Summary

• Many rogue-lites include permanent progression, shifting away from traditional rogue-like roots.
• Against The Storm, for instance, combines city-building with rogue-lite mechanics for a unique gameplay experience.
• Games like Hades and Rogue Legacy 2 offer meta-progression systems to enhance replay value.

The rogue-lite genre has become increasingly popular in recent years, with games such as Rogue Legacy 2, Hades, and Vampire Survivors being some of the most popular examples. These games often feature gameplay loops that are familiar with the classic rogue-like genre, but make a few sizable changes in the name of accessibility and replay value. Although it could be argued that almost any rogue-like bereft of turn-based combat is no longer much like the original Rogue, many players understand rogue-lites as rogue-likes with permanent progression.

While this isn't the only change to the genre that can pull a game out of its rogue-like roots, it's certainly the most common, and the most obvious. At the more subtle end of the spectrum, these progression systems simply allow players to unlock new items/areas/characters to find/play as in future runs. However, more often than not, these systems directly influence the player's strength.

7 Against The Storm

Steam User Rating: 95%

This unique indie strategy game is an innovative combination of city-builder gameplay and a rogue-lite structure. In Against The Storm, players build a variety of small settlements, abandoning them once they've completed their given objectives. While this sounds antithetical to the genre, Against The Storm taps into the sheer fun that's often derived from the start of a standard city-builder, and its rogue-lite elements are deftly woven into its gameplay. This tight, fast-paced loop of building small settlements is what makes Against The Storm's progression feel so rewarding.

As players progress through Against The Storm, building settlements and completing objectives, they'll earn resources that can be spent on meta-progression in the hub world in between runs. These upgrades ensure players are always progressing and provide helpful boons for future runs, as well as new content for players to explore.

6 Streets Of Rogue

Steam User Rating: 96%

Streets Of Rogue is a top-down action rogue-like/rogue-lite with elements of permanent progression that push it toward the rogue-lite genre. However, this permanent progression doesn't make the player stronger over time, keeping Streets Of Rogue closer to a game about player skill than most other rogue-lites.

Streets Of Rogue features several kinds of progression that add to its replay value and work to encourage players to play the game over and over. By completing specific objectives, players can unlock a wide variety of playable characters, each of which changes the game in unique ways.

5 Hades

Steam User Rating: 98%

This action-packed rogue-lite, themed around Greek Mythology and the Underworld, takes a story-driven approach to its design. Because of this, developers, Supergiant Games (the prominent indie team behind games such as Bastion and Pyre), opted to include heavy amounts of meta-progression in the game's design, encouraging players to keep returning to the game and rewarding them for repeat plays. This ensures that players remain engaged as they progress through the narrative.

Hades features a simple but intuitive progression system in which players spend meta-currency between runs to upgrade their abilities and strengthen themselves for their next run. While this does make the game easier over time, players have to frequently take risks to acquire this meta-currency, and the game's heat system can counterbalance this if the player finds the game too easy as a result.

4 Enter The Gungeon

Steam User Rating: 95%

This top-down shooter features action rogue-like gameplay in a rogue-lite structure, in which players collect meta-currency over the course of multiple runs and spend it to unlock new items. Unlike many rogue-lites, however, Enter The Gungeon never directly increases the player's power. Instead, players unlock new active items and guns to discover in their next run through the game.

Enter The Gungeon is packed with these unlockable items, and it can take players hours to unlock everything the game has to offer. While these new items and weapons don't directly influence the player's strength, many of them are extremely powerful additions to the player's potential arsenal. Furthermore, they provide a great deal of variety to the otherwise repetitive gameplay loop.

3 Dead Cells

Steam User Rating: 97%

This action-platformer is a combination of the Metroidvania and rogue-lite genres, tasking players with delving through dungeons in a run-based fashion. While Dead Cells features permanent death, players can also collect and spend meta-currency on permanent upgrades.

However, Dead Cells doesn't just feature standard rogue-lite upgrades but classic Metroidvania elements as well. This means that Dead Cells frequently encourages players to explore as they fight their way through the game, slowly (and permanently) unlocking abilities that allow them to explore new areas. This offers a unique sense of progression that's not often seen in the rogue-lite genre.

2 Children Of Morta

Steam User Rating: 89%

This indie action RPG features a well-crafted, pixel-art aesthetic and weighty combat wrapped in a rogue-lite package. Despite using the rogue-lite formula for its gameplay loop, Children Of Morta is an RPG at heart and features a progression system that's in keeping with the genre.

Children Of Morta is a story-driven rogue-lite, which allows it to lean into its elements of permanent progression in a more natural way than other games in the genre. The game's action-RPG elements make up for most of Children Of Morta's progression; players can level up, gain new skills, and unlock passive upgrades that give them a leg-up in the next run.

1 Rogue Legacy 2

Steam User Rating: 91%

When players die in Rogue Legacy, they pick a new character with their own set of unique strengths and weaknesses. Each run, players can collect meta-currency that can be spent on upgrading the family manor and gain new persistent upgrades that strengthen them for future runs.

This progression feels natural thanks to the succession theme, which ties into the meta-progression perfectly. Furthermore, Rogue Legacy 2 features a New Game+ mode that allows players to make the game harder on themselves, ensuring that there's still a challenge.