

Price: $25 at the time of publication

ESRB rating: E10+

Slay the Spire is catnip for statistics nerds and people who obsess over every little decision in an RPG. In this deck-building game, you start with a simple set of 10 cards that attack and block damage from your enemies. But as you defeat enemies, you encounter cards that you can choose to add to your deck: Some cards attack, some block, some help you draw more cards, and others buff your character. Choose wisely, and you can craft an unstoppable set of cards that work together to help you ascend through the spire’s 50-plus floors and take down the final boss. (A disclaimer: This rabbit hole is deep. I’ve played this game for more than 500 hours, and I still pick it up for fun.)

An accessibility report for Slay the Spire is available on the Family Gaming Database. The game is also tagged in the Xbox store with the following accessibility features: custom volume controls, pausable, no button holds, no quick-time events, single-stick gameplay, and steady camera.

This article was edited by Arthur Gies and Caitlin McGarry.

Haley Perry

Haley Perry is an associate staff writer at Wirecutter covering video games and technology. She used to review video games full-time, and she’s also a big fan of mezcal. If you get enough in her, she may just admit that she still plays The Sims ... a lot.

by Kaitlyn Wells

Self-cleaning litter boxes are expensive and more work than they're worth. The Litter-Robot III Open Air is the least bad, but we don't recommend one.

by Grant Clauser

These smart-home devices don’t need permanent installation, so you can take them with you when you move.

by Harry Sawyers

There’s a limit to what you can do in a space you don’t own, but these bath upgrades make it feel a lot more like it’s yours.

by Christine Cyr Clisset

Don’t give in to tossing and turning because of random noises or light in your bedroom. Here are the tools to create a quiet, dark sleep oasis.