TheRoguelikegenre dedicates itself to a strangely enthralling gameplay loop, taking learning curves, item and gear accumulation, adaptation, and other mechanics, all centered around one specific axiom: every death and every failure is a permanent setback that forces you to start from the beginning of the game, over and over until you achieve victory.
If you’re a fan of this particular flavor of masochistic madness, but don’t have any money to fork over at the moment, these free Roguelikes should be enough to stave off your hunger until a game you deem worthy of your hard-earned cash catches your eye.
The games listed were primarily chosen based on player reviews and overall replayability.
9Super Auto Pets
Super Auto Pets is a cute auto-battler with a surprising variety of strategies, viable playstyles, and game modes. The core gameplay loop is simple:
If you got some good RNG in the shop, or your pet placement synergizes well with the pets you’ve chosen, you’ll hopefully win against your opponent. If not, your health bar will take a hit, but you’ll have another chance at winning in the next round.
Realm of The Mad God is a classic Rogulike packaged into an MMORPG format with a nostalgic 8-bit pixel art style. Play with your friends or random players as you slay monsters, level up your chosen class, participate in raids and boss battles, and nab powerful new gear.
The game has a surprising amount of bullet hell mechanics, meaning you’ll surely be defeated again and again by a variety of enemies. Don’t be discouraged though, as you play, you’ll learn more about how to defeat these enemies, and unlock up to 18 playable classes over time.
7Muck
Despite the strange name, Muck is a surprisingly fun blend of the Survival and Roguelike genres for a free game. Gather resources, craft tools and weapons, build fortifications, and fight goblins, stone golems, and even a few different bosses on a forsaken island.
Similar toRisk of Rain 2, the difficulty progressively increases the longer you stay alive, so you’re incentivized to learn and move quickly. If solo play is getting frustrating, you can play with up to seven other friends to see if that improves your overall survival time.
6Shattered Pixel Dungeon
Despite the simple graphics and only four playable characters, Shattered Pixel Dungeon is a remarkably replayable, single-player, Roguelike RPG centered around turn-based combat. Every dungeon, including the loot and enemies you might come across within them, is completely random.
There’s more depth and mechanics than you’d expect, including a “fog of war” vision system, over 150 items to discover, and a surprising amount of basic tactics to learn. To help you in your first run, make sure you let enemies come to you; you’ll avoid giving them a free hit before it’s your turn to attack.
5Vampire Survivors
Although you’d have to pay for it on Steam, the immensely popular, wave-based, casual Roguelike Vampire Survivors is still free on mobile. Since your character attacks enemies automatically, the mobile controls are actually quite tolerable if you’re not used to digital inputs.
With tons of characters and items to unlock, both of which have specific synergies and implied playstyles, and the potential for each run to snowball through a blend of RNG and strategy, Vampire Survivors is incredibly fun and replayable. Do your best to not get overwhelmed!
4Soul Knight
If Soul Knight’s $12 price tag onNintendo Switchseems a bit unfair to you, you’ll thankfully be able to play it on mobile without spending a penny. Although it can’t exactly promise the same amount of depth and content, Soul Knight is both similar, and a great alternative toEnter The Gungeon.
Dive into randomly generated dungeons, play around with over 100 weapons and a few different heroes with their own unique abilities, dodge projectiles, and recruit NPCs to help you fight a wide variety of enemies.
3Backpack Battles
If the name itself didn’t give it away to you already, Backpack Battles is a PvP, Roguelike auto-battler with a heavy focus on inventory management and item synergy. Each run, you’ll have a chance to buy items, more bag space, and arrange or combine items to make your character stronger.
While your main focus should be learning how to optimize your backpack and buy items that complement one another, what you buy is influenced by the character you pick, such as the attack speed and critical hit oriented Ranger, or the poison and life-steal focused Reaper.
2Gun Knight
Gun Knight is a relatively simple, browser-based, run-and-gun dungeon crawler that still manages to scratch that Roguelike itch. Before you dive into the game, make sure you have hardware acceleration enabled in your browser settings for the smoothest gameplay possible. Then, you’re in for a fantastic experience.
Once you’re in, the first few levels won’t be much of a challenge. As you defeat enemies, you’ll come across gold, different ammo types, and gun upgrades, such as automatic ammo regeneration, or replacing bullets with dice. ensure to check out the shop before entering a boss fight too.
1Deep Dive
Deep Dive is a cozy, pixel art game with a heavy focus on underwater, deep-sea exploration. Playing as a diver with a handy headlamp, you’ll explore a fully destructible, randomly generated environment, scan various fish species, mine minerals, and manage your oxygen levels. The exploration is magnificent.
When you’re ready, or if your oxygen levels force you to, you may return to your boat on the surface to buy upgrades for your gear, which will allow you to dive deeper and for longer periods of time. Oh, and be careful of leaks in your helmet.
