Roguelands

Roguelands, developed by Sean Young, drops players into a sci-fi galaxy where an ancient creature called the Destroyer is consuming planets one by one, and they must scavenge each doomed world before it collapses. Every run sends a Galactic Cadet down to a procedurally generated planet to fight monsters, gather resources, and escape before the Destroyer arrives. Death is permanent for the character and strips everything carried in the run, but any items stored aboard the home ship survive across all characters, creating a persistent pool of resources and unlocks that compounds over many deaths.

Resource gathering is handled through Droids rather than direct tool use. Players deploy these companions to mine ores, fell trees, and collect herbs while simultaneously managing combat, giving each planet visit a light management dimension alongside the action. Collected materials are converted into Emblems once ten pieces of any type are gathered, and three Emblems combined at the Gear Forge produce a piece of equipment, building a recipe log over time. Gear quality and variety expand as players push deeper into the galaxy.

Character customization runs through Combat Chips — up to five can be equipped before each mission — which add passive bonuses or active abilities like teleportation. Repeated deaths gradually unlock additional Races, Variants, Augments, and Starting Uniforms, all of which can be mixed freely, widening the effective build space without resetting earlier investment. The game supports multiplayer, letting a squad tackle planets together. It sits at the punishing end of the spectrum: full inventory loss on death is the default, and progress comes through accumulated ship upgrades and unlocks rather than any softening of the death penalty.

• Procedurally generated planets with distinct creatures, ores, and vegetation each run
• Droid companions that gather resources and assist in combat passively
• Emblem-based crafting system that builds a permanent recipe log across characters
• Up to five Combat Chips per run providing passive buffs or active abilities
• Persistent ship storage and NPC rescues that carry across all character deaths
• Multiplayer support for squad-based planet runs

Roguelands released on June 13, 2016, and received rapid post-launch updates throughout that year: v1.2 in July, v1.3 in August with two hotfix patches, and v1.4 in October. Development continued into 2017, with v1.5 arriving in February followed shortly by v1.5.1. A notable post in October 2017 saw Young publicly address problems with the game’s development direction. Activity thinned considerably after that, with a 2019 announcement referencing Sean Young’s next project, Wraithslayer, marking the effective end of Roguelands’ active update arc.