Roguelike

Half-Life 1 is one of the best first-person shooters ever made, and its fan community is still going strong nearly 25 years after its release. A developer who goes by PinkyDev has recreated the original Half-Life as an isometric twin-stick shooter, and the developer says that Valve has given its permission to put the fan-game on Steam.Originally titled Half-Life Loop (now called Codename Loop to prevent confusion), the premise of the game is that G-Man has trapped series hero Gordon Freeman in an infinite…

A demo is out now It seems almost impossible at this stage for there to ever be a third Half-Life game. It’s just been so long, and chances are that a threequel would struggle to live up to the hype. However, there are still new ways to get your Gordon Freeman kicks. For example, modder PinkyDev is working on a modification that turns Valve’s iconic FPS into a roguelike shooter. Called Codename: Loop, the demo for the project has just been released, so you can try it out before it releases fully. There’s also a…

Humble's latest bundle, the Luck of the Draw Roguelike Deck-Builders bundle, might sound pretty niche at first. But for just $20, you'll get a highly varied collection of games that take traditional genres like brawlers or RPGs or tactical games and turn them on their heads in fascinating new ways.Like other Humble Bundles, the Luck of the Draw Bundle comes in three sizes if you don't want to buy the whole thing. But at $20, which is the minimum for the highest tier, you'll nab seven indie…

Hyper Light Breaker looks like it’s made just for me: a challenging roguelike from the creators of the indie hit Hyper Light Drifter but with Breath of the Wild-like exploration. While there’s still a lot we don’t know about the game — it won’t be in early access until this fall — when I was presented the opportunity to talk with two of the game’s composers, I jumped at the chance. I hoped they could answer my questions about how composers think about writing music for roguelikes.Hyper Light Breaker is an open-world,…

The game, called TMNT Splintered Fate, is a top-down co-op roguelike that has Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael fighting their way through enemies as they search for Master Splinter, who’s gone missing. You can team up with friends or go it alone as you traverse New York City while enlisting help from other characters like April, Metalhead, Casey Jones, and more along the way.Other brand new games coming to the platform include: What the Car?, a silly-looking game that undoes everything you know about…

We’ve got a while to wait until Hades 2, and if you’re in need of a roguelike to fill the hole Hades left behind, then Have A Nice Death should do nicely. I had the opportunity to try the game first at GDC and then again now that it’s out on PC and Nintendo Switch, and I was immediately smitten with its dark humor and easy-to-pick-up (but difficult-to-master) combat. You play as Death, the CEO of Death Incorporated, who has outsourced the job of reaping souls to their trusted underlings who, after untold millennia of…

Conquer the nodes Wargroove is back with its sequel Wargroove 2, a surprise follow-up that returns to the tile-based tactics. And while it’s hitting many of the same notes as its predecessor, we got to go hands-on with its new spin on turn-based warfare: the Conquest mode. The Conquest mode is one of Wargroove 2‘s big new features. It’s a roguelike approach to battles that follows a familiar structure if you’ve ever played other styles of roguelike. Yet for all the familiarity of this concept, it wound up being a pretty…

When I sat down to try a demo of The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story at PAX East, I was dropped straight into an escape mission. At first, I fumbled with switching between casting spells and dodging attacks from enemy mages. By the end, I juggled between at least four magical abilities while dashing around to survive. It was a hectic experience, but one that perfectly complemented its storytelling. In the new League of Legends action RPG from developer Digital Sun, magic is outlawed in Demacia. Sylas, a former…

This weekend, PAX East returned to Boston with a lively show full of panels and game demos. It was a return to form for the gaming expo after suffering a few difficult years during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital Trends was on the scene once again this year, sampling a wide range of indie games during the multi-day event. There was a lot to get excited about this year, from stylish roguelikes to a riff on Vampire Survivors featuring capybaras. After many hours of behind-closed-door previews and…

Although the Nintendo Switch has some of the best AAA titles, the system has become known as an indie machine to many people. The portability of the Switch and Switch Lite makes them ideal for some of the best indie games, and dozens of small developers seem to love releasing their games on the hybrid console. Better yet, plenty of previously released indie games, such as Hollow Knight, have received increased attention and acclaim after landing on the Switch. It’s become a win-win for developers and Switch owners.…