It’s time to admit, before God and the good readers of Ars Technica, that I have a problem. I love roguelikes. Reader, I can’t get enough of them. If there’s even a whisper of a hot new roguelike on Steam, I’m there. You may call them arcane, repetitive, or maddeningly difficult; I call them heaven.
The second best part of video games is taking a puny little character and, over 100 hours, transforming that adventurer into a god of destruction. The best thing about video games is doing the same thing in under an hour. Beat a combat encounter, get an upgrade. Enter a new area, choose a new item. Put together a build and watch it sing.
If you die—immediately ending your ascent and returning you to the beginning of the game—you’ll often make a pit stop at a home base to unlock new goodies to help you on your next run. (Some people distiguish between roguelikes and “roguelites,” with the latter including permanent, between-run upgrades. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use “roguelike” as an umbrella term).
2025 has been a truly horrific year for most things. But for roguelikes? It’s been an embarrassment of riches. Because I’m an editor and there’s no one here to stop me, I’d like to tell you about them. To keep things manageable, I’ll stick to games that hit 1.0 in 2025.
Hades II
Game details Developer: Supergiant Games
Publisher: Supergiant Games
Platform: Windows, Switch/Switch 2
Release date: September 25, 2025
Price: $30
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