Endless Dungeon Review: A Roguelike Masterclass in a Hallway-Wide World

The premise of Endless Dungeon is a familiar one. You and a crew of shipwrecked heroes are trapped on a derelict space station, and the only way out is to reach its Core. But the path is not so simple. To progress, you must protect your “Crystal-Bot,” a small, fragile spider-like robot, as it slowly makes its way through a series of procedurally generated rooms. This core gameplay loop is a brilliant and constant exercise in risk versus reward. Every door you open yields a bounty of resources—Food, Industry, and Science—which you can use to upgrade your heroes and build a variety of powerful turrets. But with every opened door, you also risk waking up a swarm of hostile monsters. This creates a constant, exhilarating tension, a beautiful balance between exploration and fortification. The satisfaction of a perfectly timed rush to a distant door, followed by a frantic retreat to a fortified choke point, is a feeling that never gets old.

More Than a Shooter: A Tactical Puzzle

While the game has the look of a twin-stick shooter, its true depth lies in its strategic, tower defense elements. Each room in the dungeon has a series of nodes where you can instantly build a variety of turrets to help defend your crystal from the onslaught of enemies. The game features four distinct monster types, each with their own unique elemental weaknesses and attack patterns. A well-placed turret can completely change the tide of a battle, and the joy of watching an army of monsters evaporate as they are torn to shreds by your meticulously planned defenses is a core part of the game’s appeal. The game’s strategic layer is surprisingly deep, with a variety of generators, resource-producing modules, and a progression system that allows you to tailor your hero and your turrets to your preferred playstyle. The game can be played solo, but it truly shines in its 3-player co-op mode, where communication and teamwork are essential for survival. The chaos of trying to defend multiple fronts with a well-coordinated team is a multiplayer experience that is both challenging and hilarious.

The Endless Loop and the Rewards of Failure

Like its predecessor, Endless Dungeon is at its heart a roguelite, and it’s a damned good one. When your heroes or the Crystal-Bot fall, you are sent back to the Saloon, a central hub that acts as your base of operations. Here, you can spend the resources you’ve gathered to permanently upgrade your heroes, unlock new weapons, and find new characters to add to your roster. This meta-progression system ensures that even a failed run is never a waste of time. Every attempt feels like a step forward, and the feeling of finally overcoming a challenge that once seemed impossible is a core part of the game’s addictive nature. The game’s cast of heroes, each with their own distinct abilities and personalities, adds a great deal of charm to the experience. From the angry Marxist engineer “Comrade” to the fiery four-armed robot cowboy “Blaze,” there is a hero for every playstyle, and learning to use their unique abilities in conjunction with your turrets is the key to victory.

For fans of the Endless universe and for anyone who loves a good roguelike, Endless Dungeon is an absolute must-play. It’s a game that takes a simple idea and builds an incredibly complex and rewarding experience around it. Its blend of fast-paced action and strategic tower defense is a unique combination that few other games have managed to pull off so successfully. While some reviews have noted that the game can feel a bit repetitive after many hours, its high-quality design and endless replayability make it an incredible value for money. It is a game that proves that sometimes, the most revolutionary ideas are the ones that take a familiar concept and build a moreish, hallway-wide world around it, one door at a time.