ArcadeWhale
Short answer: in both a roguelike and a roguelite, dying ends your run and the next one starts in a freshly generated world. The difference is what survives the death. In a roguelike, only your knowledge comes with you. In a roguelite, something permanent does too: upgrades, currency, a stronger starting kit. The next run is a little easier because of the one before.
That is the version most players use today. The longer version is more interesting, because the two words have been argued over for fifteen years, and the argument explains a lot about why these games feel the way they do.
Where “roguelike” came from
Rogue came out in 1980 on Unix computers at universities. You played a single adventurer going down through a dungeon drawn entirely in text characters: walls were - and |, corridors were #, you were an @ and a bat was a B. It had a few ideas that were unusual at the time:
- The dungeon was generated fresh every game, so you could not memorise a map.
- Death was permanent. No saves to reload, no continues. You started again from the first floor.
- Everything happened in turns. The monsters moved only when you did, so every step was a decision.
Other programmers copied the formula and built on it: Hack, then NetHack in 1987, Angband, ADOM, and later Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and Brogue. By the early 1990s people online were calling the whole family “roguelikes”, games like Rogue.
The Berlin Interpretation
In 2008, developers at the International Roguelike Development Conference in Berlin wrote down what they thought made a roguelike. It became known as the Berlin Interpretation. Its “high value” factors were:
- random environment generation
- permadeath
- turn-based play
- grid-based movement
- no separate modes (you explore, fight and manage items on the same screen)
- enough complexity that there are many ways to solve a problem
- resource management (food, potions, scrolls)
- a focus on fighting monsters
- exploration and discovery, like working out what an unidentified potion does
It also listed “low value” factors, such as ASCII graphics and a dungeon setting, that are common but not essential. The list was never meant as a law, but it gave people something to point at. Plain graphics never held the genre back, and in horror they can even work in a game’s favour, which we look at in why horror games with bad graphics are scarier.
Then the indie games arrived
The timing was awkward. Right around 2008, a wave of indie games took Rogue’s two strongest ideas, random levels and permanent death, and put them into real-time action games. Spelunky (2008) was a platformer. The Binding of Isaac (2011) was a twin-stick shooter. FTL: Faster Than Light (2012) was a spaceship-management game.
They were plainly descended from Rogue, and players called them roguelikes. Fans of the traditional games pushed back: these were not turn-based, not grid-based, and did not play anything like NetHack. For a while people used jokey terms like “roguelike-like” and “roguelikelike”.
The word that stuck was roguelite (sometimes “rogue-lite”): a game that keeps some of Rogue’s ingredients but not all of them. Rogue Legacy (2013) put it right in its marketing. In that game, when your knight dies, their heir inherits the gold, and you spend it on permanent upgrades to your castle before the next attempt. Over time, that became the defining feature. Most players now use “roguelite” to mean a run-based game where you get permanently stronger between runs.
The quick test
Answer four questions about any game you have in mind.
Pick an answer for each question.
Question three is the one that matters most today, and it hides a useful distinction.
Three things a run can leave behind
Every run-based game lets something carry over into the next attempt. There are really three kinds:
- Knowledge. You learned that the green potion is poison and that the third boss telegraphs its charge. Every roguelike has this, and in the traditional ones it is the only thing you keep. Getting better means getting better yourself.
- Options. You unlocked a new character, new cards that can appear, a new item in the pool. Your next run is not stronger, but it can be different. Slay the Spire, Balatro and The Binding of Isaac work mostly this way.
- Power. You spent currency on permanent health, damage or starting gear. Your next run is measurably easier. This is the roguelite hook, and it is why even players who struggle eventually reach the end of Hades or Rogue Legacy.
Most arguments about whether a game is a roguelike or a roguelite are really arguments about the second kind. Unlocking options changes the game; unlocking power changes the difficulty.
Examples at a glance
| Game | Year | Turn-based? | What carries over | Usually called |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rogue | 1980 | Yes | Knowledge | The original roguelike |
| NetHack | 1987 | Yes | Knowledge | Roguelike |
| Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup | 2006 | Yes | Knowledge | Roguelike |
| Brogue | 2009 | Yes | Knowledge | Roguelike |
| Spelunky | 2008 | No | Knowledge, some shortcuts | Roguelike |
| The Binding of Isaac | 2011 | No | Options (new items, characters) | Roguelike / roguelite |
| FTL: Faster Than Light | 2012 | Pausable real-time | Options (new ships) | Roguelike |
| Rogue Legacy | 2013 | No | Power (castle upgrades) | Roguelite |
| Dead Cells | 2018 | No | Power and options | Roguelite (“roguevania”) |
| Slay the Spire | 2019 | Yes (card turns) | Options (cards, relics) | Roguelike deckbuilder |
| Hades | 2020 | No | Power (Mirror of Night) | Roguelite |
| Vampire Survivors | 2022 | No | Power (permanent PowerUps) | Roguelite (“survivors-like”) |
| Balatro | 2024 | Yes | Options (jokers, decks) | Roguelike deckbuilder |
Labels on store pages do not always match this. Developers often call their game a roguelike because more people search for that word, even when the game clearly has permanent upgrades.
The other names you will run into
- Roguelike deckbuilder: you build a deck of cards during a run, then lose it when the run ends. Slay the Spire made this a genre of its own.
- Roguevania: a roguelite with the interconnected map and ability-gated exploration of a Metroidvania. Dead Cells is the usual example.
- Survivors-like: short runs where your character attacks automatically while you dodge an ever-growing crowd, named after Vampire Survivors. Our list of games like Vampire Survivors has three you can play in a browser.
- Mystery Dungeon: a long-running family of Japanese turn-based roguelikes, including Shiren the Wanderer and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.
- Traditional roguelike: the term fans now use for games close to the Berlin Interpretation, to separate them from everything above.
Which one should you play?
If losing progress makes you want to quit, pick a roguelite. The permanent upgrades are a safety net: even a bad run leaves you a bit stronger, and the ending is always getting closer.
If you like the feeling of mastering something, try a roguelike. When nothing carries over but your own skill, every win is entirely yours. The first time you beat a run in a game that gave you no help at all is a feeling roguelites cannot quite match.
And if you cannot decide, the middle ground of roguelikes with unlocks, such as the deckbuilders, gives you new toys to play with without making the game easier. It is no surprise that this is where many of the biggest hits of the last few years have landed.
