Please send help. I can’t stop playing these roguelikes.

It’s time to admit, before God and the good readers of Ars Technica, that I have a problem. I love roguelikes. Reader, I can’t get enough of them. If there’s even a whisper of a hot new roguelike on Steam, I’m there. You may call them arcane, repetitive, or maddeningly difficult; I call them heaven. The second best part of video games is taking a puny little character and, over 100 hours, transforming that adventurer into a god of destruction. The best thing about video games is doing the same thing in under an hour. Beat a combat encounter, get an upgrade. Enter a new area, choose a new item. Put together a build and watch it sing. If you die—immediately ending your ascent and returning you to the beginning of the game—you’ll often make a pit stop at a home base to unlock new goodies to help you on your next run. (Some people distiguish between roguelikes and “roguelites,” with the latter including permanent, between-run upgrades. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll use “roguelike” as an umbrella term). 2025 has been a truly horrific year for most things. But for roguelikes? It’s been an embarrassment of riches. Because I’m an editor and there’s no one here to stop me, I’d like to tell you about them. To keep things manageable, I’ll stick to games that hit 1.0 in 2025. Hades II Game details Developer: Supergiant Games Publisher: Supergiant Games Platform: Windows, Switch/Switch 2 Release date: September 25, 2025 Price: $30 Links: Steam | Nintendo eShop | Official website Where else could we start? In a year of wall-to-wall video game showstoppers, Hades II sticks out. The first Hades got our nod for best game of 2020, and Hades 2 certainly has my vote for 2025. This time, you play as Melinoë, sister to Hades protagonist Zagreus and daughter of Hades himself, as she attempts to take back the house of Hades from Chronos, the titan of time. The cast of Olympian gods returns to bestow blessings (upgrades to your various attacks and defensive maneuvers) to help you on your way. If you played the first game, you’ll know what you’re getting into here; the sequel just vastly expands the content and mechanics.