2025 has been excellent so far for roguelike fans, with so many unique and fun games coming out one after the other. From Hades 2 to Silksong, we’ve seen some heavyweights drop in 2025, but indies (which these two also are) have, too, dominated the scene.
One such game is Megabonk, the latest roguelike craze that takes inspiration from games that’ve defined the genre, but sprinkles in some of its own ideas, with the result being an absurd, meme-packed, chaotic title that truly stands out. It was made by a single person, but it plays as if a whole team of geniuses worked on it, refining recognizable mechanics into a new and refreshing experience.
Here is our full review.
The best of two worlds
Megabonk, at its core, has two souls: each related to either Risk of Rain or Vampire Survivors. Which dominates its whole more is up for debate, as both are equally represented in its core gameplay, items, and characters.
The combat is much like Vampire Survivors: you drop into a world, have a weapon that automatically attacks swarming enemies, while you can augment yourself via items and Tomes, all of which add significant bonuses to your offense, defense, and survivability. Items are gained via chests, while weapons drop with level-ups (until you’ve filled your weapon slots, then it’s just upgrades) alongside Tomes.
Every now and again, a boss emerges—either a smaller or a bigger one—dropping a chest at the end. They cost an increasing sum of gold to open. Shrines and vendors that give special powers or items can be encountered throughout the map.
The items, weapons, and Tomes you can get during a match depend on how much you’ve progressed in the game, as everything needs to be purchased via Silver, earned by playing the game and completing quests.
Being a roguelike, dying means starting over, but unlocking more items with that hard-earned Silver and completed challenges adds a sense of progress to the game that is largely absent from similar titles. You can switch on various extra challenges for any given stage once you completed it at least once, further improving replayability.
Everything is also super dependent on RNG and luck, which is by no means a bad thing as a true genre staple. Roguelikes without randomization would be as if you had Call of Duty with no guns; it just wouldn’t work. However, this can end up frustrating some players not used to the luck of the draw, which is understandable, but not really the game’s fault.
While reading that, you’ll probably spot influences from both Risk of Rain and Vampire Survivors, and I cannot stress enough how much those two games come together in Megabonk.
A charming new take
While its core loop, with the automated attacks, enemy swarms, slot machine-esque chests, and periodically-spawning bosses that, too, drop chests, certainly comes from Vampire Survivors, RoR basically takes care of everything else. Instead of surviving for a particular time to “beat” the stage, Megabonk asks you to find the teleporter, which spawns a boss, much like it does in Risk of Rain.
You can find various Shrines that augment bosses, buff them, spawn more of them, or increase difficulty across the maps, all of which are found in just about every RoR run.
The items in the game don’t “combine” in the same way they do in Vampire Survivors, with particular items or weapons creating a new one synergetically, but are rather akin to those in RoR—stacking flat or percentage-based buffs that do their own thing.
Combining these two formulas produces an entirely new experience, one where you’ll feel right at home, no matter if you like Risky or Survivors more. It’s the best of both worlds, introducing a plethora of contemporary memes into the mix and spicing up the comedy, while smashing the game straight into the zeitgeist.
It’s charming to say the least, with the memes lending themselves to allowing the creator to experiment with ludicrous and funny designs, distancing themselves from generic fantasy, sci-fi, or other genres, and instead creating something familiar to players, but also unique and its own.
This sort of applies to most of the game, since it’s a combination of established formulas and mechanics, but also new and refreshing. After all, two and two give four, a whole new number, but one inevitably made up of numbers preceding it.
Megabonk also isn’t as difficult as most other games in the roguelike or Survivors-like genre. Most runs can go well for you, but higher tiers ramp up the challenge quickly, throwing everything they have at you. Coming prepared is almost a must for these higher tiers, so don’t go into them without first unlocking a lot of good weapons, items, and Tomes (and characters).
Speaking of which, unlocking more stuff does increase the difficulty somewhat, which is the game’s only real drawback. The more items you have, the larger the pool the game has to pull from, meaning you’ll get less of what you want more often. It’s a genre flaw that the dev could fix at some point, but it’s not really that big of a deal. It’s a roguelike, after all, and RNG is king here.
Overall, Megabonk does everything well, evolving the formula significantly and introducing new ways to experience established roguelike mechanics, all the while enjoying tons of funny memes, inspired characters, and a loop that rarely goes stale, and which the game knows when to end (by spawning guaranteed-kill enemies when the timer runs out).
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9
Superb
A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won’t cause massive damage.
Megabonk is a charming, wild, and exceptionally fun title, combining various roguelikes into a fresh experience packed with pop culture references and memes.
Pros
- Fast-paced, tense, and never stale.
- Funny in more ways than one.
- A great leap forward for roguelikes.
- Lots of bonking.
Cons
- Making a good build can become difficult with progress.
A copy of this game was acquired by Destructoid itself. Reviewed on PC.
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