Roguelike vs Roguelite - what's the difference?

Risk@feddit.uk to Games@lemmy.world – 97 points –
Roguelike vs. Roguelite Games: The Differences, Explained
whatnerd.com

My takeaway is that it's only original Rogue fans that care about the delineation of the terms. Is there a modern (i.e. post 2000s game) that matches the definition of a roguelike as given in the article?

69

You are viewing a single comment

Here's how I understand it:

Rogue-lite: has permanent upgrades that persist between runs.

Rogue-like: each run is unaffected by any previous run.

This is my preferred version. Anything else is overly specific on arbitrary features. It doesn't matter to me if levels are procedurally generated or randomly chosen from 100 different hand made levels, the result is the same.

Pretty much, yeah. The genre was called "Rogue-like" because of Rogue, where your runs were all unique. "Rogue-lite" happened when devs wanted to add persistent progress to the game.

Rogue-like: each run is unaffected by any previous run.

I would tweak this slightly. Each run does not have upgrades that carry over into future runs, but you might unlock new characters to play or items to encounter.

I would call FTL a Rogue-like, but arguably a new run can be affected by a previous run if you've unlocked a new ship design.