Why Roguelites Keep Getting More Popular

When I think back to what used to dominate earlier gaming eras, I don’t just think about specific franchises, but about a certain pace. Twitchy shooters, punishing platformers, and action games that are happy to throw you right back to the start were all too common. Whilst the appetite for that obviously hasn’t disappeared, there is now a lot of space for a different type of comfort: Roguelites.

My personal roguelite journey started about 15 years ago with The Binding Of Isaac. It really was not the kind of game I would’ve ever expected to keep coming back to, because it was repetitive, punishing, and – especially on the original graphics – incredibly chaotic. And yet, ever since then, Roguelites in general have become by far the easiest games for me to return to. This only really clicked once I realized how often I default to one without really thinking about it. Most recently, Slay the Spire II has been my poison of choice.

We Keep Asking for Freedom, But That’s Not What We Actually Want

Whenever a new game gets announced, the conversation is taken over by pleas for freedom. People want build variety, lots of different playstyles, and, of course, open worlds that let them do whatever they want. The expectation is clear: games should give you as much control as possible.

This, however, doesn’t really line up with the topics that seem to trend immediately after a game actually releases. Instead, the freedom gets narrowed down again, by dedicated tier lists that go up within hours and meta builds that get upvoted nearly instantly. The videos with the most clicks are probably the ones talking about some hyped bug or an overpowered item. Whilst these are just symptoms, it’s clear that many players like to enjoy the game in a much more defined way than they initially claimed they wanted.

And while this is a little contradictory, it also makes sense: too much freedom is exhausting, and having to figure out everything yourself takes a lot of effort. Naturally, not everyone wants to spend that effort every time they sit down to play something, and trying a cool build that is highly upvoted on Reddit means that you are almost guaranteed a good time, with very little thinking required.

Roguelites Give You Just Enough Structure to Relax

In many ways, Roguelites managed to find the perfect middle ground. Yes, the gameplay loop is always the same, and yet everything around it changes, all of the time.

You start a run, you get as far as you can, you unlock something, and then you go again. Of course, there is variation in how that plays out, but you’re never lost. You always have a level of understanding of what it is you’re doing, even when the game throws something unexpected at you. There are very few things to get paralysis of analysis about, since the objective is always pretty clear and contained.

As someone that has started a new Skyrim run about six or seven times now, always getting decently far along, but has yet to see the ending, there is something special about not having to think about the entire game every time you go to pick it up. You just fall right back into it.

And of course, the way that Roguelites lead us to progression does a lot of the heavy lifting, because this genre tends to approach this a little differently to most games out there.

Failure Feels Less Punishing When It’s Part of the System

The vast majority of games treat failure as something you’re supposed to overcome. You mess up, you try again, and eventually you get it right. Hopefully. Some games, like those within the Soulslike or Kaizo genre, take this a step further by being extremely hard, which makes the wins feel that much sweeter. Of course, all of this generally still applies to Roguelites, but it’s framed differently.

Failure isn’t just expected, but it’s sort of the point. You’re meant to be losing runs. You’re meant to be getting stuck. These games are built around this.

But instead of this feeling like wasted time, it feeds back into the system. Yes, sometimes you just get a little bit more experience or learn something new about how a mechanic behaves, but more often than not, you unlock something or get a better setup for the next run. This softens the frustration without removing the challenge entirely, all whilst giving you a constant stream of new items or gameplay changes to explore.

It’s Probably Not Just About Games

Now, there are a variety of reasons why the video game genres that we see trending are shifting: The user base as a whole is growing, and with a bigger market, there are also more opportunities for people to create games. The budget many of us have available for games is shrinking whilst the cost of living in general is rising, and most Roguelites have been created with smaller teams, keeping costs down. The average age of gamers is rising, too, and with that the commitments they have in their life, which lends itself to appreciating quick, self-contained 30-minute runs.

All of that goes hand in hand with the fact that how we talk about games, and how we approach them feels vastly different to how it used to. There’s more selectivity and a lot less willingness to just commit to something to see where it goes. Part of that is, of course, just how many games there are now, but it also feels tied to everything else going on. Stress levels are higher, and with that, unpredictability isn’t always exciting anymore.

Roguelites work because they control unpredictability. Things change, but they change within a system you understand. You’re not constantly adapting to something completely new, you just have to get a little bit better within a structure that’s familiar. And right now, for many, that’s a lot more appealing than it used to be.