With Mike recently rounding up the best roguelikes and roguelites on Metacritic, it got me wondering which of these games made the biggest splash when they first released on Steam.
Before you take a peek below at the standings, it’s worth noting that these figures come from SteamDB. Using the site, I looked up the most popular roguelikes and roguelites and checked their peak launch player numbers in the first 24 hours. For this list, I’ve focused specifically on each game’s initial release on Steam, rather than later 1.0 launches.
I’ll admit, before I even crunched the numbers, I assumed Hades II would come out on top. Turns out, I was wrong. While it was the biggest indie release on the list, one obvious contender I’d overlooked was Elden Ring: Nightreign, a roguelike spin-off of the FromSoftware classic.
When it comes to most appearances on the list there is a joint tie between Hopoo Games (Risk of Rain 2 and Risk of Rain Returns) and Edmund McMillen (Mewgenics and The Binding of Issac: Rebirth). Mewgenics from the latter is obviously the newest release to crack the top 10, and what a start it has got off to, pulling in 65,962 players in its first day.
Of course, we’ll be back to update the list when Slay the Spire 2 launches in March.
For now, though, here’s how the games stack up based on their launch-day concurrent player peaks:
Elden Ring: Nightreign – 313,593
Hades 2 – 103,567
Megabonk – 82,301
太吾绘卷 The Scroll Of Taiwu – 72,121
Risk of Rain 2- 70,194
The Binding of Issac: Rebirth – 69,747
Mewgenics – 65,962
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor – 56,943
Loop Hero – 51,156
Risk of Rain Returns – 45,141
If you've enjoyed this article, please share it with your network and help spread the word!
Still with us? Of course you are! If you want to keep reading about great hand-picked games, the following articles represent a huge collection of the finest roguelikes and roguelites ever made.
It’s a dangerous world out there these days, and keeping yourself safe online is more important than ever. There are lots of services available that can help keep you secure, but one of the very best is NordVPN.
A good VPN can protect your identity while you are online, provide anonymity when you need it, and if you’re on holiday and want to watch your streaming services in a different region, for example, you can safely do so with a secure connection via NordVPN.
We’ve partnered with NordVPN because we think the service they offer has genuine value in this day and age, and of course, we’d appreciate the commission we’d earn from your sign-up. Thank you!
Now let’s get down to business. First, let’s establish the parameters for inclusion. We can answer the question of “what is a roguelike?” by briefly telling you about the game that started this whole party.
Rogue is a turn-based RPG with procedurally-generated dungeon crawling and permadeath. The genre has exploded in a hundred different directions since then, but all of the games on this list retain one or two core features that first appeared in Rogue back in 1980.
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.
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.
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.
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!
