October has arrived, and this month’s new releases include blasting robots apart, running restaurants for dragons, delivering packages through a zombie apocalypse, racing through the Star Wars galaxy, investigating criminal syndicates, fighting gladiators while literally chained to our friends, and checking airport luggage.
There are also some familiar faces finally making their way out of Early Access, a couple of new DLCs, and one particularly slippery piece of cybernetic sushi making a second appearance after missing its planned launch last month.
Here are the 23 roguelikes, roguelites, and roguelike-adjacent games worth keeping an eye on this month.
1. Crescent Break | October 1st
Built around the simple pleasure of smashing robots into pieces and then finding increasingly inventive ways to use those pieces against everything else, Crescent Break is a fast 2D roguelite where destruction is as much a tool as the weapons strapped to your cyborg suit. Enemies can be knocked around, blown apart, and thrown into environmental hazards, while the world itself is destructible enough that fights rarely stay contained for long.
Something else you need to think about is your suit, which can be loaded with augments that alter the way you move and fight. Combine those with changing levels, new weapons, and bosses big enough to take up a worrying amount of the screen, and the idea is less about learning one perfect route through the game and more about finding out what kind of ridiculous machine you can turn yourself into this time.
It looks quick, messy, and built around exactly the sort of cascading destruction that can make a twenty-minute roguelite run disappear very quickly.
2. Sous Raccoon | October 1st
In Sous Raccoon, you’re a raccoon working in a restaurant kitchen. Each shift has you preparing dishes for customers while juggling ingredients, kitchen equipment, and the gradually increasing pressure of getting everything out before the restaurant descends into chaos.
Underneath the raccoon-shaped silliness is a roguelite built around improving the restaurant from one attempt to the next. Upgrades change what you can cook and how efficiently you can work, while new challenges force you to keep adapting instead of simply settling into the same comfortable routine.
After spending over a year in Early Access, Sous Raccoon finally launches into 1.0 this month. If games like PlateUp! left you convinced that restaurants are better when they’re stressful, procedural, and one mistake away from disaster, this one may be worth putting on the menu.
3. Star Trek: Voyager – Across the Unknown – Equinox DLC | October 1st
Getting Voyager across the Delta Quadrant is already built around making the best of limited resources, an uncertain route home, and a crew that needs to survive whatever is waiting in the next system. The new Equinox DLC takes that setup and makes the margins even tighter.
Instead of Voyager, you can take command of the U.S.S. Equinox, a smaller ship with less room to build, fewer crew slots to work with, and less warp power to throw around. Captain Rudolph Ransom, Maxwell Burke, and Noah Lessing join the available heroes, while an Equinox-specific storyline explores the ship and crew that Voyager fans will already know didn’t have an especially pleasant trip through the Delta Quadrant.
It’s effectively a harder variation on the same survival-management formula, taking away some of the breathing room Voyager gives you and asking what compromises you’re willing to make when getting everybody home starts looking less and less realistic.
4. Shroomwood | October 2nd
Shroomie is a tiny mushroom wandering through a forest full of slimes, infected creatures, monsters, and other nasty things. Fortunately, he has guns.
Shroomwood is a top-down action roguelike built around exploring a forest whose rooms are rearranged between runs. Weapons can be dual-wielded, modifiers change how they behave, and the deeper you push into the woods, the more your little mushroom starts looking a lot more dangerous than anything this cute has a right to be.
There are plenty of roguelites built around entering a room and clearing everything inside it, but the shifting forest gives Shroomwood a little more of that dungeon-crawling feeling. You’re not just surviving waves, you’re pushing through somewhere, never quite knowing what the next room is going to put in front of you.
5. Tunnel Escape: Fates Entwined | October 2nd
Police officer Olivenia is trapped in a city overrun by infected creatures, and getting out means taking missions, gathering supplies, improving her equipment, and slowly pushing further into somewhere that would really rather she didn’t leave.
Created by Saikey Studios, Tunnel Escape: Fates Entwined mixes roguelite progression with turn-based combat, gunplay, crafting, and more traditional RPG systems. Weapons can be upgraded, skills can be developed, and randomized encounters mean the route through the outbreak won’t unfold exactly the same way each time. Death isn’t a complete reset either, with progression feeding into future attempts and gradually improving your chances of making it further.
It’s a much more deliberate take on zombie survival than the usual run backwards while firing several thousand bullets approach. Ammunition matters, equipment matters, and getting yourself into a bad situation looks considerably easier than getting yourself back out of one.
6. STAR WARS: Galactic Racer | October 6th
Set after the fall of the Empire, STAR WARS: Galactic Racer heads out to the Outer Rim where the power vacuum has created exactly the sort of environment in which somebody would decide an illegal interplanetary racing league was a good business opportunity.
Rather than working through a fixed championship, the Galactic League is built around a runs-based structure. Races, rivals, decisions, and risks shape the route through each attempt, with every competition another opportunity to improve your standing or end the whole thing wrapped around a piece of scenery. Different vehicles and racers change how you approach the track, while the roguelite structure means a failed campaign isn’t simply another race to restart.
Star Wars racing games inevitably have a fairly large shadow hanging over them thanks to Episode I: Racer, but Galactic Racer isn’t simply trying to rebuild podracing with prettier graphics. The run structure gives it a reason to keep putting you back on the starting line even after you’ve learned every corner.
7. Tower Tactics II | October 8th
The original Tower Tactics worked because deckbuilding and tower defense fit together surprisingly neatly. Your cards determine what you can build, where you place those towers determines whether you survive, and a bad deck can become a very visible problem when an entire wave strolls straight through your defenses.
Tower Tactics II by Asraworks takes that foundation and adds Hero cards, new status effects, more maps, enemies, trinkets, modes, and a larger metaprogression system around the runs themselves. You’ll still be building a deck while simultaneously building a defense, looking for combinations that turn individual towers into something much nastier when they’re placed alongside the right cards and effects.
It launches into Early Access on October 8th, so this isn’t the finished version yet, but it’s still worth checking out.
8. Neon Abyss 2 | October 8th
Neon Abyss 2 has spent its time in Early Access doing what the original Neon Abyss does best… Handing you items that look relatively harmless on their own and then waiting for you to combine enough of them that the screen becomes an unreadable mess of bullets, explosions, pets, and lasers.
The sequel keeps the side-scrolling run-and-gun structure, but pushes much harder on weapon variety and item synergies. Different weapons change how you attack rather than simply adjusting the numbers attached to your bullets. Four-player co-op also means those builds no longer have to destroy the screen one player at a time.
October 8th marks the jump from Early Access to 1.0. Just don’t expect to understand what’s happening on screen once four fully upgraded players get involved.
9. Dragon Dinner | October 8th
Your customers are dragons, they’re hungry, and designing a restaurant where everybody gets fed before something catches fire is essentially the problem Dragon Dinner hands you.
Each run is about laying out and improving a restaurant that can survive increasingly busy services. Where you put things matters, upgrades alter how efficiently the whole operation runs, and the pressure comes from trying to turn a small setup into something capable of handling larger and more demanding crowds without everything grinding to a halt.
It’s another entry in that increasingly specific corner of roguelites where running a business has somehow become a run-based survival challenge. If PlateUp! taught us anything, it’s that procedural restaurant management can become just as tense as fighting through a dungeon. Replacing the customers with dragons definitely isn’t going to make it any calmer.
10. Ravenswatch – Kintaro | October 12th
Ravenswatch has always had fun taking characters from folklore and children’s stories and dragging them somewhere much darker, and Kintaro is the next legend getting thrown into Reverie.
Based on the Golden Boy of Japanese folklore, Kintaro arrives alongside Kuma, the enormous bear associated with his story. His journey begins with a mysterious flower and a message for Baba Yaga, adding another strand of folklore to a game already filled with twisted versions of familiar characters.
More importantly for anyone who’s already spent dozens of hours clearing Nightmares, Kintaro means another moveset and another way to build a run. Ravenswatch lives or dies on how differently its heroes play, so adding another one is considerably more meaningful than simply dropping a new character model into the existing game.
11. Burn With Me | October 12th
Most deckbuilders train you to become emotionally attached to the cards that make your build work. Burn With Me from Nozomu Games would quite like you to throw some of them into the fire.
It’s a story-driven roguelike deckbuilder about summoning a Personal Demon, with cards positioned and combined to create synergies as you work through its occult world. The catch is that cards can be permanently burned along the way.
You’re still hunting for combinations and trying to build something strong enough to carry a run, but you’re doing it in a game that keeps asking what parts of that deck you’re prepared to lose to get where you’re going.
12. Poly Fighter | October 13th
Instead of choosing a fighting character and spending the next hundred hours learning their moveset, Poly Fighter from HeartLoop Games lets you beat up other fighters and steal the bits of them you like.
Every opponent you defeat can add new moves to your collection, letting you gradually piece together a custom fighter. Those moves can be upgraded and swapped around between matches, so a run becomes as much about constructing a moveset as actually using it.
Rather than finding a better sword or a broken relic, you’re effectively hunting for the perfect uppercut.
13. CyberSushi | October 13th
Yes, CyberSushi was in our last roundup. No, you haven’t accidentally developed extremely specific déjà vu.
The tiny cybernetic sushi roguelite was originally due to arrive in August, but that release slipped before launch and our little rolls have now resurfaced with an October 13th date. Assuming nobody puts them back in the fridge, this should finally be the month they make it out.
The game itself is a fast arcade roguelite built around maintaining streaks and pushing them as far as possible. WASABI abilities, Sushi Surge, and stackable Sushi Hacks feed into runs where you’re constantly chasing a stronger roster and a better combination of upgrades while racing through collapsing dimensions.
It’s bright, fast, and unapologetically silly, but there’s a proper score-chasing arcade game underneath all the sushi jokes. We’ve already given it one spot in a monthly roundup, though, so this time it really does have to launch.
14. Hungry Horrors | October 13th
The creatures of British and Irish folklore are hungry, and Hungry Horrors has decided the sensible solution isn’t to kill them but to make them dinner.
Playing as a princess accompanied by a talking cat, you’ll travel through a world filled with legendary monsters and use traditional dishes instead of weapons to get past them. Meals are represented through cards, with ingredients and flavours combining into synergies that determine whether whatever is standing in front of you leaves satisfied or decides you’re a perfectly acceptable second course.
It’s a clever inversion of the usual deckbuilding setup. You’re still assembling combinations and learning how different cards interact, but instead of watching an enemy’s health bar disappear, you’re trying to work out what an ancient horror would like for tea. After its time in Early Access, the full version arrives on October 13th.
15. Chained Beasts | October 15th
You and up to three friends are gladiators fighting for your lives in an arena. That would already be enough of a problem, but Chained Beasts, developed by Featherweight Games, physically attaches the lot of you together.
The chain changes almost everything about how its co-op combat works. Movement has to be coordinated, positioning becomes everybody’s problem, and the thing tying the group together can itself be used against enemies and the environment. Injuries also carry through fights, so getting through an encounter doesn’t necessarily mean you got through it cleanly.
Plenty of co-op roguelites combine character builds. However, this one also needs all players to agree which direction they’re going to walk in. Depending on your friend group, one of those challenges may be considerably harder than the other.
16. Dupery: A Game of Solo Deduction | October 15th
A criminal syndicate has worked its way into the city, and your job is to identify its members without filling the cells with innocent people. The problem is that practically everybody you speak to has some reason not to tell you the whole truth.
Developed by Gilded Rune Games, Dupery takes social deduction, normally something that relies on other human players lying directly to your face, and rebuilds it as a single player roguelite. Cases are procedurally generated from more than 200 possible roles, with citizens, meddlers, underlings, traitors, and other characters all interacting with the investigation in different ways.
Interrogations give you the information needed to start pulling those relationships apart, but every arrest carries a risk. Catch the right people and you move closer to the syndicate’s leader; start throwing innocent citizens in jail because they looked a little suspicious and your reputation won’t survive for long.
17. Battle Nap | October 22nd
You fall asleep during a picnic and wake up inside a dream full of monsters. At which point Battle Nap hands you a weapon and turns what should have been a pleasant afternoon snooze into a top-down roguelite shooter.
Runs revolve around collecting weapons and perks while working through increasingly strange enemies inside the dream. Progress carries between naps, opening up new equipment and upgrades that give you more options the next time you fall asleep, and everything inevitably goes wrong again.
There’s a nice contrast between the sleepy setup and the amount of shooting that follows it.
18. Northgard Battlegrounds | October 27th
Northgard Battlegrounds takes the Viking world of Northgard, shrinks the battlefield, and turns building a settlement into the setup phase for an auto-battler.
You’ll place buildings, manage the economy behind your village, recruit a warband, and choose blessings before watching those decisions collide with whatever your opponent has put together. Fate Cards add another element of uncertainty, changing the tools available and forcing you to adapt rather than simply repeating the same settlement every match.
It’s less about micromanaging warriors once the fighting starts and more about making sure you’ve given them the right village, bonuses, and composition before they leave. If traditional Northgard asks whether you can build a successful Viking settlement, Battlegrounds asks whether that settlement can beat somebody else’s up.
19. Airport Contraband | October 28th
Working airport security means checking passports, scanning bags, questioning suspicious passengers, and occasionally discovering that somebody has interpreted the phrase “personal luggage” very generously.
Developed by Drago Entertainment, Airport Contraband turns that job into a first-person roguelike set at Caldora Airport, where each shift has you inspecting passengers and deciding what gets through your checkpoint. Documents need checking, luggage needs searching, and suspicious travellers need questioning, but Caldora’s wider problems with crime and corruption mean simply following procedure isn’t always as straightforward as it sounds.
Different shifts bring different problems, and the decisions you make about how closely you follow the rules shape the kind of officer you become.
20. ConEX | October 28th
Civilisation has collapsed, zombies have taken over the streets, and yet the delivery company still expects those parcels to arrive on time.
ConEX is an isometric action roguelite built around making deliveries through an apocalypse. You leave the van, grab the package, fight your way to the correct locker, drop it off, and somehow make it back again without becoming part of the local undead population. Completing jobs earns money and experience that can be spent on equipment and upgrades, gradually making you better at what has become an unnecessarily dangerous courier route.
The delivery structure gives all that zombie killing an actual destination. You’re not clearing streets simply because they’re full of enemies; you’re trying to get somewhere, do a job, and get back out. It’s basically the gig economy surviving the end of the world, which feels depressingly plausible.
21. Cardsharp | October 30th
At first glance, Cardsharp is blackjack. Then somebody steals from you, another player burns the card you needed, a cursed object lands in front of you, and suddenly losing a hand isn’t the worst thing that can happen at the table.
The basic rules remain familiar enough to make everything else immediately understandable, but the game builds on them with items and abilities designed to let players cheat, interfere, and generally make life miserable for everyone sitting nearby. Winning earns money, but survival depends just as much on knowing when to play fairly and when to start sabotaging the table.
It takes the recognisable foundation of blackjack and uses roguelike modifiers to steadily make it less recognisable as a normal card game. By the time fingers are apparently being wagered, the casino experience has moved some distance beyond complimentary drinks and a loyalty card.
22. Rogue Jungle | October 30th
Rogue Jungle drops you into a procedurally generated wilderness and then starts filling it with enough enemies that careful exploration eventually gives way to trying not to disappear underneath the horde.
The combat sits somewhere between a bullet heaven and a dungeon crawler, but its more interesting progression comes from weapon cards and Booster Packs. Cards can be merged into stronger versions during a run, while packs unlock characters, weapons, and equipment that broaden the pool of things you can build around on future attempts.
That gives it two familiar roguelite pleasures running alongside one another…Watching a build snowball during the current run, and opening up enough new toys afterwards that you’re immediately tempted into starting another one.
October Is Going to Be Busy
This month’s rogue lineup stretches from cybernetic sushi and hungry dragons to Star Wars racing, zombie delivery drivers, Viking city builders, pirate deckbuilders, occult card games, and one extremely questionable game of blackjack. Even within the genre, it’s difficult to find two games here that are doing exactly the same thing.
Players looking for pure action have Crescent Break, Neon Abyss 2, Battle Nap, and Rogue Jungle waiting, while strategy fans can disappear into Tower Tactics II, Dupery, Northgard Battlegrounds, and the new Star Trek DLC. Co-op players can test both their builds and their friendships in Chained Beasts, while games like Dragon Dinner, Airport Contraband, and ConEX continue proving that apparently any profession can become a roguelite if you make the working conditions dangerous enough.
Whatever you’re looking for, October has another packed month of runs waiting to begin.