Shiren the Wanderer has finally landed on Nintendo Switch, and brought with it the very most classical interpretation of the roguelike genre that you can imagine. It’s turn-based, procedurally-generated, tough-as-nails and unforgiving stuff. I love it.
I’ve done this video to look at the expanded way that we talk about roguelikes, and how it’s starting to stretch the usefulness of the term. FTL, Hades, Othercide and Shiren the Wanderer are all excellent games, but they’re also all called “roguelikes” and there’s really very little of substance that they share.
So it’s a genre definition discussion! Let me know your own thoughts in the comments – always keen to hear from folks, and we’ll see you at the next video!
– Matt S.
Editor-in-Chief
Find me on Twitter: @mattsainsb