Regular readers here will know that I love a good collaboration, and the latest to catch my eye as I scrolled through the ol’ News Feed is the announcement that Ravenswatch is joining the world of Astral Ascent.

The crossover is centred around five new Echoes that are joining Astral Ascent, as well as a special new room, The Hourglass of Dreams, which is also inspired by the Ravenswatch universe.

Update: The collaboration is out now, and there’s some interesting titbits to tell you about!

First of all, the free Astral Ascent content also just happens to have landed alongside the release of Merlin as a playable character in Ravenswatch. In fact, the base game is currently 50% off on Steam, and also reduced on PlayStation 4/5, Switch, and Xbox.

Astral Ascent, on the other hand, is also heavily discounted, but only on Steam (at the time of writing, at least).

The update to Astral Ascent is the latest in a long line of free content drops, and you’ll find patch notes via this little link. As you can see in the screenshot below, the update adds a new room: The Hourglass of Dreams.

It is inspired by Reverie, which is the setting in Ravenswatch, and the Sandman you find therein will allow you to upgrade your gambits’ rarity level for quartz, and also upgrade an echo into one of the new ones that are tied to the room.

It also sounds like much work has gone into onboarding. I think it’s fair to say that Astral Ascent is a challenging game, and HW has made an effort to help people get started more easily!

Original: If you’re not already in the loop on either game, both are very good, in my humble opinion.

Ravenswatch is a really fun but challenging co-op action-RPG by Passtech Games. It’s set in the world of Reverie, and you play with hero characters drawn from folklore. I really enjoyed it at launch, and Kieran recently reported that Merlin is joining the game soon.

On the other side of the equation is Astral Ascent, which we reviewed at launch and then again when it hit 2.0 (you can check that out via this link). Developer Hibernian Workshop has done a fine job growing their side-scrolling roguelite platformer, and as you can see in the roadmap pictured below, there’s plenty more still to come in 2026.

Would you like to know more? 

Still with us? Of course you are! If you want to keep reading about great hand-picked rogues, the following articles represent a huge collection of the best roguelike games ever made.

The Best Roguelike Games: great roguelites, deckbuilders, RPGs, bullet heavens, and more

Next, there are genre-specific lists that delve into the best roguelike games of all types. I’ve pulled out the best examples from each category, alongside the links to more in-depth articles!

The best turn-based roguelikes: Caves of Qud | There are some seriously incredible turn-based roguelikes out there. Of all the modern games, these are the closest to the original Rogue. 

Great bullet heavens and auto-shooters: Vampire Survivors | There could be only one choice for this category, given how all other games are called survivors-likes for a reason! 

Awesome first-person rogues: Gunfire Reborn | We almost went with Blue Prince for this spot, but most people checking out first-person rogues probably want to wield a gun, you know?!  

Cool roguelike deckbuilders: Balatro | Sorry, Slay the Spire fans, but this poker-solitaire deckbuilder has stolen Mike’s heart and won’t give it back.

Brilliant roguelite top-down and third-person shooters: Returnal | Bit of a broad one, but with our other favourite action-roguelites featured elsewhere, we were obliged to mention Returnal here. 

Exciting roguelike platformers: Spelunky | Now, don’t get us wrong, Dead Cells is an incredible game, especially with all the DLC switched on. But when it comes to impact, you just can’t beat Spelunky.

Strategy Roguelikes: FTL Faster Than Light | Another classic roguelike that we’re still playing years after launch.

Amazing action-roguelites: Hades 2  | And finally, let’s wrap things up with our favourite of them all. There’s no beating the original Hades, although Hades 2 comes pretty close! 

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