Hunting for new roguelikes is my favorite part of this job. The genre is filled with promising ideas, tough-as-nails fights, puzzling challenges, and so much more. Steam alone is overflowing with opportunities to find the next Hades or Balatro, and what I’m talking about today could be one of them. From a former Rockstar developer and taking cues from Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors, this is Terralysia. With Steam Early Access now just around the corner and a demo you can try today, this is one roguelike I really can’t wait to see more of.
Tiny Game Dev is a studio with some serious pedigree behind it. Founded by Flavius Alecu, they transitioned to the indie scene after working on the likes of Brink, GTA 5, and Red Dead Redemption 2. Alecu’s first game since then is Terralysia, which they say is “heavily inspired by Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors.” It’s easy to see why, as the third-person roguelike is filled with tense combat, bullet hell projectiles, and a need for speed.
Just like in Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors, your character choice matters. You can go into battle as a spell-wielding mage, arrow-fletching archer, or sword-swinging melee fighter. So if you’re a traditional close-range combatant or prefer a bit more range, the choice is yours. There’s also experience to gain, skills to unlock, and a plethora of build combinations to try out.
You need to keep moving, quickly find damage-dealing spells, and collect all the fragments you can. Otherwise, you’ll be overrun by the constantly spawning enemies before you know it. This is a core tenant of games like Vampire Survivors, Enter the Gungeon, and Returnal as well, so if you’ve played these roguelikes you know what to expect. Alecu knows Terralysia is difficult, but that’s what I’m most excited about. The learning curve of the best roguelikes always starts out intense, but there’s no other feeling like mastering the enemies and mechanics.
Alecu plans for Terralysia’s early access build to have two playable characters, two maps, and 19 spells/items for your runs. The full Steam roadmap includes a lot more, with three more characters, six maps, over 100 spells and items, and more persistent upgrades too.
If you’ve been looking for something new while Gearbox fixes Risk of Rain 2 after Seekers of the Storm went awry, you can’t go wrong with Terralysia. It might trade sci-fi for fantasy, but it still channels that fast-paced and deadly combat RoR2 is known for.
Tiny Game Dev plans for Terralysia to come out in Steam Early Access on Thursday November 7, with a demo available for the game right now. You can find out more right here.
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