The best roguelikes from 2025

This year has been an amazing one for games, especially those made by small teams and indie studios. Corporate gaming has lost big time in 2025, and we as gamers only stand to gain because of that.

Roguelikes are truly representative of the indie sphere, and have been for quite some time now. Most of those great indie hits of 2025 were precisely in this genre, as it allows for fun, simple, yet highly effective gameplay loops that kept us yearning for just one more run.

So, to commemorate the best of the best in this fantastic year, here is our selection of the best roguelikes released in 2025.

The absolute best roguelikes from 2025

Elden Ring: Nightreign

Elden Ring: Nightreign is more or less the only AAA game on this list, or rather, a game made by a AAA studio. Coming out of the FromSoftware kitchen of earthly delights, this roguelike spin on FromSoftware’s massively successful Soulslike is as fun as it is innovative, given that the Soulslike genre and games never really dipped into the roguelike sphere.

It’s honestly Elden Ring in name only, taking the technical grounds laid by the original game and constructing something entirely new. It’s fast-paced, exhilarating even, and tremendously challenging for even the most seasoned Soulslike veterans.

The roguelike elements, while there, aren’t so well-developed, but the overall experience is still built around them, providing you with an established IP with traditional mechanics that are bound to keep you captivated for hours on end.

CloverPit

Clover Pit is a massive indie hit that first came out this fall, following the footsteps of other incredible roguelikes like Megabonk. It was quite a few months for roguelikes between September and November, and I don’t reckon we’ll see so many back-to-back hits in a single genre again for a long time.

Clover Pit, like Balatro, takes the addictive nature of gambling and combines it with roguelike elements that are more addictive still, producing a one-of-a-kind experience where you eagerly anticipate each spin of the slot machine. Though unique and quite in-depth, Clover Pit can be easily broken, leading to some wild numbers even on your first run.

The one thing I liked the most about it is the art style, which reminded me of Buckshot Roulette, another indie classic that completely took over social media during its run, leaving a tremendous mark on Internet culture—not much unlike Clover Pit and other games on this list.

Slots & Daggers

Speaking of slot machines, I had to put Slots & Daggers in here. The artistic vision of this game is so innovative, cool, and unique that it would’ve been a great disservice to all indies in the world if I had ignored it.

It, too, takes slot machine mechanics, but instead of doing the Balatro thing, this hame places them into a fantasy roguelike dungeon-crawling environment, itself ending up with an incredible one-of-a-kind experience. It seems like the key to roguelike success is combining gambling with whatever else comes to mind, so long as it looks and plays well (which it no doubt will).

Slots & Daggers is played more like a traditional dungeon crawler of old and has combat instead of just numbers on a screen, but it’s still an experience worth trying out.

Hades II

Hades 2 is the sequel to the already successful (and amazing) Hades, a game that completely changed the world of roguelikes. Much like its predecessor, the game is set in the world of Greek mythology, has all the flashy and innovative action mechanics, and innovative character-oriented storytelling introduced by the first game.

Our Scott Duwe gave the game a 9.5/10 earlier this year, saying it’s an overall improvement over the first game in just about every possible way. He did note some repetitiveness in the early areas, which is more than made up for by its overall replay value and addictive gameplay. I mean, it’s Hades, what did you expect?

Ball x Pit

If you had told me you could make a fantastic roguelike with balls sometime last year, I’d say you’ve gone completely off the rails. It appears that yes, indeed, it can be done, and boy, is it amazing.

Ball X Pit is one of the most surprising hits of the year, combining a simple gameplay loop with incredible visuals that enhance every second of each individual run. You launch balls at rows of enemies coming down a corridor—that’s basically it—but your whole experience is enhanced and altered by various items and buffs you can pick up between runs.

It’s proof that a small team can cobble up an addictive and innovative experience by iterating on established concepts, smashing them all together, and making sure that the art takes precedence over everything else.

White Knuckle

Getting Over It: The Roguelike just had to make its way on our list. Sure, I’m being rather reductive, given how well-polished and thought-out White Knuckle actually is.

The game revolves around your climbing from the bottom of a decrepit pit, encountering all sorts of products of death and decay on your way up. You’ll have to be quick, with sharp reflexes, and enhanced with all sorts of buffs that you can acquire to be able to reach the very top.

The art style is very reminiscent of that same one found in Clover Pit, Buckshot Roulette, and many other horror-adjacent games from the past few years, which, I dare say, actually works quite well in a title revolving around literally climbing out of hell.

Blue Prince

Puzzle games are a personal favorite of mine, and when they’re made into shifting, replayable roguelikes, I just have to give them a try.

Blue Prince is exactly that: a puzzle game wrapped in a roguelike container, where each experience is different and unique, covered in a veil of mystery and intrigue that inspires you to continue pushing through new levels, solving all sorts of assignments in search of Room 46.

It’s also one of the prettiest games on this list, with a comic-like art style that reminds me of an old game called XIII, which really helps to enhance this sort of noir detective aesthetic it’s got going on.

VOID/BREAKER

Given that I cannot qualify Risk of Rain 2 for a list like this (even if it did get a new DLC in 2025), I had to settle for VOID/BREAKER. It’s a wild ride and a first-person shooter at heart, but one that’ll certainly scratch that itch of yours for chaos and destruction.

Things ramp up super quickly, with flashy effects covering most of your screen (and probably crashing your PC eventually). You fight rogue AIs, combine various items that synergize well, and craft the ultimate weapons of mass destruction as you ravage through hordes of enemies in the most cocaine-fuelled ways imaginable.

Megabonk

They say you should always save the best for last, which is exactly what I did here. Megabonk is the biggest indie surprise of the year (if we discount Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from the indie category, and we wouldn’t be the first to do so), taking that same formula outlined by Vampire Survivors and smashing it together with Risk of Rain‘s itemization.

The result is as you’d expect: a chaotic, sober drug trip where countless enemies emerge from the ground as you, beset on all sides, ravage through them with unique item combinations and sheer luck. The replayability is endless, the characters are funny as f**k, while the memes run rampant across the board, leaving you smiling, laughing, and satisfied after each individual run (even if you get killed on the first level).

It’s just one of those games that’ll endure the test of time and live on in the collective consciousness of players.