Roguelite
In short A roguelite is a game of generated, one-life runs in which some progress persists from one run to the next.
Definition
A roguelite is a game that keeps the roguelike's run, a generated attempt that ends on death, but lets something persist from one run to the next: currency, upgrades, new characters, new starting tools. Each failure still resets the run, yet the player returns slightly stronger or with more options, so long-term progress depends on both skill and accumulation. The label is also used for any game that borrows generated levels and permanent death while abandoning the turn-based grid of the original Rogue. Second Playthrough uses "roguelite" for the first sense only: the deciding feature is progress that persists across runs, not real-time action or the absence of a dungeon.
Not to be confused with
- Roguelike
A roguelike sends the player back with nothing but what they have learned, while a roguelite lets upgrades or unlocks carry over.
- Feedback loop
The persistent progression in a roguelite is one kind of feedback loop between runs, but the term roguelite names the whole structure, not the loop alone.
- Metroidvania
A metroidvania lets abilities open up a fixed, hand-built world for good, while a roguelite rebuilds the world each run and keeps only a thinner layer of progress.
Where the game lives
- rules: used
- goals: used
- feedback: used
- uncertainty: used
- choice: used
- play: dropped
A roguelite keeps the roguelike's uncertainty and run-by-run choices, and adds a long feedback loop across runs that softens the cost of each loss. Free, goalless play remains marginal.
used dropped · What the six structures are
Examples
Rogue LegacyCellar Door Games, 2013
Each death passes gold to a new heir, who spends it on permanent upgrades to the family castle.
Dead CellsMotion Twin, 2018
Runs through a generated castle that unlock weapons and abilities for all future runs.
HadesSupergiant Games, 2020
Every escape attempt ends back home, where persistent upgrades and an unfolding story reward returning.
Where the field disagrees
“Roguelite” has two competing meanings. In the older one, a roguelite is any game that takes some of Rogue’s features, usually generated levels and permanent death, without the rest, such as turn-based movement on a grid; by that measure almost every modern game of runs is a roguelite. In the newer and now more common one, a roguelite is specifically a game in which progress persists between runs.
Second Playthrough follows the newer meaning, because it marks a real difference in play: whether a loss costs you everything or only the run. The same choice is described from the other side in the roguelike entry.
In the essays
No essay takes this term on directly yet. Its neighbors in the guide are linked above; the newsletter announces new essays.
Sources
- WebsiteBerlin Interpretation. RogueBasin, 2008. The stricter community definition of a roguelike, against which looser games came to be called roguelites.
- BookSpelunky. Boss Fight Books, 2016. A designer's account of a game often placed at the border between the two terms. Reading list