Roguelike and Roguelite games are incredibly popular in the industry and for good reason. A good roguelike game introduces a core gameplay loop that keeps players coming back, fills said loop with tons of fun content, and keeps each run brief enough that players can sit down for 15 minutes or offers them enough content that they can sit and play for hours. While it remains to be seen how it ranks among other roguelite games, Endless Dungeon is a title fans may want to keep their eyes on.
A union of roguelike gameplay and Overwatch 2's Escort game mode, Endless Dungeon is a roguelite title with a gameplay emphasis on doors. It may sound odd, but it translates very well. In short, each run tasks the player with escorting their Crystal Bot to the end of the floor. Along the way players will generate resources such as Food, Industry, and Science by exploring and opening doors, with each door also representing a new path toward the exit but another avenue by which monsters can invade. The structure of Endless Dungeon may be straightforward, but it's a lot of fun. Game ZXC was able to play a brief demo at the Sega Summer Showcase in NYC, and we walked away with the same feeling everyone gets when their fifth "One More Run" can't actually be done.
Hinging exploration on a series of doors may sound odd, but it works well. Players open doors, acquire resources, use those resources to build defenses, turrets, upgrades, and the like, and explore with the goal of getting the Crystal Bot out intact. Several things (certain doors, research tasks, sometimes it's just random) will trigger an enemy wave, forcing players to fall back to the Crystal Bot's position to defend it. Then they set out again to find the golden path, escort their Crystal Bot to it, and then continue on to the next part.
Getting through the station is the ultimate goal, which according to other denizens on the station is impossible, but each run is made unique in a couple of ways: room layouts, enemy encounters, character selection, turret upgrades, and more. One could describe Endless Dungeon as a roguelike turret defense game, but that's only half the picture when the game is packed with so much more than what turret defense games normally have.
Procedural generation is in full effect here, with each map being unique to the run. Players can also obtain different benefits from research, face off with different enemies (and combos thereof), and acquire different weapon upgrades. While it may not have a big impact on gameplay, there are also personal quests players can complete with each character in Endless Dungeon. Completing certain tasks on a run, finding certain things, and progressing the lore opens players up more to the world of Endless Dungeon. One constant in Endless Dungeon is the Saloon: when players die on the battlefield, they return here to upgrade their heroes and weapons, chat with the locals, and take different stat boosts. Smart choices could make or break the next run, and it's all on repeat in the best of ways.
Endless Dungeon is playable in three-player co-op, with each able to take on different roles as certain characters. More have yet to be revealed, but during our playthrough, we ran the characters Blaze and Shroom. Blaze is an explosive DPS character who wields a mini-gun to mow down the pursuing enemies, set mines around the map to help hold certain chokepoints, or launch a volley when becoming overwhelmed by enemies. Meanwhile, Shroom is a healer who was able to keep us in tiptop shape as we fought off enemy hordes, and between our characters shooting and popping abilities, enemy raids pushing on our defenses and bot, the special effects of some weapons, our firing turrets, and more, there's certainly a bullet-hell vibe to the on-screen madness. Surely, there's a method to the madness, but in the moment, that madness takes over and is just a blast to play.
Endless Dungeon may appear unassuming, but it's a game that will pull players in with its simplicity, challenge them with surprising complexities, and keep them coming back to prove they can make it further. That determination, shared by the game's characters, is such a nice detail to see realized in terms of story and gameplay. 2023 has been filled with great games, with Zelda, Baldur's Gate 3, and others already easily establishing that. But the year is missing a great definitive roguelike, and Endless Dungeon has the potential to be just that.
Endless Dungeon will release on October 19 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The Nintendo Switch release date will be announced in due course. Game ZXC was provided travel and lodging for the SEGA Summer Showcase in NYC.
