Endless Dungeon – not quite Dungeon Of The Endless 2 (pic: Sega)



GameCentral checks out an early build of Endless Dungeon to see if its niche blend of rougelike and tower defence can win over new fans.



While there are plenty of games that marry two different genres, to create a one-of-a-kind experience, you rarely see a studio try and go beyond that. Mashing three or four genres together will certainly make a game more unique but having multiple, disparate, elements makes it very hard to ensure they complement each other. The end result may be truly unique or a jarring mess, luckily Endless Dungeon is the former.



2014’s Dungeon Of The Endless , a hybrid of rougelike, tower defence, and turn-based strategy could have easily suffered that fate, but Amplitude Studios’s ambitious efforts paid off, creating one of the more imaginative rougelikes out there. It clearly resonated with a lot of players because after returning to more traditional strategy fare like Humankind , the studio is now launching a spiritual successor entitled Endless Dungeon.



We got to play a chunk of the game for ourselves and pick the brains of Amplitude Studios head Romain de Waubert and narrative designer Benoit Faguet, to get a better understanding of what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and whether Endless Dungeon can rope in new players while appealing to fans of its predecessor.



One thing we were told early on was that Endless Dungeon is not a sequel. Despite a similar premise and nuggets of lore here and there, that long-time fans of the studio’s Endless universe will appreciate, this isn’t a direct continuation of Dungeon Of The Endless.



Rather than trying to reach the surface of a hostile planet, your cast of ragtag heroes are trapped on an abandoned space station and must work their way down through its various floors and escort crystals in order to progress and escape.



Perhaps the biggest difference is the new twin-stick shooter gameplay, which is both more dynamic and more suited to Endless Dungeon’s heavier emphasis on multiplayer. Dungeon Of The Endless had multiplayer too, but whereas it felt like an afterthought, we get the sense that you’re almost expected to play Endless Dungeon with other people… which makes the lack of cross-play (with so far no plans to add it post-launch) a tad disappointing. Though de Waubert and Faguet don’t completely rule out the possibility of it being incorporated later.









There is a single-player option where you can swap control between your party of two or three characters, with the rest of the party being handled by the computer. We played through it alongside one other person, so we have no clue whether computer-controlled allies are as helpful as real people or if they risk becoming a hindrance.



We brought the subject up to de Waubert and Faguet, who were quick to assure that the game is tailored for both single-player and multiplayer, adding that your approach is quite different depending on how you’re playing it.



‘Single-player will probably be a bit more tactical and strategic,’ explained de Waubert. ‘It’s only your plan, you don’t have to deal with anyone else.



‘In co-operative, everything is shared. All the resources, opening doors… it’s more of a social experiment in many aspects. So, it’s still tactical… but it’s all about getting to agree with others.’



He’s not wrong. While ammo is mercifully not a resource (it was at one point, but the developers scrapped the idea), running from room to room guns blazing is going to get you killed or your crystal destroyed. We realised quickly that we needed to constantly be communicating with our teammate to decide where best to pop down turrets and which mid-run upgrades we should acquire.



As de Waubert said, resources (which you regularly earn from generators that can also be targeted by enemies) are shared among the group, so discussions need to routinely be held on important decisions, such as whether to spend resources on a research station to unlock a new turret type.



There’s a lot to consider when it comes to Endless Dungeon especially with all the random elements that apply with each run, like the floor layout and the extra weapons and upgrades you can acquire. The whole thing risks feeling incredibly overwhelming to someone who isn’t familiar with rougelikes or tower defence games, especially when hordes of enemies are coming at you from multiple directions.



Endless Dungeon 2 – unlike Dungeon Of The Endless, you’re limited to three players instead of four (pic: Sega)



The opening tutorial runs you through the basics of aiming, shooting, triggering special abilities, and escorting the crystal to its destination, but everything else is a trial by fire. Our teammate compared the experience to time loop movie Edge Of Tomorrow and it is an apt one. You need to accept that you’re going to make mistakes and die a lot and since all progress is lost with each death, making it to the end isn’t achieved by steadily accruing upgrades to make characters stronger; it’s by learning the mechanics and optimising your strategies.



This is something de Waubert and Faguet emphasised when we asked them how welcoming Endless Dungeon is to newcomers, with de Waubert describing it with the classic adage of ‘easy to pick up, hard to master.’



‘Dying is part of the gameplay loop,’ de Waubert added. ‘It’s not a defeat, it’s a step in your journey. As you improve from run to run, from death to death, as with the meta progression, it keeps the game difficulty adapted to your needs.’



By meta progression, he’s referring to the permanent additions between runs. Death will cost you a lot, but characters are always brought back to life at the saloon hub area, where you can unlock character specific upgrades that you can equip before a run. There’s also a bar that provides unlockable beverages that act as new rulesets if you want some extra boons or even more of a challenge.









On top of that, there are also multiple ways of progressing to the end of the game. From the starting area, we had access to three different districts, each one containing separate enemy types with their own resistances and weaknesses.



This was just for the demo build – you won’t have access to all three from the start in the full game – but knowing what sort of enemies you’ll have to face, be they robots or large bugs, is a welcome advantage. We never made it through one district unfortunately, but we were told that each floor offers multiple districts to tackle.



Like all the best roguelikes, Endless Dungeon is carefully treading that fine line between ensuring there are consequences for failure without it feeling like you’re wasting your time if you die. At the same time it also has to ensure that the core gameplay loop is fun enough to keep players coming back; something de Waubert and Faguet are confident will be the case.



‘You will unfold the content of the game run after run,’ said Faguet. ‘Even if you die, you get back to the saloon and maybe you get access to a new district to discover or a new hero to play with.



‘And that’s very important because it’s going to help you to stay motivated and to reach that point where you feel like ‘Okay, I know how to play, I’ve got a lot of things to discover, I just want to know more about this place.’’



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De Waubert added how each playable hero is different, which in turn changes how each run will go thanks to their individual playstyles and how they can cover other heroes’ weaknesses.



We stuck with defensive hero Bunker, a security robot who had a very useful ability that turned her invincible while aggroing enemies at the cost of needing to stay still, but the whole roster looks fun to experiment with.



We particularly appreciate how the characters all fill typical roles you’d expect in games like this, but their designs and backgrounds make them feel more unique. Like the dragon bartender who buffs allies by mixing drinks.



The full game isn’t out for a couple more months, but we feel confident in saying that anyone who loved Dungeon Of The Endless will feel right at home with Endless Dungeon. It has all the elements it needs to attract and retain newcomers as well, as long as they’re not put off by the game’s unusual concept.



Formats: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC Publisher: Sega Developer: Amplitude Studios Release Date: 18th May 2023 (16th May with Last Wish Edition, Nintendo Switch version to launch later)









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