Endless Dungeon’s Rambunctious Tone Helps Ease You Into Its Challenging Roguelike Structure
Developer Amplitude Studios’ squad-based roguelike Endless Dungeon offers a more rambunctious and silly narrative within the studio’s Endless games, a primarily 4X strategy series with traditionally dramatic and serious stories. It’s a welcoming first step into a universe I’ve often heard friends talk about but never managed to actually get into. Plus, it’s pretty fun!
Borrowing mechanics and features from hero shooters and twin-stick tower defense games, Endless Dungeon sees you form a squad of three from a roster of playable characters. You’re all shipwrecked in a long-abandoned space station, forced to work together in order to escape. To do so, you’ll need to make your way through the station’s 10 districts–which are filled with never-ending waves of monsters–while accompanying a brittle energy crystal that opens up the doors in your way.
I got to play through the tutorial and first district of Endless Dungeon during a preview, using a squad composed of metal music-loving Zed, autonomous police bot Bunker, and cowboy sharpshooter Blaze. I hate to stan anything to do with the police, but Bunker was my favorite, filling the tank role on the team with her massive shield. Of the three characters, I also like her storyline the most. Bunker isn’t actually trying to escape the station–her partner/mentor has disappeared so she’s trying to delve deeper into the station in order to find clues that could lead to what happened to him.
