One of the great things about roguelikes is that losing rarely means walking away empty-handed. You may have been flattened by a boss, wandered straight into a room you absolutely weren’t prepared for, or watched a promising build fall apart in spectacular fashion, but there’s often something waiting for you back at the start. It could be a new weapon, a new character, another item for the pool, or maybe even an entirely new way to play.
Some roguelikes take that idea much further than others. We’re talking hundreds of weapons, enormous collections of items, characters hidden behind challenges, new abilities, classes, traits, artifacts, and enough other things to unlock that reaching 100% starts looking like a second job.
Comparing them isn’t quite as simple as looking for the biggest number of items available. One game might have hundreds of procedurally generated weapons, while another has fewer unlocks that each require very specific challenges.
With that in mind, these aren’t ranked purely by numbers. Instead, these are ten rogue games that give completionists an absolutely ridiculous amount of stuff to chase.
1. Tales of Maj’Eyal
Let’s start with something a little different. Tales of Maj’Eyal isn’t going to beat something like The Binding of Isaac if we simply count individual items, but some of its unlocks are considerably bigger than another sword being added to a loot pool.
Whole classes and races can be unlocked by accomplishing certain things during your adventures, gradually opening completely new ways to approach the game. There are dozens of class and race options once everything is taken into account, alongside additional talent trees and other content waiting to be discovered.
Unlocking another character class that could potentially keep you busy for hours feels considerably more substantial than another minor stat boost, which earns Tales of Maj’Eyal a place here.
2. Risk of Rain 2
Risk of Rain 2 has plenty of things to unlock, but I particularly like the way it makes you work for them. Challenges can reward you with new survivors, items, equipment, alternate abilities, and Artifacts that modify how runs work. Once an item has been unlocked, it can begin appearing during future runs, so completing challenges gradually makes the game itself bigger.
Alternate survivor skills are particularly fun to chase because they can change how familiar characters play, rather than simply adding another collectible to a menu.
Throw in all the additional content added since launch and there’s a lot to keep you busy here.
3. Astral Ascent
Astral Ascent is already overflowing with ways to put a build together. There are well over 100 spells, alongside huge collections of Auras, Gambits and Echoes. One detailed breakdown puts those systems at more than 370 different build components before you even start considering weapons and other progression.
More importantly for this list, progression gradually expands what can appear during your adventures. Rescuing characters and progressing through the game opens additional possibilities, giving you even more things to experiment with on future attempts.
If you’re the sort of player who can’t resist trying one more run because you’ve just unlocked something interesting, Astral Ascent can be pretty dangerous.
4. The Unfound Soul
Here’s one you probably didn’t expect to see on the list. The Unfound Soul is a turn-based roguelike released in 2023, and despite being considerably less well known than most games on this list, it boasts a staggering collection of equipment.
According to its Steam page, there are more than 1,000 weapons, armor pieces, and artifacts to collect.
There is an important distinction here. Those aren’t necessarily 1,000 individually gated permanent unlocks in the same sense as completing challenges in other games. Still, anyone who gets satisfaction from filling collections and discovering new equipment certainly isn’t going to run out quickly.
Sometimes the hidden gems really do have some of the biggest surprises.
5. Vampire Survivors
For a game that started out looking remarkably simple, Vampire Survivors has become absolutely enormous. Characters are unlockable, weapons are unlockable, stages are unlockable, arcana’s are unlockable. Relics, modes, secrets, evolutions and plenty more are all waiting to be discovered.
It’s also one of the best examples of unlocking one thing immediately, then sending you straight after something else. A new character could have another weapon attached to them, which leads to a new evolution, which sends you into another stage looking for whatever you need next.
Add all the DLC into the equation and the checklist becomes enormous. There is always something else hiding behind another run.
5. Enter the Gungeon
There are 243 guns in Enter the Gungeon, which would already be enough to make it a serious contender here. Then you remember all the passive items, active items, unlockable characters, NPC-related rewards, shortcuts, hunting quests and other secrets scattered throughout the Gungeon.
What makes it really satisfying is how many unlocks are attached to specific accomplishments. You’re not simply grinding a currency bar until something appears. Defeating bosses, completing quests, rescuing NPCs and tackling challenges can all add something new.
Years after its original release, getting absolutely everything in Enter the Gungeon remains quite an undertaking.
6. Soulstone Survivors
If you like watching numbers get increasingly ridiculous, Soulstone Survivors should keep you entertained for a while. The game now has 350+ active skills and more than 100 weapons, before we even start talking about characters, runes, passive abilities and its extensive progression systems.
Characters also have substantial skill trees of their own, creating another enormous progression rabbit hole to disappear down. That’s really the recurring theme with Soulstone Survivors. You unlock something, which gives you another thing to upgrade, which opens another possibility for your next build, which inevitably results in another run.
Good luck escaping.
7. Dust & Neon
Here’s where the numbers start getting silly. Dust & Neon by DM Studios, boasts an unlockable selection of nearly 2,000 unique revolvers, shotguns and rifles, alongside 1,600 tonics and 24 skills. That’s potentially more than 3,600 weapons and effects to discover*.
There is a fairly substantial asterisk attached to that number because its weapon system involves generated loot. We aren’t talking about thousands of individually handcrafted guns with completely unique unlock challenges.
Still, that’s an absurd amount of loot to work through, and it makes Dust & Neon one of the more surprising games to appear on this list.
If your favorite part of a roguelite is wondering what ridiculous weapon you’ll find next, you’ve got plenty of wondering ahead of you.
9. Tiny Rogues
Don’t let the name fool you. There’s absolutely nothing tiny about the amount of stuff packed into Tiny Rogues. We’re talking about 400+ weapons, 500+ pieces of equipment, 100+ traits, and 34-character classes.
That’s already more than 1,000 different gameplay elements, and we haven’t even accounted for everything else tied to its progression systems.
Mastery progression and World Objectives continue opening additional content and perks, while the enormous selection of weapons, equipment, traits and characters creates a frankly ridiculous number of possible combinations.
It’s also why Tiny Rogues deserves to sit above games with considerably bigger budgets. When it comes to giving players new toys to discover and experiment with, very few roguelites can compete.
10. The Binding of Isaac: Repentance
Was the game with the highest number of unlocks really going to be anything else? The Binding of Isaac: Repentance has 719 collectible items alone. However, that isn’t the full number. There are characters and their Tainted counterparts, trinkets, cards, runes, challenges and secrets on top of that enormous item collection. More importantly, a huge amount of this content is actually locked behind completing specific objectives.
Defeat certain bosses with particular characters and something new might appear. Complete another challenge and you’ve added something else. Then you realize you’ve got an entire grid of completion marks staring at you and suddenly your plans for the weekend have disappeared.
That’s what gives Isaac the top spot for me. Other games can technically throw around bigger numbers, particularly when procedural loot is involved, but few have turned unlocking things into such an enormous part of the experience itself.
Hundreds of hours later, there’s still another box to tick, another item to discover and another reason to head back down into that basement.
For completionists, that’s either absolutely brilliant or absolutely terrifying.