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Guides & Editorial
A guide to the best Roguelikes on PS4 and PS5
You’ll never play the same game twice with this selection of the finest procedurally generated adventures available on PlayStation Store.
Action roguelikes
Thrilling adventures
Experience death-defying runs that get your heart racing
Returnal
Unravel a cosmic horror story in this third-person roguelike shooter that traps an astronaut in time loop on an ever-changing planet.
- Take on ruthless enemies in bullet-hell-style combat, switching between firing modes at the pull of an adaptive trigger.
- Manage your limited resources carefully and scavenge for tech to improve your abilities in future loops.
Risk of Rain 2
Work your way through a series of stunning alien landscapes full of fearsome monsters and powerful loot, fighting both scaling difficulty and the always-ticking clock.
- Play solo or with friends and battle through hordes of frenzied monsters across a diverse series of handcrafted environments.
- Beat bosses to escape – or loop your run indefinitely to see how long you can survive as foes increase in power across the course of your game.
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Pacific Drive
Form a unique bond with an upgradable station wagon in this first-person driving survival game.
- Embark on ever-changing runs into a post-apocalyptic stretch of the Pacific Northwest to find supplies and survive this surreal nightmare.
- Piece together a long-forgotten mystery as you gradually make your way to the heart of the Olympic Exclusion Zone, upgrading your vehicle at an abandoned garage you’ve made into your home.
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Hades
Hack and slash your way out of Hades to defy its namesake, the lord of the underworld – who also happens to be your dad.
- Enjoy a highly stylized take on Greek mythology as you encounter many gods and benefit from their powers.
- Developer Supergiant (Bastion, Transistor, Pyre) showcases its narrative pedigree by weaving compelling narrative threads through richly atmospheric levels full of fast-paced action.
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What is a roguelike game?
Roguelikes are games characterised by levels that are procedurally generated - that is, created by clever algorithms rather than manually designed - meaning that no two playthroughs are ever the same. Level layouts, enemy placements and the weapons or upgrades you encounter change every time you restart, creating an irresistible challenge that demands hundreds, if not thousands of replays.
Where does roguelike come from?
The name pays tribute to Rogue, an early dungeon crawler from 1980. The game used procedural generation to create an entirely new dungeon for every playthrough, meaning players could never anticipate the dangers ahead. Through this, Rogue also introduced the enduring concept of ‘permadeath’.
Roguelike vs. rogue-lite: What's the difference?
There’s a lot of debate on this. Purists argue that a roguelike must mirror Rogue’s turn-based, dungeon crawler RPG approach to qualify.
Another school of thought is that a roguelike can refer to any game with procedural elements that will reset your progress completely after each playthrough, whereas a rogue-lite retains some elements of character progression, such as upgraded stats or unlocked weapons and abilities. Because of this, some consider that a roguelike is about the journey, whereas a rogue-lite is about the destination.
Are there any multiplayer roguelikes?
There are plenty of roguelikes that can be enjoyed with other players as cooperative experiences. Some of the games that support multiplayer in this curated selection include Spelunky 2 and Enter The Gungeon.
Classic roguelikes
Live to die another day
Perfect your escape strategy across diverse environments.
Spelunky 2
A sequel to the classic indie cave crawler, Spelunky 2 lets you loose on a hazardous underground world teeming with loot, enemies and traps.
- Experiment with the game’s physics and use a wide array of gadgets to go deeper and deeper into the cave network.
- Randomly generated layouts mean no run is the same as the last and diverse environments, including lush jungles and lava-filled hollows, ensure visual freshness throughout.
Dave the Diver
Join Dave, a professional diver, as he catches unique and delicious fish by day and serves hungry patrons at a seaside sushi restaurant by night.
- Dive into the Blue Hole, where the ecology and terrain is always changing, and discover that there’s more in its depths than sushi ingredients.
- Use your restaurant profits to upgrade your equipment between dives and enjoy minigames like seahorse racing and underwater photography when you’re not focused on the menu.
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Dead Cells
Become an immortal blob capable of possessing the bodies of dead prisoners and fight your way out of a plague-ridden island kingdom in this lightning-fast action experience.
- Explore every corner of a vast and interconnected world, picking up permanent upgrades on your runs to improve your future chances of escape.
- Tough-but fair-combat will keep you – or rather, your borrowed body – on your toes, and if in doubt roll yourself out of harm’s way.
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Vampire Survivors
This multi-award-winning time-survival experience mixes minimalistic gameplay with rogue-lite elements to deliver compelling one-more-run appeal.
- Survive a cursed night and get as much gold as possible for the next run, balancing offensive play with retrieving loot.
- Death is inevitable and there’s no place to hide, so level up your weapons to ensure maximum carnage against the onslaught of enemies.
Vampire Survivors is released for PlayStation 4 and PS5 in 2024.
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Rogue Legacy 2
Take control of a series of heirs attempting to navigate ever-changing dungeons in this sequel to a rogue-lite classic.
- Each heir is unique – one might be a vampiric Ranger, the next a vegan Chef. Play to each child’s strengths and grow the family estate with each generation.
- New monsters, traps and testing layouts await on each run – improvisation, not memorization, is the key to success.
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Genre-pushing roguelikes
Find a new beginning
Explore the boundaries of the genre where no playthrough is the same.
Inscryption
Blending deckbuilding with roguelike gameplay, escape-room-style puzzle mechanics and psychological horror, Inscryption is a uniquely dark experience.
- Acquire your cards via several twisted means and use them to unlock the secrets lurking in the mysterious Leshy’s cabin.
- Follow a wholly unexpected and deeply disturbing story, piecing together elements until you develop the terrifying bigger picture.
Balatro
Play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers and trigger outrageous combos in this roguelike deckbuilding strategy experience.
- Combine valid hands with unique jokers to create wild builds that can earn you chips and uncover hidden bonuses.
- Immerse yourself in a distinctively psychedelic world set to a synthwave soundtrack, chasing cards until you find your flow state.
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Cult of the Lamb
Play as a lamb saved from annihilation by an ominous stranger and subsequently made to repay their debut by building a loyal cult following in his name.
- Start a cult in a land of false prophets, crawling through randomized environments to discover what you need to grow and maintain your flock.
- Defeat other cult leaders and absorb their powers, growing your own cult’s dominance through dark rituals and twisted sermons.
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Slay the Spire
A fusion of card game and roguelike, this single-player deckbuilder is set in a unique fantasy world and offers compelling risk-versus-reward gameplay.
- Choose your cards wisely, evolving your decks with hundreds of cards, using complementary powers to effectively dispatch foes and reach the top of the Spire.
- The Spire is always changing, its layout different on each run, but there’s always the choice between a simple path and a riskier one – but to the brave go the greater spoils.
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PS VR2 roguelikes
Immerse yourself in the loop
Get even closer to the action in roguelikes designed exclusively for VR.
The Light Brigade
This magic-infused shooter sends you on an atmospheric journey to defend humanity from encroaching forces of darkness.
- Begin each run with a standard rifle and upgrade your arsenal as you progress, and if you fall attempt to retrieve items from your previous run.
- World War-inspired weaponry grounds the experience in realism while immersive features make reloading and shooting feel incredibly tactile.
Until You Fall
This neon-soaked arcade rogue-lite tasks you with striking down legions of magic-infused monstrosities across ever-changing runs.
- Play as the last remaining Rune Knight, hacking and slashing your way through a synthwave-soundtracked fantasy world.
- Attack, block and dodge in intuitive VR combat, swinging your blade for kinetically frantic (and energetic) fun.
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Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder
Play as a pioneering prospector exploring randomized networks of ancient mines and perilous caves in this single or multiplayer VR adventure.
- Start each run with nothing but a pickaxe and head down into the earth and rock below, recovering rewards to exchange for new gadgets and other upgrades.
- Use dynamite to blast yourself towards new discoveries, a shovel to clear dirt in multiple directions, and keep a six-shooter handy for any nasty critters lurking in these ever-shifting caves.
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Synapse
Enter a hostile, surreal world and overcome its deadly defences using telekinetic powers and a range of tactile weaponry in this roguelike first-person shooter from award-winning studio nDreams.
- Enter the twisted subconscious of an enemy of the state and wreak havoc across their mind, developing your abilities into an unstoppable force.
- Created exclusively for PS VR2, Synapse’s mesmerizing landscapes come to life in its 4K HDR display, while the Sense controllers put the game’s powers in the palms of your hands.
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