As great as the best single-player games are, they all must come to an end. Sure, you can replay them and maybe get a secret ending, but they will essentially be the same experience as before. Roguelikes (and Roguelites) are games that are designed to be endlessly replayable.
Each one approaches things a bit differently, but the most common element they all share is some level of random generation. This could be in the levels, enemies, items, and more, with most opting to randomize almost everything. That makes every run a new challenge that you can never fully predict.
These games are some of the most addictive and best PS5 games you can play, but it is also a genre flooded with less-than-great options. We’ve sunk hundreds of hours into Roguelikes to pick out the best ones you can play on PS5 today.
Returnal
Most Roguelikes stick to a smaller budget and relative scale, such as 2D pixel art games. Returnal might be the first true AAA Roguelike game that launched early in the PS5’s life. Like Hades, it also manages to weave the gameplay loop of dying and repeating runs into the narrative in a clever way that we won’t spoil here. This is a third-person shooter where you only get a handful of permanent upgrades for traversal, but plenty of new weapons and buffs.
Unlike most third-person shooters, Returnal plays like a bullet-hell game where you need to dodge complex bullet patterns while firing back. It is one of the harder PS5 Roguelikes, but very polished and one that you can actually see an ending to.
Slay the Spire
Deckbuilding Roguelikes took off in large part thanks to Slay the Spire showing the world how it was done. This is arguably still the best game within the subgenre thanks to its easy-to-understand, almost impossible-to-master gameplay design.
You get a set starting deck based on your character and slowly add, remove, and upgrade cards as you choose your path up the spire. Combat is played in turns where you can see exactly what the enemy is going to do on their next turn, giving you the opportunity to avoid or minimize your damage.
Deciding which cards are worth adding to your deck, or if you can pass up on healing to upgrade just one of your cards, make it always feel like you’re just barely scraping by. If you do eventually master the core game, the Ascension challenges will push you to the limit.
Hades
PC players are lucky enough to be playing the early access version of the sequel, but we at least have the original Hades on PS5. Mixing Greek mythology with a Roguelike was an inspired choice, but it isn’t just the visuals and abilities that make Hades so addicting.
Story is incredibly difficult to pull off in a game where you’re constantly dying and restarting, but the number of lines each character has and the ways you slowly unlock more and more conversations are just one more reason to keep fighting. The combat itself is fluid, flashy, and constantly gives you choices for how to improve your run. Even a failed run still ben
Spelunky 2
One of the early hits of the indie Rogulike scene was the original Spelunky, and it was almost a decade later before the sequel finally arrived. Despite all that time, Spelunky 2 isn’t a huge departure from the first, but that is far from a bad thing. You are exploring a randomly generated cave stage by stage trying to collect loot, get items, and solve secrets to find new zones and bosses beyond what is originally presented.
You start out every run with just a whip, some ropes to climb, and bombs to destroy the environment. Everything else needs to be picked up or purchased during that run, with skins being the only real permanent unlockable.
Enter the Gungeon
You might think you’ve played a dozen games like Enter the Gungeon just by looking at it, but this bullet-hell Roguelike is one of the most mechanically polished games in the genre. Movement, dodging, and shooting are tightly tuned so that even the more brutal of boss bullet patterns are avoidable if you pay close attention.
The pixel art is also beautiful and full of charming enemy designs with pun-filled names and references all over. Runs don’t take too long and there’s just enough stuff to unlock and secrets to discover to feel like a meaty experience without becoming too bloated or overstaying its welcome.
Balatro
No one saw Balatro coming, and now we can’t imagine life without it. This is another deckbuilding roguelike, but one that uses the standard 52 deck of cards we all know and love to make traditional poker hands.
That approchability will make it easy for anyone to get started, and from there start to learn how to alter the deck with the random Jokers that change how you look at your cards. It is the perfect example of a simple idea that expanded into something so deep and satisfying that it rightfully won tons of awards the year it came out.
It has a surprising number of moving parts and different ways each run can go for a game that uses basic playing cards.
The Binding of Isaac: Repentance
We couldn’t write a list of Roguelikes without including the newest version of the game that set the standard for what the genre looks like in the modern day. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance is almost too big of a game now. What started as a little dungeon crawler where you shoot tears, collect items, and fight gross bosses has sprawled into a game with dozens of characters, hundreds of items that combine and interact in insane ways, multiple modes, challenges, achievements, secrets, and more.
This is one of the few Roguelikes that, without exaggeration, you could play for hundreds of ours and see something new each time you play.
