WASD Coverage - Endless Dungeon

Article by Adam Ray

As a long suffering fan of the world where one Dungeons their Dragons, I'm definitely partial to a good space where scrappy good guys can be stuck in a tiny and dark map, fighting endless hordes of shambling bad guys of increasing strength and difficulty.

The title of Endless Dungeon drew me in right away. I had first heard the name all the way back in the mists of 2020, and after a great deal of iteration, polish, and patience, the game is finally coming to all consoles in 2023. I had the privilege of attending WASD IGN, a room packed to the rafters with the most exclusive first looks at games not set to come out for months.

Endless Dungeon has truly embodied all of the elements we know and love from the roguelike genre. The grim lighting and level design and the isometric movements on the map really add to the feeling that you're truly stuck in this far away space station; living, dying, and repeating.

The character designs are stylistic and overall look of the game draws us in, making it feel very lived in but also very raw. Far deeper than earlier takes in the genre like FTL or Binding of Isaac. The colour schemes of and shape silhouettes of each character and item clear and distinct. Moreover, each there's somehow a great deal of characterisation from the very short time we see them all in play. The cowboy drawl on Blaze is very welcome and the plucky heroics of Bunker reminds us of the high fantasy origins of roguelike games.

This game also markets itself as a tower defence game. I'm personally a sucker for that genre; be it classics like Plants vs Zombies, the criminally under used Theatre Mechanicus from Genshin Impact, or even the tabletop classic like Castle Panic, there's definitely something satisfying about setting up a map and let the enemies get mowed under. However, in Endless Dungeon, it felt a little unnecessary. With decent upgrades and weapon choices on your characters, most of the early waves are fairly easy to handle. Of course when it gets to the happy little Crystal Bot wandering away to another part of the map, then they definitely have to be protected as much as possible. Or maybe my tower placements were good? All this does is make me want to play it more!

Endless Dungeon looks to be another exciting drop in the genre that looks to bring charming characters, a fun reimagining of the narrative, and exciting gameplay that ratchets up the difficulty the deeper you go into the station. Pick up your copy of Endless Dungeon on October 19th, or preorder for the closed beta right now. Pick the right edition for the exclusive Crystal Search card game featuring all the characters from the game. The dungeon may well be endless!