I thought Steam's latest sale wasn't for me but it's secretly a roguelike goldmine
I don't like shoot-'em-ups very much, so when Steam rolled out a Shmup Fest event-sale combo ending October 2, I wasn't expecting much. How naive I was, expecting genres to be firmly defined. I'm not a big scrolling shmup guy, but I do have an appetite for more general twin-stick bullet hell combat, and more importantly it turns out shmups on Steam have a lot of crossover with the genre I can't get enough of: roguelikes.
Steam's Shmup Fest is packed to the gills with action roguelikes that I would struggle to associate with even bullet hell, let alone proper, scrolling shmups. There's even a few Metroidvanias in there, which I also won't complain about. Obviously, if you are very into true-blue arcade shmups – games like Mushihimesama or Time Wasters, which to me embody the style of the genre – you won't have to look very hard to find them here. That said, I did want to highlight some of the vaguely shmup-adjacent games that are more likely to appeal to roguelike and broader action fans like me.
These are the best roguelikes you can play today.
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