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"Roguelike can be anything": Krafton exec is very tired of being pitched "Balatro with different cards"
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 20 May 2026
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Roguelites dont even make sense, I "progress" but now I have diluted my item/card/gun/whatever pool?? Upgrades should be upgrades, not new things imo.
It’s a good point to bring up that there’s a paradox. In my experience, these games seed you with the weaker options, so new options are more exciting than the existing. Not all options are typically equal, and some options are niche or expected to combo with something else (see Mark Rosewater’s classic article on “bad cards”). Some games (Megabonk) also let you modify the pool, which is a neat solve.
it's less of being "upgrades" and more of a way to show you a portion of the item pool at first, then as you play it dripfeeds more content. it's the difference between studying 100 flashcards at once vs 5 groups of 20 flashcards.
imo roguelike should mean there's no strict upgrades, and roguelite should be reserved for games that do have permanent upgrades (rogue legacy, hades, etc). however some people want to keep roguelike as a term that literally means the game is like rogue.
A good roguelike will add unlocks that are more specific and niche than what's usually in the game that allow experienced players to play the game differently. I think a good example would be Noita's later unlocks, like the requirement family of spells (Greek letters are technically locked, but even in unlocked saves, most players just kill the alchemist to get some of the spells, which is also the unlock condition). Balatro only has two really unlocks with blueprint and brainstorm, the rest in my opinion don't do that much as these two. They're not bad (bloodstone is very good with dice for example) but they're not strictly better or worse than starting jokers. They just enable the player to play the game differently.
Sometimes you want a specific build as you are learning, but now you unlock some new thing that has no synergy with anything else or has some niche use and it's diluted the pool making it harder to build what you wanted.
I'd prefer games like this have toggles or some other mechanic that can allow upgrades without making the game harder. Slay The Spire is a good example, I love the game, but I'd rather not unlock some stuff. Or Gunfire Reborn, you have to roll stats on weapons, but then you unlock more weapons, so now you have a harder time finding the gun you want, let alone one with good stats on. Bad design imho.
imo once you unlock everything that is the "complete" game, everything before is just the tutorial where they don't show you every item. by showing you a subset of the items at first you learn a few synergies, then over time you can incorporate the newer items and learn new strategies.
I'd argue good roguelikes aren't just "make a build" simulators. if you play sts2 just pick every card that says shiv on it, you can probably win in the easy difficulties but in harder ones you will get screwed (especially since some enemies hard counter specific strats, you want a deck that can handle any enemy). in good roguelikes you can't plan a build ahead of time (if you want to win consistently) and have to make the best build with what you are offered, which could be an op shiv build but if you see the building blocks for something else you should go into that direction.
if you do want "make op build simulator" (nothing wrong with that), then I'd recommend nova drift (I haven't played in many updates though) or risk of rain 2 with command artifact enabled.
I mean in STS2, you can just get fucked from the seed. It's a roguelite though, not a roguelike. I get the whole, "unlock the full game" thing, but it doesn't mean I don't enjoy a subsection of it and would like an option to play that. Some things you unlock are just worse or so extremely niche that you'd never really use them anyway, they are just there to stop you getting the stronger stuff more often.
I feel like in sts2, most unlocks are quite strong and very pickable. not saying skill issue but maybe you need to experiment more. on average the new items probably make the character better rather than worse.
like I'm reading through the unlocks right now and without them these characters don't feel complete, some builds have their big payoffs locked (like accelerant, sword sage, flak cannon). maybe right now you don't understand where these cards fit right now but there are a ton of builds these unlocks enable.
they might add something in the future that lets you test out specific builds tho.