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Megabonk was truly a unicorn of a game and quite honestly, sorta what I imagine heavy, addicting drugs to feel like: an adrenaline-fueled, dopamine rush from beginning to end.

When it came out, I was immediately hooked by the memes, look, feel (just about everything).

Well, if you’ve read any of the other articles here, you know what’s next.

We take a look at popular games and answer the question, “If I like games like Megabonk, what else should I play?”

But unlike other listicles, “best” guides, we do our best to remove editorial opinion and let Reddit upvotes and conversations determine the ranking.

So that’s what we did here. Below is a look at 9 Reddit threads, all targeting the same topic, but it’s the sum of their parts.

This article was also well-timed for the release of Risk of Rain 2. Thank god; otherwise, we would have had to update it

Well, we hope you enjoy reading. And if you want to see which of the games suits you best, take the quiz below.

Rogue Ranker · 146 Games Analyzed

What Game Like Megabonk Should I Play Next?

10 questions. Matched to 146 community-ranked games.

TL;DR Best Games Like Megabonk

• Risk of Rain 2 (173 votes)
• Vampire Survivors (141 votes)
• Brotato (124 votes)
• Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor (87 votes)
• Slay the Spire (82 votes)
• The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth (77 votes)
• Dead Cells (72 votes)
• Noita (72 votes)
• Monster Train (70 votes)
• Shogun Showdown (67 votes)
• Honorable Mentions: Hades (60 votes), Halls of Torment (56 votes)

Category	Stat	Value
Survey Scope	Total votes collected	1,757
	Reddit threads analyzed	9
	Total games mentioned	146
Rankings	#1 ranked game	Risk of Rain 2 173 votes
	Exact tie	Dead Cells and Noita both 72 votes
	Biggest gap in top 10	Brotato (124) to DRG Survivor (87) 37 votes
Standouts	Most threads appeared in	DRG Survivor & Halls of Torment (8 of 9)
	Highest grossing game	Risk of Rain 2 $147M
	On Xbox Game Pass	RoR2, VS, DRG Survivor, Halls of Torment
Playtime & Cost	Highest median playtime in top 10	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth 52.3 hrs
	Lowest median playtime in top 10	Shogun Showdown 4.9 hrs
	Avg median playtime (top 14)	11.3 hrs
Value	Best value pick	Vampire Survivors 6.1 hrs per dollar
	Free to play in dataset	Holocure, Super Auto Pets (outside top 10)

Data sourced from 9 Reddit threads · 1,757 total votes

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Most Recommended Games Based on Reddit Votes

#	Game	Votes	Suggestions	What’s It Like?
1	Risk of Rain 2	173	7	The game Megabonk is directly inspired by 3D, stage-based, chest loot
2	Vampire Survivors	141	5	The other parent game 2D auto-attack bullet heaven
3	Brotato	124	6	Arena waves, six weapons, deep build shop
4	Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor	87	8	VS-like with mining, terrain, and DRG universe
5	Slay the Spire	82	3	Deck-building roguelite not a bullet heaven
6	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	77	4	Procedural dungeon shooter with absurd item depth
7	Dead Cells	72	3	Roguelite action platformer tight combat and weapon variety
7	Noita	72	3	Physics-based roguelite every pixel simulated
8	Monster Train	70	2	Deck-builder roguelite not a bullet heaven
9	Shogun Showdown	67	1	Turn-based tactics roguelike not a bullet heaven
10	Enter the Gungeon	66	2	Bullet hell roguelite twin-stick shooter
11	Inscryption	63	2	Deck-builder horror roguelite not a bullet heaven
	Hades	60	4	Action roguelite with tight combat and strong story
	Halls of Torment	56	8	Diablo 2 aesthetic meets Vampire Survivors

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Top Value Games

This chart ranks games by how many median hours of play you get per dollar spent. Free-to-play titles are excluded since the calculation doesn’t apply. Early access pricing can also skew results here, since some games were cheaper when most players picked them up.

Top Value Games Like Megabonk Median Playtime per Dollar Spent

Distribution of Median Playtime

The spread here is unusually wide. This dataset includes everything from tight 5-hour runs to games people have poured hundreds of hours into, which reflects how diverse the recommendations are compared to a more genre-specific list.

Distribution of Median Playtime Games Like Megabonk

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When Did Games Like Megabonk Become Popular?

Megabonk launched on Steam in September 2025 and went viral almost immediately.

The game doesn’t fit neatly into a single genre box, which is partly why it took off the way it did. The community’s shorthand settled quickly: Risk of Rain 2 meets Vampire Survivors.

That framing matters for this article because it changes what “games like Megabonk” actually means. It’s not just a VS-like looking for the next bullet heaven. A lot of the people asking for recommendations were also asking for games that share that RoR2 DNA, stage-based progression, chest loot, manual exploration of an open map, and bosses at the end of each run. That’s a different ask from someone who just wants more wave survival.

The result is a list that looks more eclectic than a typical bullet heaven ranking.

You’ll see Slay the Spire, Noita, and Inscryption sitting alongside DRG Survivor and Brotato, because the Megabonk community pulls from a wider genre pool than VS players typically do.

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About the Data Collection Process

The process here is identical to what I used for my Games Like Brotato and Games Like Vampire Survivors articles.

I searched Reddit for threads asking for games like Megabonk, collected every relevant thread I could find, and tallied every upvote across every suggestion by hand.

The community ranked everything (I just counted).

How I Chose Reddit Threads

I started with a Google search for “games like Megabonk” and collected every Reddit thread that came up. Then I went directly to Reddit and repeated the process.

One thing worth flagging for this article specifically: Megabonk has unusually active discussion on its own Steam community page.

Several threads directly asked, “What should I play while waiting for more Megabonk content?”

How I Chose Games

If a game got suggested repeatedly, it made the list.

If it got suggested once with strong upvote support, those votes still counted.

Self-promotion was excluded (sorry, not sorry)..

One nuance specific to this dataset: Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors came up constantly, but often in a “this is what Megabonk is based on” framing rather than a “you should try this instead” framing.

More on that in the Nuances section below.

How I Ranked Games

Every mention of a game contributed to its total, including duplicate suggestions and replies in support of it. If a game appeared three times across a thread with 26, 19, and 5 upvotes respectively, it gets 50 total votes. Nothing gets discarded for low individual counts.

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Nuances and Notes of the Data

A few things worth knowing before reading too much into the rankings.

Risk of Rain 2 and Vampire Survivors at #1 and #2

RoR2 appeared in 7 of 9 threads with 173 votes, making it the highest-ranked game in the dataset. VS appeared in 5 threads with 141 votes.

Both are included in the ranking because the data is the data, but their context is different from a game like Brotato or DRG Survivor.

Many of those votes came from people explaining what Megabonk is like rather than specifically recommending it as an alternative. That’s flagged in their individual reviews below.

The Genre Diversity Is Unusual

Most of the top 10 don’t cleanly fit bullet heaven, which is fine, but odd.

Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Inscryption, and Noita are all very different games that happen to share a roguelite structure with Megabonk. Shogun Showdown is turn-based, and Dead Cells is a platformer. Each one is called out directly in its review.

Shogun Showdown’s 67 Votes Came Almost Entirely From a Single Thread

Funny enough, this was from one very enthusiastic commenter with substantial upvotes in one thread. Worth knowing when reading that ranking.

Monster Train (70 votes) and Slay the Spire (82 votes)

Both are deck-builders with no bullet heaven elements. They ranked because the Megabonk community overlaps heavily with roguelite deck-builder players, not because they play anything like Megabonk.

Hades II vs. Hades

Both ranked separately in the data, Hades at 60 votes, Hades II at 54. Combined, that’s 114 votes, putting the franchise in the top 5.

I kept them separate since they’re distinct games, but it’s worth noting that the combined community support is substantial.

BALL x PIT at 30 Votes

Worth a callout as the most direct structural competitor to Megabonk among newer games. 3D, stage-based, bullet heaven-adjacent.

If you liked Megabonk specifically for its 3D vertical movement, this one deserves a look, regardless of where it ranked.

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Extra Business Data From VGN Insights

1.9MAvg Units Sold

$12Avg Cost

$33MAvg Gross Revenue

11.3hAvg Median Playtime

The VGN Insights data was layered on top of the Reddit ranking after it was complete. The vote order came first; the business numbers were added afterward, purely to provide context for the scale of each game.

Data points collected for each game:

• Units Sold
• Average Cost
• Gross Revenue
• Median Playtime

A handful of games are missing data (Windblown, Dungeons and Ducklings, a few others) where Steam data was sparse or unavailable.

Free-to-play titles like Holocure and Super Auto Pets are excluded from the value calculations since price-per-hour math doesn’t apply.

If you’ve got a good source for filling in those gaps, I’d love to hear it in the comments.

Gross Revenue Games Like Megabonk

Units Sold Games Like Megabonk

Reddit Votes vs Gross Revenue Games Like Megabonk

Mobile-native bullet heaven games like Magic Survival, Survivor.io, and Pickle Pete came up in threads that were excluded from the main data collection due to the mobile-only rule. The Games Like Vampire Survivors article has a dedicated mobile section worth checking out if mobile is your primary platform.

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All Games Like Megabonk Ranked With Sales Data

Revenue and units are estimates from VGN Insights. Games marked had no data available at time of collection.

Game	Votes	Revenue	Units Sold	Avg Cost	Median Playtime
Risk of Rain 2	173	$147,000,000	9,500,000	$15	13.5 hrs
Vampire Survivors	141	$31,000,000	15,000,000	$5	8.0 hrs
Brotato	124	$11,600,000	3,300,000	$4	12.9 hrs
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor	87	$10,900,000	1,400,000	$8	12.2 hrs
Slay the Spire	82	$50,000,000	4,000,000	$13	26.5 hrs
The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	77	$48,000,000	9,000,000	$5	52.3 hrs
Dead Cells	72	$58,000,000	6,500,000	$9	11.0 hrs
Noita	72	$7,800,000	780,000	$10	24.0 hrs
Monster Train	70	$6,500,000	520,000	$13	19.0 hrs
Shogun Showdown	67	$1,200,000	240,000	$5	4.9 hrs
Enter the Gungeon	66	$39,100,000	4,000,000	$10	6.2 hrs
Inscryption	63	$10,000,000	1,300,000	$8	9.5 hrs
Hades	60	$137,900,000	8,200,000	$17	16.3 hrs
Halls of Torment	56	$3,600,000	934,000	$4	12.1 hrs
Hades II	54			$15
Balatro	50
Vampire Survivors (mobile)	45			$0
20 Minutes Till Dawn	42	$2,600,000	859,000	$3	6.9 hrs
Rogue Legacy 2	40			$20
Returnal	38			$40
Holocure	35			$0	8.5 hrs
Windblown	34
BALL x PIT	30
Death Must Die	28	$3,400,000	641,000	$5	10.6 hrs
Boneraiser Minions	25	$507,000	159,000	$3	5.8 hrs
Dungeons and Ducklings	22
Halls of Torment (mobile)	20			$5
Vampire Survivors+ (Apple Arcade)	18
Rogue Genesia	16	$1,400,000	249,000	$6	13.9 hrs
Astral Hunter	15				51.1 hrs
Magic Survival	14			$0
Army of Ruin	12	$408,000	80,550	$5	6.7 hrs
Soulstone Survivors	11	$6,200,000	783,000	$8	19.3 hrs
Yet Another Zombie Survivors	10	$2,800,000	387,000	$7	10.6 hrs
Survivor.io	9			$0
Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde	8
HoloCure: Save the Fans!	7			$0	8.5 hrs
Pizza Hero	6	$137,000	353,000	$0	40.1 hrs
Scarlet Tower	5
Pickle Pete	4			$0
Dungeon Survivors	3
Super Auto Pets	2			$0

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What People Said About the Top 10 Games

The most notable thing about this result isn’t who won it’s how wide the genre spread is. The top 10 includes a deck-builder (Slay the Spire), a turn-based tactics game (Shogun Showdown), a physics roguelite (Noita), a deckbuilder horror game (Inscryption), and a platformer (Dead Cells), alongside the bullet heavens. The Megabonk community clearly skews toward roguelites broadly, not just bullet heavens specifically.

Risk of Rain 2

#1 Most Recommended

173Reddit Votes

7/9Threads

~$15Avg Cost

Genre

3D Third-Person Roguelite

Style

Stage-based progression, chest loot, manual aiming the game Megabonk is built on

Platforms

PC · PS4/5 · Xbox · Switch

Game Pass

Yes Xbox Game Pass

Standout

Build variety and character depth far beyond Megabonk’s current roster

Best For

Megabonk fans who want more structure, depth, and active combat

Risk of Rain 2 topped the dataset with 173 votes across 7 threads, the most of any game on the list, with a margin of 32 votes over Vampire Survivors at #2.

Many of those mentions weren’t traditional recommendations. The community kept bringing RoR2 up to explain where Megabonk came from and what makes it tick (stage-based progression, chest loot, portals to boss fights) more than to say “play this next.” That framing is an important context for reading this ranking.

That said, if you haven’t played RoR2 and you love Megabonk, you should absolutely give it a try. The DNA is clear: it’s a deeper, longer, more diverse version of the same core loop.

Vampire Survivors

#2 Most Recommended

141Reddit Votes

5/9Threads

$4.99Avg Cost

Genre

Bullet Heaven / Roguelite

Style

2D auto-attack, open map, 30-minute survival runs Megabonk’s other parent game

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox · iOS / Android

Game Pass

Yes Xbox Game Pass

Standout

Enormous content depth, weapon evolution system, $4.99 price point

Best For

Players who want the purest bullet heaven loop essentially required reading for the genre

Vampire Survivors landed at 141 votes across 5 threads, 32 behind RoR2.

The same context applies: VS ranked largely because people kept explaining what Megabonk borrowed from it, not exclusively as a “play this next” recommendation.

VS is the auto-attack bullet heaven that Megabonk’s weapon loop is modeled after. You move, weapons fire automatically, enemies swarm, you level up, and pick upgrades.

Where Megabonk adds 3D movement, stage portals, and RoR2-style chest loot, VS is the purer, simpler version of that formula. It also has more content, more meta-progression, and a larger roster than Megabonk currently does.

If you came to Megabonk with no prior bullet heaven experience, VS is essentially required reading. My Games Like Vampire Survivors article covers the whole ecosystem if you want to go deeper, and the Vampire Survivors guide is worth a look if you’re just getting started.

Brotato

#3 Most Recommended

124Reddit Votes

6/9Threads

$4.99Avg Cost

Genre

Bullet Heaven / Roguelite

Style

Arena waves, six simultaneous weapons, deep build shop between rounds

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox · iOS / Android

Game Pass

No

Standout

Six simultaneous weapons build combinations feel genuinely unique

Best For

Players who want deep build optimization at a great price

Brotato came in at 124 votes across 6 threads, and it’s the first game in the top 10 that’s a genuine “try this next” recommendation rather than a reference point.

Brotato sits in interesting territory relative to Megabonk. Both are roguelites built on the bullet heaven loop, but the structure is completely different.

Megabonk is an open-map 3D with stage-based progression and RoR2 DNA. Brotato is an arena-based, 2D game with a shop between short waves.

The community kept recommending it because the build depth and item synergy are excellent, and the price is hard to argue with at $4.99.

I have 200+ hours in Brotato. The community’s enthusiasm here is genuine, and the Brotato review has more context if you’re on the fence.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

#4 Most Recommended

87Reddit Votes

8/9Threads

~$15Avg Cost

Genre

Bullet Heaven / Roguelite

Style

VS formula with active mining and terrain control in the DRG universe

Platforms

PC · Xbox Series X · Xbox Cloud

Game Pass

Yes Xbox Game Pass

Standout

Mining mechanic adds spatial strategy the genre doesn’t normally have

Best For

Players who want character flavor and environmental interaction alongside the bullet heaven loop

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor pulled 87 votes across 8 threads the most thread appearances of any game in the dataset, tied with Halls of Torment. DRG Survivor wasn’t just championed loudly in one place; it kept surfacing in almost every thread. What makes it relevant for Megabonk players is the shared DNA: the sense of character flavor and environmental interaction.

Slay the Spire

#5 Most Recommended

82Reddit Votes

3/9Threads

~$13Avg Cost

Genre

Deck-Building Roguelite

Style

Build a card hand across encounters, fight turn-based enemies not a bullet heaven

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox · iOS / Android

Game Pass

No

Standout

Build synergy depth unmatched in the deck-builder genre

Best For

Megabonk players who love the upgrade decision-making loop in a completely different format

Slay the Spire pulled 82 votes across 3 threads, and it’s worth being upfront: Slay the Spire is not a bullet heaven, and it doesn’t play anything like Megabonk. It’s a deck-building roguelite where you build a card hand across a series of encounters and fight turn-based enemies.

Said differently, no auto-attack, no bullet spray, no horde survival.

It ranked because the roguelite audience overlaps substantially, and because 70 of its 82 votes came from a single thread, a single-thread spike worth flagging.

My best roguelike games article has more on it in the context of the broader roguelike community.

If you like Megabonk’s upgrade decision-making and build-crafting, Slay the Spire absolutely delivers on that, just in a completely different format.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

#6 Most Recommended

77Reddit Votes

4/9Threads

~$5Avg Cost

Genre

Twin-Stick Dungeon Crawler Roguelite

Style

Procedural floors, permadeath, absurd item synergy depth

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox

Game Pass

No

Standout

More replayability than almost anything else on this list hundreds of hours before exhausting it

Best For

Players who want chaos, item synergies, and “one more run” pull at its deepest

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth shares the chaos, the item synergies, and the “this run feels completely different” quality that makes Megabonk addictive. It doesn’t play like Megabonk in any direct sense, but once the item library clicks, there’s arguably more replayability here than anything else on this list.

Dead Cells

#7 (Tied)

72Reddit Votes

3/9Threads

~$9Avg Cost

Genre

Roguelite Action Platformer

Style

Procedural biomes, tight combat, enormous weapon variety not a bullet heaven

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox · iOS / Android

Best For

Players who want Megabonk’s kinetic run-and-kill loop in a polished platformer format

Noita

#8 (Tied)

72Reddit Votes

3/9Threads

~$10Avg Cost

Genre

Physics-Based Roguelite

Style

Every pixel simulated, wand-crafting system, notoriously deep and opaque

Platforms

PC only

Best For

Players who want the deepest possible roguelite rabbit hole not for the faint of heart

Monster Train

#9 Most Recommended

70Reddit Votes

2/9Threads

~$13Avg Cost

Genre

Deck-Building Roguelite

Style

Defend a moving pyre across battles, multi-lane combat not a bullet heaven

Platforms

PC · Xbox (Game Pass) · iOS / Android

Game Pass

Yes Xbox Game Pass

Best For

Players who loved Slay the Spire and want a second excellent deck-builder

Shogun Showdown

#10 Most Recommended

67Reddit Votes

1/9Threads

~$5Avg Cost

Genre

Turn-Based Tactics Roguelite

Style

Position on a grid, plan attacks against enemies who move turn by turn not a bullet heaven

Platforms

PC · iOS / Android

Note

67 votes from a single thread worth flagging before reading into the ranking

Best For

Megabonk players who want something completely different and puzzle-like between sessions

Hades

Honorable Mention

60Reddit Votes

4/9Threads

~$17Avg Cost

Genre

Action Roguelite

Style

Manual combat, room-based progression, god boon builds, narrative that progresses each run

Platforms

PC · Switch · PS4/5 · Xbox · iOS (Netflix)

Note

Combined with Hades II = 114 votes would rank top 5 as a franchise

Best For

Players who want the “one more run” pull with more skill expression and story

Halls of Torment

Honorable Mention

56Reddit Votes

8/9Threads

~$5Avg Cost

Genre

Bullet Heaven / Roguelite

Style

Diablo 2 aesthetic meets Vampire Survivors gear system, dark fantasy atmosphere

Platforms

PC · PS5 · Xbox Series X · iOS / Android

Game Pass

Yes Xbox Game Pass

Note

8/9 threads the strongest broad consensus signal in the honorable mention tier

Best For

The most direct bullet heaven recommendation for Megabonk players outside the top 10

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Games Like Megabonk on PS5

Megabonk is PC only, so PS5 players are working from the recommendation list rather than a direct port. Strongest options available on PS5:

#	Game	Votes	PS5 Notes
1	Risk of Rain 2	173	PS4/5
2	Vampire Survivors	141	PS4/5
3	Brotato	124	PS4/5
4	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	77	PS4/5
5	Dead Cells	72	PS4/5
6	Hades	60	PS4/5
7	Halls of Torment	56	PS5

Slay the Spire and Inscryption are also on PS4/5 if the deck-builder picks appeal to you.

Games Like Megabonk on Xbox

Xbox is actually a strong platform for this list. Risk of Rain 2, Vampire Survivors, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and Halls of Torment are all on Game Pass, which means the four most relevant options across different flavors of Megabonk-adjacent gameplay cost nothing to try with an active subscription.

#	Game	Votes	Xbox Notes
1	Risk of Rain 2	173	Xbox Game Pass
2	Vampire Survivors	141	Xbox Game Pass
3	Brotato	124	Xbox
4	Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor	87	Xbox Game Pass
5	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	77	Xbox
6	Dead Cells	72	Xbox
7	Hades	60	Xbox
8	Halls of Torment	56	Xbox Game Pass

Games Like Megabonk on Switch

The Switch library is solid for this list, though Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and Halls of Torment are both absent. Brotato is the clearest bullet heaven starting point on this platform.

#	Game	Votes	Switch Notes
1	Risk of Rain 2	173	Switch
2	Vampire Survivors	141	Switch
3	Brotato	124	Switch
4	Slay the Spire	82	Switch
5	The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth	77	Switch
6	Dead Cells	72	Switch
7	Hades	60	Switch

Notably absent from Switch: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and Halls of Torment. Brotato is the clearest bullet heaven starting point on this platform.

Android and iOS Games Like Megabonk

Megabonk is PC only with no announced mobile version. Best options from the ranked list available on mobile:

Game	Platform	Notes
Vampire Survivors	iOS / Android	Full mobile version
Brotato	iOS / Android	Full mobile version
Dead Cells	iOS / Android	Full mobile version
Slay the Spire	iOS / Android	Full mobile version
Shogun Showdown	iOS / Android	Dedicated mobile version
Monster Train	iOS / Android	Full mobile version

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Megabonk vs. Vampire Survivors

This comparison comes up in nearly every thread about Megabonk.

The short version: they share the auto-attack bullet heaven loop, but almost everything else is different.

VS is 2D, top-down, time-based, you survive 30 minutes and that’s a run. Upgrades come from leveling up mid-run, weapons evolve by combining with passive items, and meta-progression unlocks permanently stronger starting conditions. It’s the simpler, more accessible version of the formula.

Megabonk takes that auto-attack loop and drops it into a 3D open map with stage-based progression borrowed from Risk of Rain 2. Runs end when you reach a portal and fight a boss, not when a timer expires. Loot comes from chests you find by exploring, not just from level-up choices. The 3D movement and verticality change how the game feels entirely.

VS is the better pick for “brain off” sessions. Megabonk asks more of you spatially.

Category

Megabonk

Vampire Survivors

Perspective

3D third-person

2D top-down

Run Structure

Stage-based with portals and boss fights

Survive 30 minutes timer-based

Loot

Chests found by exploring the map

Level-up picks mid-run

Combat

Auto-attack with 3D spatial movement

Fully auto-attack, movement only

Content Depth

Newer still growing

Massive years of DLC and updates

Best For

Spatial awareness, 3D movement, stage variety

Brain-off sessions, content depth, low price

VS is the simpler version of the formula Megabonk adds the 3D and stage-based layer on top

Megabonk vs. Risk of Rain 2

The comparison that comes up most in Megabonk’s Steam threads. The community settled on a reasonable shorthand: Megabonk is RoR2 meets Vampire Survivors.

The similarities are real: 3D third-person perspective, stage-based runs that end at a portal, boss fights, chests to loot with currency you collect from kills. If you’ve played RoR2, Megabonk will feel immediately familiar in structure.

The differences are also real. RoR2 requires manual aiming and active dodging; Megabonk is auto-attack. RoR2 has significantly more build diversity, more characters, more items, and a higher mechanical ceiling. Runs are longer and more variable. It rewards skilled play more explicitly.

Megabonk is the more accessible entry point. RoR2 is the deeper game if you’re willing to invest the time. If you hit the content ceiling in Megabonk and want more of that structure with more build complexity, RoR2 is the obvious next step.

Category

Megabonk

Risk of Rain 2

Combat

Auto-attack movement focused

Manual aiming skill expressive

Run Length

Shorter, snappier

Longer, more variable

Build Depth

Solid still growing

Significantly deeper more characters and items

Accessibility

Lower floor easier to pick up

Higher mechanical ceiling

Best For

Auto-attack feel with RoR2 structure

Players ready to invest more time and skill

Megabonk is the more accessible entry point RoR2 is the deeper game if you’re willing to invest

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Bullet Heaven vs. Bullet Hell

These two terms get confused constantly. Bullet hell games put you on the receiving end of enemy projectiles; bullet heaven games flip the script and make you the one causing the chaos. Megabonk is bullet heaven. For a full breakdown of where these genres overlap and diverge, the bullet heaven vs. bullet hell guide covers it in detail.

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Wrapping Up

146 games, 9 threads, 1,757 votes. The result is one of the more eclectic top 10s across any data article on this site, and I think that reflects something real about who plays Megabonk.

The community skews toward roguelites generally, not bullet heavens specifically, which is why you get Slay the Spire and Noita sitting alongside DRG Survivor and Brotato.

Take care and talk soon

TL;DR — What Are the Best Games Like Vampire Survivors?

Here is a quick overview of the top games similar to Vampire Survivors.

The links below will take you to Steam.

1. Halls of Torment (320 votes)
2. Brotato (278 votes)
3. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor (270 votes)
4. Death Must Die (138 votes)
5. Holocure (136 votes)
6. 20 Minutes Till Dawn (133 votes)
7. Yet Another Zombie Survivors (96 votes)
8. Soulstone Survivors (80 votes)
9. Boneraiser Minions (77 votes)
10. Rogue Genesia (73 votes)

Data sourced from 15 Reddit threads · 1,962 total votes

Most Recommended Games Based on Reddit Votes

Top Value Games (Median Playtime per Dollar Spent)

This chart ranks games by how many median hours of play you get per dollar spent. Free-to-play titles like Holocure are excluded from this chart since the math doesn’t apply. Early access pricing can also skew results here, since some games were cheaper when most players picked them up.

Distribution of Median Playtime

The genre trends toward shorter, repeatable sessions rather than marathon runs. Most games here cluster between 5 and 15 hours of median playtime, which reflects the run-based structure more than the actual total hours players put in.

About My Data Collection Process

If you’ve read my Games Like Brotato article or the best bullet heaven games ranking, this process will look familiar.

The short version: I searched Reddit for threads asking about the best games like Vampire Survivors, collected 15 threads, tallied every upvote across every relevant suggestion, and let the numbers decide the ranking.

Just to clarify, I didn’t vote for anything myself; the community did.

How I Chose Reddit Threads

I started with a Google search for “games like Vampire Survivors” and collected the top results (e.g., Reddit thread). Then I went directly to Reddit and repeated the search to catch anything Google missed.

I typically always collect the first 15 I see, so that’s where I stopped. The only time I’ve collected 20 is when I wrote the best roguelike games guide.

From there I applied the same exclusions I use in every guide:

• Threads asking for mobile-only recommendations
• Threads asking for console-only or handheld-only suggestions

That left me with 15 threads across r/ShouldIbuythisgame, r/survivorslikes, r/gamesuggestions, and r/brotato, to name a few.

How I Chose Games

If people suggested a game repeatedly across threads, it obviously made the list. 

If it was suggested once with strong upvote support, those upvotes were counted too.

A few edge cases worth calling out: some games sparked debate about whether they actually fit the VS genre. 

I only removed a game if another community member explicitly called it out as off-topic. And of course, self-promotion comments were excluded.

How I Ranked Games

Ranking was based entirely on upvotes. Every mention of a game across any thread contributed to its total, including duplicate suggestions and replies in support of it.

So if a game was suggested three times with 19, 67, and 11 upvotes respectively, it gets 97 total votes. Every mention counts; nothing gets thrown out for low individual upvote counts.

Nuances and Notes of the Data

A few things worth flagging before reading too much into the rankings.

Brotato’s position

Brotato landed in second with 278 votes, which will surprise some people. It’s not a VS clone in the traditional sense; the round-based structure and arena format are distinct enough that some threads debated whether it even belongs in this category. 

If you’re looking for something that plays more like VS specifically, Halls of Torment or 20 Minutes Till Dawn are closer matches mechanically.

Holocure’s thread count

Holocure appeared in 11 of 15 threads, tied for the most of any game on the list, but finished 5th by vote count. It consistently showed up as a recommendation but rarely attracted large clusters of upvotes. I guess the community likes it broadly, but not loudly?

Yet Another Zombie Survivors

A classic favorite, YAZS received 96 votes across only 3 threads, but almost all of them came concentrated in one or two comments with strong upvote support. Worth knowing when reading that ranking.

Free-to-play outliers

Holocure is completely free. That’s worth flagging as both a barrier-to-entry callout and a data caveat. Free games tend to get recommended more casually, which may inflate or deflate their vote counts depending on the thread.

Extra Business Data From VGN Insights

Below is some extra fun data just because I’m a business nerd. 

I collect this for all guides and find it really interesting when compared across all the games mentioned. 

Average Business Stats ([X] Best Games Like Vampire Survivors)

• Units Sold = 758,838
• Average Cost = $6
• Gross Revenue = $7,591,454
• Median Playtime = 10.4 Hours

If anyone has suggestions for finding the missing data that VGN Insights didn’t have, please help. I’m all ears and would love to fill in the gaps.

Top 10 Games Like Vampire Survivors Based on Real Data

The result that caught me off guard wasn’t the winner, but more so the margin. 

Halls of Torment finished 42 votes ahead of Brotato and 50 ahead of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, making it one of the clearer top results I’ve seen across any of these data pulls. 

When a game like that beats everything else in a Vampire Survivors recommendation thread, that tells you something about what people actually want when they go looking for the next VS.

Oh, and before I forget, if you haven’t already, check out our:

• Vampire Survirors Character Tier Chart
• Vampire Survivors Weapon Tier Chart

The other interesting pattern was that Death Must Die and Holocure were separated by just 2 votes, which was the closest race on the entire list.

1. Halls of Torment

Halls of Torment took the top spot with 320 votes across 11 of 15 threads, the highest thread count of any game on the list, tied with Brotato and Holocure. The community was recommending it everywhere.

The game’s pitch is straightforward: it’s Vampire Survivors, but it looks like Diablo 2. Isometric perspective, dark fantasy atmosphere, and hand-crafted gear you equip between runs. The visual identity is distinctive enough that it came up constantly, even in threads where people were explicitly looking for something different from VS.

It’s also one of the few games here with a meaningful gear system layered on top of the standard VS formula, which gives runs a reason to keep going beyond just chasing the next unlock.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• PlayStation 5
• Xbox Series X|S (also on Xbox Game Pass)
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• The Diablo 1/2 aesthetic is genuinely distinctive in a genre full of pixel art
• Gear system adds a layer of build customization that VS doesn’t have
• Challenge progression gives experienced players plenty to grind toward
• Runs feel snappy and well-paced compared to longer games in the genre

Common Criticisms

• Some characters feel noticeably stronger than others, which can make the roster feel uneven
• The mobile premium version has received less ongoing support than the Steam version
• Can feel like it runs out of steam at higher difficulty modifiers
• RNG on gear drops occasionally produces runs that feel decided before they start

Quotes from the Threads

“Halls of Torment, it’s slower like VS (in fact, much slower), but it’s got cool boss abilities and D2 aesthetics.” — u/ElitistJerk_ (r/gamingsuggestions)

“+1 for Halls of Torment. Feels better than VS.” — u/bodohkiin (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“I am a huge horde survival and roguelike guy. I just platinum’d Halls of Torment and really enjoyed it. It has 10 unlockable characters, six maps, something like 500 challenges, and is only like $10.” — u/American_Suburbs (r/survivorslikes)

2. Brotato

Brotato came in at 278 votes across 11 threads, tied with Halls of Torment for the most threads but edged out in total votes. 

As I mentioned in the nuances section, Brotato is a legitimate debate; the round-based structure and arena format make it its own thing rather than a VS clone. But 278 votes from 11 threads is hard to argue with.

If you’re coming from VS and haven’t tried Brotato yet, the main thing to know is that runs are broken into short combat waves followed by a shop where you equip weapons and items (up to six weapons at once). The build space is enormous, and the difficulty scales sharply enough that getting a Danger 5 win with every character is a genuine long-term project.

I have 200+ hours in this one. It’s not VS, but it scratches that itch.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• Six weapons simultaneously creates build combinations that feel genuinely unique
• Short rounds make it easy to pick up and put down
• 44 characters each with distinct mechanics add enormous replay value
• One of the best value propositions in the genre at $4.99

Common Criticisms

• The arena format feels very different from VS’s open-map exploration
• Brotato characters require prior game knowledge to use effectively at higher difficulties
• The art style is an acquired taste
• Less “brain off” than VS; Brotato asks more of you in the shop

Quotes from the Threads

“Brotato is the best game I’ve played in the VS genre. Short combat rounds alternate with shopping for new weapons and upgrades. 44 characters and 5 difficulty levels.” — u/tehsideburns (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“Brotato. Most bullet heavens don’t deviate from Vampire Survivors’ formula, but Brotato changes enough up to feel like its own unique game.” — u/erak3xfish (r/gamesuggestions)

3. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

DRGS had 270 votes across 9 threads, just 8 behind Brotato. 

The closest race between any two consecutive games in the top 3.

And it does something that nobody else in this genre does: you mine. 

Instead of a fixed arena, the map is terrain you actively dig through while holding off hordes. That spatial element (controlling where enemies funnel, creating chokepoints, managing your dig path) adds a layer of strategy that VS-style games rarely have.

The production quality is also top-notch, IMO.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Xbox Game Pass, Series X|S, Xbox Cloud

What Works Well

• Mining mechanic adds genuine spatial strategy the genre doesn’t normally have
• Biome variety makes runs feel distinct from each other
• One of the most visually polished games in the genre
• Deep Rock Galactic universe adds character and flavor that most VS-likes lack

Common Criticisms

• Slower pacing and longer runs than most VS-likes
• Masteries system made meta progression feel grindy to some players
• Less variety in moment-to-moment decision-making compared to games with deeper shop systems

Quotes from the Threads

“Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Personally tied with Brotato for favorite in the genre. The guns have more oompf to them and you also get to mine mazes on each map.” — u/godspark533 (r/brotato)

“Deep Rock feels way more satisfying than Vampire Survivors.” — u/mayanrelic (r/survivorslikes)

“Brotato and deep rock galactic survivors are superior to every other vs game for me. Game depth and unique characters really add a ton to the games. Combined I have +600 hrs in them.” — u/NamelessNoSoul (r/gamesuggestions)

4. Death Must Die

Death Must Die had 138 votes across 7 threads, and was 2 votes ahead of Holocure.

Death Must Die is what happens when someone looks at Vampire Survivors and Hades and decides to combine them. 

You’re fighting through waves with auto-attacks, but the upgrade system involves choosing blessings from different gods, each with distinct flavors, and the gear carries a Diablo-style weight to it. The art is genuinely beautiful for an indie in this space.

The common thread across every recommendation in the data was that it feels more interactive and more intentional than most bullet heavens, which lands differently depending on what you’re looking for.

Available

• PC (Steam, Humble Bundle)

What Works Well

• God blessing system creates build variety that feels meaningfully different from standard VS upgrades
• Visual quality is well above average for the genre
• More interactive combat than most auto-attack games
• Short, clean runs that don’t overstay their welcome

Common Criticisms

• PC only, which limits the audience significantly
• Some players found the reward loop slower than comparable games
• Still adding content; later-game variety is thinner than the early game
• The dash mechanic adds complexity not everyone wants from a bullet heaven

Quotes from the Threads

“Death must die is absolutely the best VS, it did such a great job making the loot interesting and the abilities satisfying while keeping a good level of difficulty.” — u/SykoManiax (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“Death Must Die. It was a ton of fun.” — u/Tykero (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“Death must die is a pretty good one, kinda like brotato mixed with Hades.” — u/Double_Reward3885 (r/brotato)

5. Holocure

Another great game, Holocure, had 136 votes across 11 threads, tied for the most thread appearances on the list, and just 2 votes behind Death Must Die.

And PSA: Holocure is free. That’s the first thing anyone says about it. 

It’s a fan game built around the Hololive VTuber roster, which means nothing if you’re not into that world and everything if you are, but either way the underlying bullet heaven is excellent.

The character roster is enormous, each with unique weapons and abilities, there’s a farming and fishing side system, and updates have been consistent since launch. The VTuber framing is a filter, not a flaw.

Available

• PC (itch.io, free)
• PC (Steam, free)

What Works Well

• Completely free with no monetization
• Massive character roster, each feeling genuinely distinct
• Fishing, farming, and a gacha-style system add content outside the runs
• Active development with regular updates

Common Criticisms

• The VTuber theme is a genuine barrier for players who don’t connect with it
• Visually lighter than some of the other top games here
• The character unlock system can feel slow for new players
• Less mechanically distinctive than the top 3

Quotes from the Threads

“Holocure gets my vote even if you don’t care about vtubers.” — u/SpuhdSSB (r/gamesuggestions)

“HoloCure is free and pretty similar to Vampire Survivors, but I find it fun because of the crazy amount of characters.” — u/GalvDev (r/roguelites)

“Halocure: save the fans is surprisingly great for a free game, I like it as much as VS. And totally free, it looks like a game that would be packed with mtx nonsense but you couldn’t spend a dime even if you wanted to.” — u/DirteMcGirte (r/survivorslikes)

6. 20 Minutes Till Dawn

With 133 votes across 7 threads, 20 Minutes Till Dawn was separated from Holocure by 3 votes.

The key difference between 20 Minutes Till Dawn and most games in this genre: you aim manually. You slow down while shooting, creating tension between moving away from enemies and actually killing them. It’s a small mechanical shift that makes the game feel noticeably more active than a pure auto-attacker.

Run length is short by design (20 minutes, hence the name), which makes it one of the more accessible options here for players who can’t always block out a longer session. Synergies get wild fast once you understand the upgrade trees.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• Manual aiming adds a skill layer most VS-likes don’t have
• Upgrade synergies reward players who think ahead
• Short run length makes it easy to fit into any session
• Dark visual style is distinct from the pixel art crowd

Common Criticisms

• Manual aiming is a dealbreaker for players who want pure auto-attack
• Less map variety than the top games in the genre
• Meta progression felt thin to some players after unlocking the core content
• Can feel repetitive once you’ve found a couple of builds that work

Quotes from the Threads

“20 minutes until dawn. Its not as complex as VS, but you can get some pretty cool synergies going. You also have a little more control by being able to aim, shoot, and reload manually.” — u/HeroHas (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“20 Minutes Till Dawn completely replaced Vampire Survivors for me simply because of the manual aim.” — u/Trollmupp (r/roguelites)

“Man I love 20 minutes until dawn. I’ve already unlocked everything, but the gameplay and synergies are just so satisfying.” — u/cranelotus (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

7. Yet Another Zombie Survivors

Yet Another Zombie Survivors received 96 votes across 3 threads, which was the most concentrated vote count in the top 10. Almost all of it came from threads championed by a small group of players who clearly love it.

The twist here is the squad. 

Instead of a single character, you’re building a team of survivors, each with their own weapons and passive abilities. 

The military aesthetic is a change of pace from the fantasy and sci-fi settings that dominate the genre, and the gunplay has a satisfying weight to it that pure auto-attackers sometimes miss.

It was in early access at the time of data collection, so the content level reflects that with a strong foundation and room to grow.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Xbox One / Series X|S

What Works Well

• Squad mechanics add a genuinely unique twist to the standard VS formula
• Military aesthetic stands out in a genre full of fantasy and pixel art
• Smooth combat with satisfying feedback on kills
• Fun synergies between squad members

Common Criticisms

• Early access content level; thinner than fully released games on this list
• Some players found long-term replayability limited compared to top-tier entries
• Manual aiming changes the feel for players who prefer pure auto-attack

Quotes from the Threads

“Better is very subjective but my two favorites are Deep Rock Galactic Survivors and Yet Another Zombie Survivors.” — u/No_Dig_7017 (r/survivorslikes)

“YA zombie survivors is on Xbox also. I like it.” — u/Majestic_Salary9987 (r/survivorslikes)

“Yet another zombie survivor was a fun game to 100%.” — u/wookie2ause (r/gamesuggestions)

8. Soulstone Survivors

Soulstone Survivors had 80 votes across 9 threads. 

The thread count is high relative to the vote total; Soulstone showed up everywhere, just rarely as the top recommendation in any given thread.

This is the most mechanically complex game in the top 10: Fourteen classes, over a hundred skills, a tag system that determines what combinations work together, rune slots, talent trees. 

It’s the game for people who want to spend as much time theorycrafting between runs as playing them. The flipside: it’s overwhelming if you just want to pick something up and zone out.

One thing worth noting: the art uses pre-made asset packs rather than custom models, which some players find off-putting. The game underneath those assets is excellent; whether the presentation bothers you is a personal call.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• PlayStation 5
• Xbox Series X|S

What Works Well

• Build depth is unmatched in the genre; the tag system creates real synergy discovery
• 14 classes each play distinctly differently
• Power scaling hits a satisfying peak that makes late-game runs feel earned
• Co-op support for players who want to share the chaos

Common Criticisms

• Overwhelming at the start; too many systems introduced too quickly
• Pre-made asset packs are a visual turnoff for some players
• Late game can tip into screen-filling chaos that obscures enemy attacks
• Runs can feel long relative to the tighter pacing of VS

Quotes from the Threads

“Soulstone Survivors is another ‘bullet heaven’ game that someone recommended, I tried out the demo, and then immediately purchased. Satisfying gameplay and synergies similar to Brotato, but feels more like Vampire Survivors as things get hectic.” — u/yParticle (r/brotato)

“I’ve put about 50 hours into Soulstone Survivors. Great game and my go-to VS-like.” — u/PuffAndDuff (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“Soulstone Survivors is way too good and it kinda damaged me because all other bh games I’ve tried just don’t do it for me like SS.” — u/Isaiah8200 (r/survivorslikes)

9. Boneraiser Minions

Boneraiser Minions had 77 votes across 5 threads, 3 behind Soulstone Survivors.

Boneraiser Minions has the most distinct gimmick in the top 10: you don’t attack. Instead, you raise an army of minions from the bones of fallen enemies and let them do the fighting while you focus on staying alive and building your horde. It’s the same movement-and-survive loop, but the feeling of playing it is completely different from anything else on this list.

The humor is deliberately crude and the pixel art leans into it, which means it’s either charming or insufferable depending on your tolerance. For players who vibe with the summoner fantasy, there’s nothing else quite like it in the genre.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Minion system creates a fundamentally different feel from standard bullet heavens
• Plenty of content depth once you start unlocking more minion types and classes
• Price is low relative to content
• The Brainiac class absorbs minion powers for a more traditional VS-style experience if the summoner loop isn’t for you

Common Criticisms

• PC only
• The crude humor and visual style is divisive
• Can feel like it maxes out relatively quickly compared to the top games here
• Save file issues have been reported historically

Quotes from the Threads

“I love Boneraiser Minions lately.” — u/UnseenHS (r/survivorslikes)

“Boneraiser Minions. You do very little attacking yourself, and instead spawn minions instead of getting new powers. You’re entirely dependent on your minions for survival.” — u/Jimlad116 (r/roguelites)

“Boneraiser Minions (the humor isn’t really my cup of tea, but it’s a great summoner-based VS-like).” — u/skyboy26 (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

10. Rogue Genesia

Rogue Genesia received 73 votes across 4 threads, just 4 behind Boneraiser Minions.

Rogue Genesia is what most people describe as “VS but with more RPG.” You get a world map, towns, shops between levels, and a progression structure that gives runs more of a journey feeling than the standard VS loop does. It’s still horde survival at its core, but the layer of exploration on top changes the pacing in a way that some players specifically seek out.

It was in early access at the time of data collection, and it’s one of the more actively developed games on this list, with the developer adding content consistently throughout that period.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• World map and town system adds exploration that VS doesn’t have
• RPG elements give runs more narrative structure and forward momentum
• Active development means the game keeps getting bigger
• Closer to the VS loop than Brotato or DRG for players who want something familiar with more structure

Common Criticisms

• Early access for most of its life; content gaps are real
• Some players found the grind to feel stretched compared to more polished entries
• Less visual polish than the top half of this list
• Smaller community means fewer guides and resources for new players

Quotes from the Threads

“Rogue Genesia, probably the best reverse bullet hell game like vampire survivor I played.” — u/loso3svk (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

“Rogue genesia is a strong contender.” — u/v-i-n-c-e-2 (r/survivorslikes)

“Rogue Genesia has been my favorite lately, before that was Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. You’ll likely love both.” — deleted user (r/survivorslikes)

Honorable Mention 1: Army of Ruin

Army of Ruin finished just outside the top 10 with 56 votes across 4 threads. The gap between it and Rogue Genesia at number 10 is 17 votes.

It’s here because the players who recommended it did so with genuine conviction, and because it offers something worth flagging: one of the more flexible weapon evolution systems in the genre.

Most VS-likes require a specific item to evolve a weapon. Army of Ruin lets you match elemental attributes instead, which means builds can take shape in ways the game never explicitly planned for. That flexibility kept showing up as a genuine selling point in the threads.

It’s also one of the most visually polished games at its price point. That came up more than once (and it’s accurate).

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S

What Works Well

• Elemental affinity system makes weapon evolutions more flexible than most VS-likes
• Visual quality is notably higher than most games at this price
• Challenge objectives push you to play differently than a standard survival run
• Console availability across all major platforms

Common Criticisms

• Takes 30–50 hours to unlock everything, which some players found slow going
• Earlier runs can feel sluggish before the unlock pool opens up
• Less build variety in the late game than the deeper systems in Soulstone or Halls
• Some players moved on before the game fully opened up

Quotes from the Threads

“Army of Ruin. Much more polished than VS.” — u/mmbernie51 (r/XboxGamePass)

“Try Army of ruin. Vampire survivors with better graphics in a fantasy theme.” — u/liljoey83 (r/roguelites)

“Army of Ruin is the best one of these I have played and I’ve played a lot of them. It is totally underrated, check it out.” — u/AlexXLR (r/roguelites)

Honorable Mention: Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde

Spirit Hunters sits at 35 votes across 3 threads, well behind Army of Ruin, and that gap is real. 

It’s here for one specific reason: if you want to play something like VS with a friend on the same screen, Spirit Hunters is the most consistently recommended answer in these threads.

Local co-op is genuinely rare in this genre. Soulstone Survivors has it, but it’s complex. Spirit Hunters keeps the VS formula intact and adds a second player slot, which makes it a hard game to leave off a list like this, regardless of vote count.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5

What Works Well

• Local co-op support; one of the few VS-likes with it
• Weapon variety is frequently praised in the threads
• Procedurally generated levels add more exploration than a fixed arena
• Faithful to the VS formula for players who want more of the same

Common Criticisms

• Smaller roster and weapon pool than the top-ranked games here
• Less content depth overall; can feel exhausted faster than the competition
• 35 votes means the recommendation base is genuinely smaller than others
• Limited community visibility means fewer guides and resources

Quotes from the Threads

“Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde is a lot of fun. There aren’t many characters, but the attacks are really good.” — u/DiscordianDreams (r/gamesuggestions)

“Spirit Hunters and Army of Ruin, which are both on all consoles.” — u/Salvidrim (r/roguelites)

“Brotato, army of ruin and spirit hunters infinite horde. All similar games to vampire survivors.” — u/hondakiller346 (r/ShouldIbuythisgame)

Games Like Vampire Survivors on PS5

Most of the top-ranked games here have PS5 versions. Vampire Survivors itself is on PS4/5 if you haven’t played the console version yet.

Here are the strongest options from the community data:

Games Like Vampire Survivors on Xbox

The Xbox library for this genre is solid, and several of the top games are on Game Pass, which makes this a particularly good platform for the genre right now.

Both Halls of Torment and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor are on Xbox Game Pass, which makes this platform an unusually strong option for getting into the genre without spending much upfront.

Games Like Vampire Survivors on Switch

The Switch library is more limited for this genre than Xbox or PS5, but the essentials are covered.

Worth flagging: Halls of Torment, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and Holocure are all not on Switch at the time of writing, which removes three of the most-recommended games from the Switch option pool. Brotato is the clear starting point on this platform.

Android and iOS Games Like Vampire Survivors

Several top-ranked games have mobile versions, and a few mobile-native games earned enough mentions in the excluded threads to be worth flagging here.

Mobile-native games worth knowing about (excluded from main ranking due to thread scope):

• Magic Survival is the game that inspired Vampire Survivors. Android only, free, and worth knowing about if you’re curious about where VS came from.
• Survivor.io is the most-downloaded VS-like game on mobile. Free to play with in-app purchases.
• Pickle Pete is frequently cited as the closest Brotato equivalent on mobile.

These games showed up in mobile-specific threads that were excluded from the main data collection, so they don’t have vote totals in this article’s ranking. If mobile is your primary platform, they’re worth looking at independently.

All 42 Games Like Vampire Survivors Ranked by Reddit With Sales Data

When Did Vampire Survivors-Like Games Become Popular?

The short answer is 2021, but the real story starts a bit earlier.

Magic Survival is the mobile game most people credit as the template. It had the core loop: move around, auto-attack, survive waves, level up. 

VS hit Steam Early Access in December 2021 for $2.99 and went completely viral. 

Within months, it had more concurrent players than games that cost ten times as much. By the time it hit 1.0, the genre had a name, and every indie dev with a top-down survival idea was paying attention.

The flood of games that followed, including Halls of Torment, 20 Minutes Till Dawn, Brotato, and Soulstone Survivors, all came in the wake of that explosion. The genre went from a cult hit to a legit category in about two years.

Bullet Heaven vs. Bullet Hell

These terms get used interchangeably, but they mean opposite things. 

In bullet hell, you dodge thousands of projectiles fired at you. 

In bullet heaven, you flip the script and become the one unleashing the damage. 

Every game on this list is bullet heaven.

We have a full breakdown in the dedicated bullet heaven vs. bullet hell guide.

Vampire Survivors vs. Brotato

This comparison comes up in almost every thread about either game. 

VS is an open map where you walk around and auto-attack while enemies swarm you. Brotato is an arena where you survive short waves, then shop for upgrades between them. Both are bullet heavens, but they feel completely different.

VS is the easier pick for pure “brain off” play. 

Brotato asks more from you in the build phase and rewards deliberate decision-making in a way VS doesn’t push for. If you want to zone out, VS is your game. If you want to optimize, Brotato tends to be the next stop.

Our Brotato review covers the game in more depth, and the Games Like Brotato article runs the same Reddit methodology on Brotato’s specific community.

Wrapping Up

Halls of Torment ended up on top, and honestly, that result holds up. It’s the game that comes up most consistently when people want something that scratches the VS itch while actually being its own thing, and 320 votes across 11 threads is about as clear a community signal as you’re going to get.

If you find something on this list that clicks, drop it in the comments. And if you think something got robbed, same place.

Take care and talk soon

The post (Top 42) Games Like Vampire Survivors – 1,962 Reddit Votes appeared first on Rogue Ranker.

It felt like I was playing Vampire Survivors or Brotato for the first time.

And like you, I died a lot, but that’s the point, right? …Right?

If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’ll know I love collecting Reddit threads and using them as a basis for writing guides like this one.

So here’s a massive community overview of Megabonk tips.

Hope you enjoy

TL;DR: The Top Megabonk Tips at a Glance

Getting the most out of Megabonk comes down to a few repeatable principles: build around your character’s passive, get the Holy Trinity (XP + Curse + Luck Tomes), and keep moving.

Here’s a quick overview of what I collectively noticed on Reddit.

Top 10 Megabonk Tips From The Community

I went through eight Reddit threads from r/MegabonkOfficial and r/PaymoneyWubby covering tips, beginner questions, and build advice. 

The patterns below are the things that kept coming up across multiple threads independently; not one person’s opinion, but the community arriving at the same conclusions over and over.

1. Mobility first, always

Movement speed and extra jumps come up in nearly every thread.

u/zenitharchon put it plainly: most characters can’t clear Stage 1 without additional speed. 

You need to reach shrines, pots, and interactables before the boss spawns, and you need to escape bad positions during swarms. 

The advice that was repeated most: get at least two extra jumps early, and take movement speed whenever nothing else is more urgent. 

u/gallandof credited extra jumps as the single change that stopped him from dying every run.

2. One Shield tick absorbs a full hit, no matter the damage

This one surprised me when I first saw it, but multiple threads confirmed it. 

u/wo0topia explained it clearly: if you have 5 shield and take 100 damage, the 5 shield cancels the attack entirely. It doesn’t scale with the hit. One charge shrine Shield upgrade early is considered essentially mandatory by most experienced players; it’s the cheapest possible one-shot protection. 

Don’t stack it beyond that unless you have a specific reason.

3. Don’t open chests until your Luck is built up

u/BalusBubalis set a specific benchmark: at least 15% luck, ideally 30%+ before paying for chests. 

The reasoning is straightforward: Luck affects chest item quality, so spending gold on chests before you’ve built Luck is burning currency for worse outcomes. 

Free chests from Keys are fine earlier; it’s the paid ones you want to hold on to.

4. Don’t banish Moldy Cheese or Unstable Transfusion

This came up in two separate threads from players who had banished both and regretted it. 

Moldy Cheese applies poison on hit, which ticks away at boss health passively and makes early-game survivability significantly easier. 

u/where_is_the_camera called it the difference between making it out of Round 1 or not. 

Unstable Transfusion reduces an enemy’s total HP cap over time (the red bar you see creeping from the left of a boss’s health bar), and when your damage hits that point, it’s an instant kill. Both are worth keeping.

5. Balance weapon upgrades against tome upgrades; don’t neglect either

u/zenitharchon framed it well: weapon upgrades determine your damage and survivability in the short term; tomes determine your scaling in the long term. 

If you’re struggling to kill enemies, prioritize weapons. 

If you’re clearing comfortably, invest in tomes. 

Several threads warned against going all-in on tomes early (especially Holy Trinity) without enough weapon levels to actually survive the difficulty spike that follows.

6. Projectile count upgrades are massive early

Multiple comments across threads flagged this as one of the most undervalued early upgrades. 

The first +1 projectile count effectively doubles your damage on most weapons. 

u/SendMePicsOfMILFS listed it as one of the three most important early stats alongside Shield and extra jumps. Look for projectile count upgrades in charge shrines early; they have an outsized impact relative to their cost in the first stage.

Also, bous points for that name lmao.

7. Restart without guilt if the first three minutes are bad

u/BalusBubalis said it directly: the first two or three minutes set the arc for the rest of the run. If you haven’t hit basic benchmarks and don’t feel confident by that point, just restart. 

u/FuryMoon echoed it: rather than waste 20 minutes on a half-baked run, cut it early and fish for a better start. This is a roguelite; RNG matters, and some starts are just doomed.

8. Always bust pots

Short but consistent advice. Pots give XP, gold, and power-ups. 

u/BalusBubalis said, “Pots are the enemy, monsters are just the obstacles between you and pots.” Always interact with them as you move through the map.

9. Crit chance past 100% converts to crit damage

This is less obvious, and the game doesn’t explain it clearly. 

Multiple comments in this r/MegabonkOfficial tips thread confirmed: once crit chance exceeds 100%, the excess converts to crit damage. 

At 200% crit chance, you’re effectively doubling your crit multiplier. This makes Precision Tome and crit-stacking builds continue scaling into the late game rather than soft-capping.

10. Don’t run Holy Trinity as a beginner

This was consistent across threads. 

u/jordan853 flagged it explicitly: Holy Trinity is a leaderboard meta strategy, not a beginner strategy. 

The Difficulty Tome spike without the foundation to handle it kills runs fast and kills enjoyment faster. 

Several experienced players recommended getting comfortable clearing Tier 1 reliably first, then introducing XP and Luck Tomes, and only adding Curse Tome once you understand how to manage the difficulty increase it brings.

Megabonk Characters: Who Should You Pick?

Megabonk currently has 21 playable characters, each with a unique starting weapon and one passive ability.

Their passive is everything.

It shapes what tomes you want, what weapons synergize, and whether a given run feels coherent or completely off the rails.

The community has settled on a fairly consistent tier list across sources like Dexerto, Game Rant, and the Megabonk wiki, even if specific placements shuffle between patches.

One thing basically everyone agrees on: Dicehead, CL4NK, Robinette, and Megachad are the top four.

Here’s the quick breakdown before we get into the tier table:

• Dicehead: His Gamba passive lets rolling a 6 permanently increase crit chance, creating theoretically unlimited scaling. He remains S-tier.
• CL4NK: Gains +1% crit chance per level through his Crit Happens passive. Extremely consistent once his Revolver build gets going.
• Robinette: Her Stonks passive gives +1% gold per level, and her damage scales directly with gold held. Long runs reward her exponentially more than other characters.
• Megachad: His Flex passive blocks damage and stuns enemies on cooldown. Perfect for AFK-style builds and genuinely one of the most fun characters to watch wreck a map.

For beginners, the community consensus points to Sir Oofie and Fox, but then again, those are the starting characters.

Sir Oofie gets +1% armor per level, making him extremely hard to kill while you’re still learning positioning.

Fox brings +2% Luck per level and a ranged playstyle that keeps you at a safe distance.

Monke comes up a lot for newer players too; wall-climbing is a genuine mobility advantage, and the Bananarang is a top-tier starter weapon.hest every 60 seconds, which makes him excellent for long runs and particularly strong in the AFK challenge.

Best Megabonk Builds for Top Characters

The core principle behind the best Megabonk builds is simple: find your character’s passive, build around it, and make everything multiply rather than add.

The problem is, most players treat tomes as interchangeable, rather than as the architecture of their run.

From what I’ve seen, every successful build runs through the same foundational decision: Holy Trinity (XP + Curse + Luck Tomes) or a character-specific route.

The Holy Trinity creates a feedback loop where faster leveling gives better upgrades, better upgrades clear faster, faster clearing gives more XP, and more XP gives more levels.

For leaderboard runs, it’s practically required.

For newer players, it’s a trap.

Curse Tome makes difficulty spike fast, and without a defensive foundation, you’ll die around minute 8 confused about what went wrong.

The community’s standing advice: master a defensive build on Sir Oofie or Megachad first.

Once you’re comfortable surviving to the Final Swarm, introduce the Trinity.

I learned this the hard way and I’d rather you didn’t have to.

Best Noelle Build

Noelle’s passive increases her size +1% per level, and her Frostwalker weapon creates a damage-and-slow circle around her.

The best Noelle builds lean into this hard: Size Tome widens the ring, Damage and Quantity Tomes stack on top, and she can clear entire screens without much input from the player.

She’s one of the more forgiving A-tier picks and a good stepping stone before you go anywhere near Calcium.

• Priority tomes: Size, Damage, Quantity, XP
• Best weapons: Frostwalker (default), Aura, Lightning Staff
• Key items: Beefy Ring, Spiky Shield

Best Fox Build

Fox gains +1% Luck per level through her RNG Blessing passive, making her the best character in the game for farming legendary items.

The strategy is simple: stack Luck and Curse Tomes early to maximize upgrade quality, then let whatever legendaries land do the heavy lifting.

Fox is fragile, though.

She’s not a tanky beginner pick despite showing up as a default character. Her builds can hit ridiculous power spikes, but only when the RNG cooperates.

On bad runs, she feels like being punished for someone else’s choices.

• Priority tomes: Luck, Curse, XP, Damage
• Best weapons: Firestaff (default), Aura, Flamewalker
• Key items: Clovers, any legendary

Best Robinette Build

Robinette’s entire identity is gold farming. Her Stonks passive adds +1% gold per level, and her damage scales directly with gold held.

By the third stage of a long run, with tens of thousands of gold stacked, she deals game-breaking damage numbers.

The build is: get XP Tome fast to level quickly, then stack gold-generating items aggressively. Green Credit Cards and Gold Nuggets are your highest priorities; the more gold you accumulate, the more damage Robinette’s passive converts it into. Her Bow is a strong wave-clearer that benefits from Quantity Tome for pierce and projectile count. She rewards patience; early game feels quiet, late game feels completely out of control.

• Priority tomes: XP, Luck, Quantity, Damage
• Best weapons: Bow (default), Lightning Staff, Dexecutioner
• Key items: Green Credit Card, Gold Nugget, Boss Buster

Best CL4NK Build

CL4NK is as consistent as it gets.

His Crit Happens passive gives +1% crit chance per level, which means the longer a run goes, the more his crit builds come apart at the seams (in a good way).

The best CL4NK builds stack crit-synergy items and high-projectile weapons so that crit chance is applied as often as possible. Revolver and Bone are the go-to weapons because they fire frequently. Sniper Rifle becomes excellent in CL4NK’s hands once crit chance gets high enough.

• Priority tomes: XP, Precision/Crit, Quantity, Cooldown
• Best weapons: Revolver (default), Bone, Sniper Rifle, Dexecutioner
• Key items: Giant Fork (megacrits), Forbidden Juice (crit scaling), Boss Buster

Best Vlad Build

Vlad’s Blood Magic increases max HP with kills at 5% per kill, which is lower than players expect.

If you’ve never played Vlad, his builds center on lifesteal to make that HP regenerate fast enough to matter. The community considers him a B-tier pick; high HP counts mean you survive more hits, but he’s slow out of the gate and requires specific items to feel good.

Also, lifesteal Tome is essential here.

Hitting 100% lifesteal means every projectile hit heals you, and poison DoT counts as continuous hits for the calculation.

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like an unkillable vampire, Vlad is your character.

• Priority tomes: Lifesteal, HP, XP, Attack Speed
• Best weapons: Blood Magic (default), Aura, Aegis
• Key items: Leeching Crystal, Medkit

Best Calcium Build

Calcium’s Speed Demon passive scales damage with movement speed, but his speed resets (halved) when he takes damage. Mobbing around on his skateboard is fun as hell.

From my experience, a clean Calcium run feels absolutely insane and a sloppy one feels like you’re getting punished every two seconds. The real caveat isn’t the skill floor though; it’s the late game. Staying in constant motion during the Final Swarm, when enemies come from every direction at once, is genuinely hard to sustain.

The best Calcium builds prioritize Agility Tome and evasion items above almost everything else. Flamewalker is perfect for him because it leaves fire trails as he moves, creating passive damage from his momentum.

Calcium + Flamewalker is a well-documented top-tier speedrun combo.

• Priority tomes: Agility, Attack Speed, XP, Damage
• Best weapons: Flamewalker (first grab if not default), Bone, Revolver
• Key items: Turbo Socks, Evasion Ring

Best MegaChad Build

Megachad’s Flex passive blocks damage and stuns enemies on a cooldown that decreases by 0.2 seconds per level.

At max level, you have near-permanent invulnerability windows, which makes the Kevin + Mirror combo so devastating once acquired.

Here’s why: Kevin (unlocked by getting three Leeching Crystals in one run) damages you but can’t kill you. Mirror reflects damage back to enemies and triggers invulnerability when you take damage.

Pre-patch, this made Megachad literally immortal, but post-patch, it’s “elite survivability” rather than true immortality. Still S-tier if you ask me.

From what I’ve seen, here’s the best non-exploit Megachad build: Aura as his core weapon, Size Tome to widen the damage field, Attraction Tome to collect XP without chasing it, and Shield Tome for passive survivability.

He’s also the go-to for the AFK Gaming Challenge (more on that below).

• Priority tomes: XP, Attraction, Size, Shield
• Best weapons: Aura (default), Aegis, Sword, Axe
• Key items: Kevin, Mirror, Campfire, Idle Juice

Megabonk Weapon Tier List: Best Weapons Ranked

The meta shifted hard after versions 1.0.7 and 1.0.12 moved things away from the Kevin + Mirror immortality exploit toward a more skill-based game. Pro Game Guides’ weapon tier list (updated December 2025) is one of the most actively maintained external resources if you want a deeper breakdown.

We also have our own Megabonk tier list

From my research, here’s the broad community agreement on weapons, based on multiple tier lists and Steam threads:

• Aura: Hits everything around you simultaneously with zero aiming required. Pairs with nearly every character and every tome. Perfect for beginners and still dominant in competitive runs.
• Aegis: S-tier for survivability and tank builds. Blocks attacks and counters with shockwaves; cooldown decreases with Attack Speed upgrades.
• Dexecutioner: The essential boss and Spooky Steve weapon. Instantly executes any target on proc, and that proc rate scales with Attack Speed, making it absurdly powerful on Bandit.
• Flamewalker: S-tier for mobility builds. Leaves fire trails behind you as you move, creating passive AoE damage with zero input. Available by default; Calcium loves it.
• Black Hole: Critical support weapon in Tier 3 runs and boss fights. Pulls enemies into a central point, enabling CC-heavy builds to land concentrated damage. Pairs especially well with Dexecutioner.
• Hero Sword: Good raw damage but a slow attack rate, which limits its synergy with Attack Speed tomes and on-hit item effects. Most lists put it at B-tier.
• Space Noodle, Mines, Chunkers: The community’s consensus bottom tier. There’s debate on exact ranking but these three come up most consistently as weapons to avoid or skip.

Hero Sword

The Hero Sword has good base damage, but the slow attack rate is its core problem.

It doesn’t interact well with Attack Speed tomes, and most builds that want sword-style melee prefer the Sword (better knockback) or the Corrupted Sword (higher damage output).

It’s worth grabbing if your alternatives are bad; not worth building around unless you’re running a Size + melee combo specifically.

Anvil

The Anvil is an item, not a weapon, and it’s worth flagging because it shows up in community build discussions regularly.

Anvil upgrades a random equipped weapon; the impact is highly situational. Use it when your core weapon is already leveled and you want to push it further, not as an early-game priority.

Bloodmark

Bloodmark is an item that reduces enemy execution thresholds, making Dexecutioner procs happen at a higher HP percentage. If you’re running a Dexecutioner build (especially for Spooky Steve), finding Unstable Transfusion (which applies Bloodmark) is a priority. It’s the difference between executing enemies at 15% HP versus much earlier, and in boss fights that gap matters.

Megabonk Items, Mods, and Tomes Explained

Tomes

Tomes are your long-term scaling mechanism. Each one levels up individually and compounds across a run. The three Holy Trinity tomes (XP, Curse, Luck) form the backbone of every competitive build; the rest are character or situation-specific.

Do not run Holy Trinity as a beginner. The difficulty spike from Curse Tome without defensive foundations leads to deaths before the build even comes online.

Items to Know

A few items that get flagged across guides and Steam threads:

• Kevin: “25% chance to punch yourself on hit (cannot kill you).” Sounds bad; combined with Mirror, creates near-invincibility through damage reflection. The immortality exploit was patched; the combo is still elite-tier defensive.
• Mirror: Reflects damage to enemies when you take damage. The Kevin + Mirror core.
• Boss Buster: +15% damage against bosses and elites. Essentially mandatory for Spooky Steve.
• Joe’s Dagger: Attack-speed scaling item; was uncapped and broke leaderboards pre-patch, now capped at 2,000% per dagger. Still strong.
• Za Warudo: Legendary item that freezes time on fatal damage. Required by some players for Spooky Steve runs.
• Campfire: Generates passive health regen; crucial for AFK builds where you can’t dodge.
• Idle Juice: Doubles damage while standing still. The AFK challenge’s dream item.

Mods

Modding is in early stages for Megabonk given how recently it launched, but the community has already produced a few notable projects.

The most-discussed mod is Bonk With Friends, which adds online co-op via Steam P2P lobbies. It’s unofficial and imperfect; synchronization is functional but buggy. It’s the only way to play with others until (or if) the developer adds native multiplayer.

If mods are your thing, the Megabonk Steam community hub is where that conversation lives.

Megabonk Multiplayer Tips

Megabonk is single-player only as of the current version.

The developer (Vedinad) has noted in community discussions that multiplayer is not currently planned, though it may be explored later if it fits the design. Right now, there’s no built-in co-op, online play, or PvP.

The only current way to play with others is the unofficial Bonk With Friends mod, which adds co-op via Steam P2P lobbies. Synchronization of movement and map seeds works in current versions; it’s rough around the edges and not native, so use it at your own risk.

Megabonk AFK Challenge

The AFK Gaming Challenge is exactly what it sounds like: reach the Final Swarm without moving or jumping. It’s one of the hardest challenges in the game, alongside Pacifist mode, and the community has figured out a few consistent approaches.

The core problem is XP collection. If you can’t move, most XP orbs will be out of reach unless you have Attraction Tome early.

The near-universal community advice: if you don’t get Attraction Tome by level 3-4, restart. It’s that important.

Best AFK challenge setup (community consensus from Steam discussions and multiple guides):

• Character: Megachad (Aura + Flex passive is tailor-made for this; Athena is a strong alternative because enemies pushing her toward chests via Aegis shockwave is actually useful)
• Weapons: Aura (mandatory), Aegis, Sword/Axe for knockback
• Tomes: Attraction first, then Shield, then Knockback/Projectiles for damage
• Key items: Campfire (passive regen), Idle Juice (double damage while stationary), Boss Buster

One Steam user (u/TerraSleet) put it clearly: Aegis is mandatory for punting away elites and bosses that get too close, especially the stone golem’s ground attacks.

The Attraction Tome is mandatory, or you don’t collect enough XP to reach the power level needed to survive the mid-game mini-bosses. And the RNG on your first few upgrade choices can make or break the entire run before you’ve had a chance to do anything about it.

Expect to restart frequently. That’s just how it goes.

How to Beat Spooky Steve in Megabonk

Spooky Steve is a secret boss found in the Graveyard map, added in the Spooky Halloween update.

He unlocks the character Roberto and represents the hardest single-target encounter in the game by a significant margin.

His health sits at approximately 340 undecillion HP, he moves faster as the fight progresses, and a single unblocked hit will often one-shot you regardless of how tanky your build is.

Source

Getting to Spooky Steve

You first need to unlock the Graveyard map by defeating “the undead boss” on Desert Tier 2 with Calcium.

Once unlocked, runs on Graveyard begin inside a Crypt. Collect four Crypt Keys by activating four coffins scattered across the map; each coffin spawns a boss you have to defeat to get the key.

After collecting all four, re-enter the Crypt for the second time to face Spooky Steve before the final Big Bob boss.

Fully loot the Graveyard and first Crypt before entering. Those six chests and 19 pots are a huge advantage, and players who rush the second Crypt without farming them consistently struggle in the fight.

The Core Strategy

There are two proven approaches the community has documented. Which one works depends on your build, your RNG, and how comfortable you are with the fight.

Strategy 1: Perma-Freeze (most common)

Stun Steve continuously and use Dexecutioner’s Execute ability to deal meaningful damage. Steve has so much HP that raw damage builds do nothing on their own; Execute mechanics bypass the HP scaling.

Black Hole pulls Steve into position. Frostwalker freezes him. Dexecutioner procs Execute while he’s stunned. Duration Tome extends the freeze window. Quantity Tome means more projectiles proc Execute per second. Once you cross around 20% HP removed, the rest of the fight accelerates quickly.

One community Steam guide (credited to Megabonk Reddit user Jeidoz) documented the full Bandit run and it’s the most widely replicated success strategy in the threads.

Strategy 2: Hit Negation + High DPS

Some players have beaten Steve without perma-freeze by stacking hit negation mechanics (Aegis, Kevin + Mirror, Za Warudo) to survive his one-shot hits, then dealing enough raw DPS with a maxed Dexecutioner to kill him before the fight becomes unmanageable. This requires a more developed build and better item RNG, but it’s a legitimate alternative if your freeze setup doesn’t come together.

The Part People Miss

Spooky Steve doesn’t have a fixed spawn location; you have to find him after entering the second Crypt.

He also scales in speed during the fight, so if your stun uptime drops, he will catch you. Corners and walls are dangerous; he can push you through them in some versions of the game, which counts as a death.

Megabonk Meta: What’s Working Right Now

This section is based on version 1.0.64 and community discussion through early 2026. Patch notes for the most recent updates are on the Megabonk Steam page.

The meta has gone through three distinct phases since launch:

1. Launch (September 2025): Dicehead dominates at 99% leaderboard representation. Kevin + Mirror immortality exploit is functional. Joe’s Dagger uncapped, enabling absurd damage scaling.
2. Post-patch (1.0.7 to 1.0.12): Immortality patched. Kevin + Mirror nerfed to “elite survivability.” XP Tome nerfed from 9% to 7% (max level 40). Joe’s Dagger capped at 2,000%. Final Swarm overhaul kills 5-hour marathon sessions. Character diversity dramatically increases.
3. Current (1.0.64): Dexecutioner, Axe, and Sword builds unlocked by duration bug fix. Black Hole size increased. Bone and Shotgun received knockback and crit upgrades. Eight viable S/A-tier characters instead of one.

What’s actually working now:

• Holy Trinity (XP + Curse + Luck) remains the meta foundation for competitive runs. Standard and expected at Tier 3.
• Dicehead is still the strongest individual character, but nerfs are publicly discussed. His Gamba passive (unlimited crit via Dice) is the closest thing to a dominant solo pick in the current patch.
• Bandit has climbed significantly post-1.0.64 due to the Dexecutioner duration fix. Attack Speed scaling makes him terrifying in mid-to-late game.
• Leaderboards were reset after the Kevin immortality patch and now reflect skill-based rather than exploit-based runs.

The biggest current debate in Steam discussions is whether the meta is too rigid.

One review noted the build paths feel constrained toward the Holy Trinity and specific weapon combos. It’s a fair criticism and the community is split on it.

For what it’s worth, Vedinad has been responsive to feedback throughout; this game shipped at $10 and has already received multiple substantial free content updates.

FAQ

Here are some frequently asked questions I stumbled upon while researching this topic and writing the guide.

What Is Megabonk?

Megabonk is a 3D roguelite auto-shooter developed by solo developer Vedinad, released on Steam on September 18, 2025.

Players navigate procedurally generated 3D maps with verticality, fighting waves of enemies while automatically attacking and selecting random upgrades to build out a character.

It’s best described as Vampire Survivors meets Risk of Rain 2; same auto-combat bullet heaven loop, but with 3D movement, sliding, jumping, and speed boosts for positioning.

It sold over one million copies in two weeks and peaked at 117,336 concurrent players.

Is Megabonk Multiplayer?

No, Megabonk is currently single-player only, and the developer has said multiplayer is not planned for the near future, though it may be explored later.

An unofficial community mod called “Bonk With Friends” adds experimental Steam P2P co-op, but it’s not native and has synchronization issues.

What Is the Best Build in Megabonk?

The most universally recommended meta build is the Holy Trinity (XP Tome + Curse Tome + Luck Tome) as your tome foundation, paired with your character’s core weapon and passive-synergistic items.

For beginners, skip the Holy Trinity and run a defensive build with Aura or Aegis and Shield or HP Tomes until you’re comfortable.

For leaderboard runs, Holy Trinity + Dicehead or Bandit with Dexecutioner is the current community answer.

What Is the Best Character in Megabonk?

Dicehead is the strongest character in the current patch. His Gamba passive lets Dice rolls of 6 permanently increase crit chance, and that stacks indefinitely.

CL4NK, Robinette, and Megachad are strong alternatives with more consistent (and less RNG-dependent) scaling.

For beginners, Sir Oofie and Fox are the community’s top recommendations.

What Platforms is Megabonk On?

Megabonk is available on PC (Windows and Linux) via Steam. There are no console or mobile versions currently planned.

The developer has mentioned console and Steam Deck compatibility as potential future considerations, but nothing is confirmed.

How Do You Beat Spooky Steve in Megabonk?

The most common community approach: use Bandit or Athena, equip Dexecutioner, Black Hole, and Frostwalker, and run Cooldown, Duration, Quantity, and XP Tomes.

Grab Boss Buster and as many CC items (Ice Crystal, Thunder Mitts, Za Warudo if you can find it) as possible. Black Hole pulls Steve into position, Frostwalker freezes him, and Dexecutioner’s Execute ability deals the primary damage against his 340 undecillion HP.

Some players have also beaten him using hit negation builds (Kevin + Mirror, Aegis, Za Warudo) with high raw DPS. See the full breakdown in the Spooky Steve section above.

Is Megabonk on Xbox?

No, Megabonk is not currently available on Xbox. It is PC-only (Windows and Linux via Steam) at the time of writing.

The developer has mentioned console support as a potential future consideration, but nothing has been confirmed or announced.

Is Megabonk on PS5?

No, Megabonk is not on PS5. There is no PlayStation version currently planned.

If console support is added in the future, Vedinad has said it may be explored; check the Megabonk Steam page for official announcements.

Is Megabonk on Console?

Megabonk is not currently available on any console. It is a PC-exclusive title (Windows and Linux) as of the current version.

Console and Steam Deck compatibility have been mentioned as possibilities, but no release date or platform announcement has been made.

Is Megabonk Free?

No, Megabonk is not free. It is priced at $9.99 on Steam.

A free demo is available on Steam, which gives you a limited slice of the game to test performance and core combat before buying.

How Much Is Megabonk?

Megabonk costs $9.99 on Steam. There are no paid editions, DLC, or microtransactions.

The developer has run introductory discounts at launch; check the Steam page for current pricing in your region.

Who Made Megabonk?

Megabonk was made by a solo developer who goes by Vedinad. The entire game was built by one person.

It was released on September 18, 2025 and sold over one million copies in its first two weeks, making it one of the most successful solo indie launches of 2025.

What Does Difficulty Do in Megabonk?

Difficulty in Megabonk (increased primarily through the Curse Tome and Difficulty shrines) raises enemy spawn rate, enemy HP, and damage, while significantly improving drop quality and upgrade rarity.

The tradeoff is the core of high-level play: harder difficulty means better loot, but you need the build foundation to survive long enough to benefit from it.

What Does Luck Do in Megabonk?

Luck improves the quality of upgrade choices at every level-up, increasing the chances of seeing Epic and Legendary options instead of Common and Rare ones.

It’s one of the highest-priority stats in the game.

What Does Size Do in Megabonk?

Size increases the radius of weapon effects and AoE attacks.

For characters like Noelle whose Frostwalker ring scales with size, it’s a core stat; for others, it’s a secondary quality-of-life upgrade.

The Size Tome is particularly important for Aura and Megachad builds, where a wider damage field covers more ground without requiring active positioning.

How Do You Get The Hero Sword in Megabonk?

The Hero Sword is an unlockable weapon, not available by default. It can be unlocked through the Silver shop or specific quest/challenge completion; check the in-game Unlocks tab for the exact current requirement.

Once unlocked, it appears in your regular weapon rotation during runs.

Note that it’s a B-tier weapon at best; the slow attack rate limits its synergy with most builds. See the Hero Sword section above for the full breakdown.

What Does Bloodmark Do in Megabonk?

Bloodmark is a debuff applied to enemies that lowers their execution threshold, making Dexecutioner’s Execute proc trigger at a higher HP percentage rather than waiting for enemies to be nearly dead.

It’s applied by the item Unstable Transfusion and is particularly important for the Spooky Steve fight, where getting Execute to proc earlier is the difference between winning and losing. See the Bloodmark section above for more detail.

Wrapping Up

Megabonk is the kind of game that snuck up on the entire roguelite community at once.

If you’re looking for more context on where it sits in the genre, my Roguelike vs. Roguelite breakdown and Bullet Heaven vs. Bullet Hell guide both cover the genre that made Megabonk possible.

And if you want a list of games to play when you eventually need a break from bonking, my Games Like Brotato article covers the genre’s best by real community vote count.

If you’ve beaten Spooky Steve or cracked a build that doesn’t show up here, let me know. The community’s figured out some genuinely weird solutions, and I’d rather hear about them than miss them.

Take care and talk soon

The post (Top 10) Megabonk Tips and Tricks From Reddit (Plus Extras) appeared first on Rogue Ranker.

In the end, 5,512 total upvotes formed a list of 179 games. 

Why did I do this?

Well, it wasn’t my first time doing this. I started with a data-driven summary of Games Like Brotato, then moved to Best Bullet Hell and Best Bullet Heaven. 

My background is in listicle blogging, but I’ve always questioned the authenticity of articles I read online because there’s usually a lack of transparency. 

Many writers say things like, “I play games. Trust me.” 

Yeah, ok (I hate that). 

So I set out to create a method backed by community data that shines a light on what people are actually saying when this topic is posed on Reddit. 

If you’re here just to find a game, feel free to use my quiz below. 

I took all the data and content from my article to create a way for people to quickly spot which game suits them. 

Hope you enjoy!

TL;DR – Best Roguelike Games From 5,512 Upvotes

Below are the top 10 best roguelike games based on real Reddit votes. 

It’s worth noting that The Binding of Isaac and Rift Wizard tied. Also, this short list does not include three honorable mentions, which I highlight in the full write-up below.

The links below will take you to Steam

Top Roguelike Games

1. Slay the Spire (315 votes)
2. Caves of Qud (273 votes)
3. Cogmind (229 votes)
4. FTL: Faster Than Light (200 votes)
5. Noita (188 votes)
6. Hades (182 votes)
7. Balatro (179 votes) 
8. TIE: The Binding of Isaac / Rift Wizard (170 votes each)
9. ADOM (130 votes)
10. Dead Cells (129 votes)

Best Roguelikes By Category

Below is a breakdown by popular categories:

Top Roguelike Games Based on Reddit Votes

Top Value Roguelike Games (Median Playtime per Dollar Spent)

This chart only includes games where we had reliable pricing and playtime data from VGN Insights. Free-to-play titles and games with incomplete Steam data were excluded.

Distribution of Median Playtime Among Roguelike Games

The Data Collection Process

If you’ve read any of my other articles, this process will look familiar. 

The short version: I searched for threads from folks looking for the best roguelike games, collected the top 20, tallied the upvotes, and then pulled VGN Insights data. 

How I Chose Reddit Threads

I started with a Google search for “best roguelike games,” collecting Reddit threads that ranked organically, then went directly to Reddit and ran the same search there to catch anything Google missed.

In other guides I’ve written, such as:

• Games Like Brotato
• Best Bullet Hell Games
• Best Bullet Heaven Games

I chose 15 threads, but given the size/popularity of Roguelikes, 20 seemed well-rounded.

From there, I filtered out threads that were too narrow to be useful:

• Threads asking specifically for mobile-only recommendations
• Threads asking for console-only or handheld-only suggestions

That left me with 20 threads pulled from r/roguelikes, r/roguelites, r/gaming, r/gamedesign, r/gamingsuggestions, r/videogames, and r/iosgaming (to name a few).

How I Chose Games

If a game was suggested repeatedly across threads, it made the list. 

If it only appeared once but had strong upvote support, the upvotes were also counted.

A few edge cases are worth calling out:

• Some games sparked debate in threads: Comments like “that’s not really a roguelike” followed by “yeah, but if they like roguelikes they’ll probably like this.” 
• I only removed a game if another community member explicitly called it out as off-topic. 
• I also excluded any “shameless self-promo” comments that plugged someone’s own game. 

How I Ranked Games

Ranking was based entirely on upvotes, not my opinion. 

After adding a game to the list, the vote count was calculated as the sum of all upvotes across every comment mentioning that game, including duplicate suggestions and replies in support of it.

So if three people across different threads all suggested the same game with 8, 12, and 5 upvotes respectively, that game gets 25 total votes. 

TL;DR: Every mention counts and community support was noted.

Nuances and Notes of the Data

A few things worth flagging before we get too far.

Roguelites in a Roguelike List

Hades, Balatro, Dead Cells, and Risk of Rain 2 all ranked inside or just outside the top 10 despite being roguelites by most definitions. 

This wasn’t a mistake in data collection; it reflects how the community actually talks about these games. 

From what I saw, Reddit users didn’t always draw a hard line between roguelike and roguelite, despite being asked specifically for the top roguelike games.

The Binding of Isaac / Rift Wizard tie

Surprisingly, both landed at 170 votes, but Isaac appeared across 10 threads and Rift Wizard’s votes came almost entirely from a single thread. 

Just wanted to note this because that’s a meaningful difference in how each game is discussed, but they are very different games.

TOME vs. TOME 4

These appeared as separate entries in the data. They’re the same game in different versions, so I treated them as one combined entry.

Business Data From VGN Insights

After the Reddit ranking was complete, I layered in business data from VGN Insights to give a fuller picture of how each game has actually performed commercially.

The four data points collected for each game:

• Units Sold
• Average Cost
• Gross Revenue
• Median Playtime

A few caveats worth calling out: free-to-play titles like Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and Nethack don’t have meaningful revenue data, and a handful of smaller or older games had incomplete or missing Steam data on VGN Insights. Those gaps are reflected in the table below with placeholder values. If you have better data for any of the missing entries, drop a comment and I’ll update it.

Average Business Stats (Top 10 Roguelike Games):

• Units Sold = 3,510,000
• Average Cost = $12
• Gross Revenue = $39,200,000
• Median Playtime = 8.8 Hours

Top 10 Roguelike Games From 5,512 Real Votes

Below is a breakdown of the top 10 best roguelike games, compiled from reading 20 Reddit threads and adding up a total of 5,512 votes. 

The result that surprised me most wasn’t who won, but more so how dominant Slay the Spire was relative to everything else: 315 votes, 14 of 20 threads, and a 42-vote gap over the #2 game. 

The other thing worth noting before diving in: Hades, Balatro, Dead Cells, and Risk of Rain 2 all cracked or came close to the top 10 despite being roguelites by most definitions. 

1. Slay the Spire

At 315 votes across 14 of 20 threads, Slay the Spire took the cake, no questions asked. 

The next closest game, Caves of Qud, came in at 273 (that’s a 42-vote gap at the top, which is bigger than the entire vote count of some games further down the list).

The reason it keeps coming up is pretty simple: it made roguelike deck-building feel like a genre worth taking seriously. Every run is self-contained, permadeath is always in play, and the card combinations get deep enough that you can sink hundreds of hours in without feeling like you’ve seen everything.

It’s also one of the few games that sits comfortably in both the traditional roguelike crowd and the more casual roguelite crowd, which explains why it showed up in nearly every thread regardless of how the original question was framed.

Available

• PC (Steam, Epic Games Store)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4
• Xbox One
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• Deck-building synergies that reward both experimentation and deep theory-crafting
• Each of the four characters plays completely differently, adding serious replayability
• Runs clock in around 45-60 minutes; long enough to feel satisfying, short enough to do another
• Ascension levels give you a difficulty ladder that keeps the game challenging well past the “win” screen

Common Criticisms

• Some players find the RNG punishing in ways that feel less skill-based than they’d like
• The art style is divisive and functional, but not exactly stunning
• Late ascension levels can feel more frustrating than fun for players who aren’t deep into the meta
• The modding scene exists, but the base game’s content can start to feel finite after a few hundred hours

Quotes from the Threads

“Slay the Spire is probably the best roguelike ever made. The replayability is insane. It might take a second to get accustomed to the different mechanics but once you’re in, it’s the most addicting thing out there.” — u/ACABincludingYourDad

“This is my favorite Roguelike and maybe my favorite game ever. I’ve played thousands of hours. It’s easy to learn and hard to master.” — u/Wookie_Nipple

“Slay the Spire. It is the epitome of deck builders and nothing really comes close… The game just has incredible depth while maintaining simplicity in terms of mechanics. It’s the only game I have over 1000 hours in.” — u/LiveMango418

2. Caves of Qud

Caves of Qud got 273 votes and 2nd place, just 42 votes behind Slay the Spire, which sounds close until you realize the next game after Caves of Qud drops to 229.

Caves of Qud is one of the most ambitious traditional roguelikes ever made. It’s an open-world, science fantasy RPG set in a far-future Earth where you’re navigating mutant factions, ancient ruins, and procedurally generated histories. 

Runs are long, deaths are permanent, and the skill ceiling is genuinely steep, but people kept recommending it because nothing else really does what it does.

It’s also still in active development, which is worth noting. The 1.0 release landed in December 2024 after over a decade in early access, so the version people are playing now is more polished than what many of the thread recommendations were based on.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Depth of world-building and lore that most roguelikes don’t come close to
• Mutation and skill system gives you genuinely unique characters every run
• Procedurally generated histories mean the world feels alive and different each time
• One of the few roguelikes where exploration feels as rewarding as combat

Common Criticisms

• Steep learning curve that can feel impenetrable to new players
• UI and presentation aren’t beginner-friendly
• Runs can end abruptly in ways that feel unfair until you understand the systems deeply
• PC only, which limits the audience compared to most other games on this list

Quotes from the Threads

“Caves of Qud is an open world traditional roguelike with so much variety, things to do, weird shit, etc. that it is physically impossible to get bored.” — u/no-enjoyment

“Yes, definitely something you can sink days into. It doesn’t look like much graphically, but it’s a fun game.” — u/reality_bytes_

3. Cogmind

Cogmind lands at 229 votes, 44 votes behind Caves of Qud and 86 ahead of number 5. 

In Cogmind, you play as a robot building yourself from parts you scavenge from enemies. You can swap out legs, arms, weapons, and utilities on the fly as your build evolves (or falls apart) run by run. It’s one of the most mechanically distinct games on this entire list and people recommended it specifically because it’s so unique.

It’s also worth noting that Cogmind has a free version, which significantly lowers the barrier to entry for a game that can look intimidating from the outside.

Available

• PC (itch.io – free version)
• PC (Steam – full version)

What Works Well

• The part-scavenging mechanic creates emergent builds that feel earned rather than prescribed
• Incredible depth of systems that rewards players who invest time in learning them
• ASCII-style presentation with strong visual clarity once you’re past the initial adjustment
• Developer has been actively updating and refining the game for years

Common Criticisms

• Presentation is a hard sell for players who aren’t already comfortable with traditional roguelikes
• Learning curve is punishing even by roguelike standards
• Limited mainstream visibility means fewer guides and community resources than bigger titles

Quotes from the Threads

“Cogmind is amazing.” — u/No-Forever7576

“I have heard some great things about Cogmind. It’s like DDA without the tedious elements.” — u/arg_seeker

4. FTL: Faster Than Light

FTL sits at 200 votes, 29 behind Cogmind and 12 ahead of Noita. 

FTL is the game that introduced many people to roguelikes without them realizing it. 

You’re managing a spaceship crew across a procedurally generated galaxy, making decisions that ripple through every encounter. Every run is different, every death teaches you something, and the “one more run” pull is as strong now as it was at launch in 2012.

Fun fact: my wife loves this game It’s one of the oldest games on this list and still ranks 4th.

Available

• PC (Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle)
• iPad (iOS)

What Works Well

• Tight decision-making loop that makes every choice feel meaningful
• Ship and crew variety gives runs genuinely different feels
• Short enough runs (60-90 minutes) to make repeated attempts feel accessible
• One of the best soundtracks in the genre

Common Criticisms

• RNG can feel brutal in the early game, particularly on harder difficulties
• Limited content compared to newer entries on this list
• No Android version, and the iOS version hasn’t been updated in years
• Some players find the late-game difficulty spike frustrating rather than satisfying

Quotes from the Threads

“FTL still slaps. That game gives me actual stress and I love it.” — u/lerox-fz

“I love FTL. Definitely in my top 10 of all time.” — u/ForeignObject_

“FTL is the one I return to the most and I’ve been playing it for years and years.” — u/nebthenarwhal

5. Noita

Noita, at 188 votes, just 12 behind FTL, is the closest gap between any two consecutive games in the top 5.

Noita is a physics-based roguelite where every pixel is simulated. Yes, it’s a roguelite, but again, we followed the votes and tried our best to let the community guide the conversation and voting system.

It’s one of the most technically impressive games on this list and also one of the most punishing. The community loves it specifically because mastering it feels like solving a puzzle that keeps changing.

It’s also genuinely one of the hardest roguelikes here. If your tolerance for dying repeatedly while slowly piecing together how everything works is low, Noita will test that.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Pixel simulation creates emergent moments that no other game can replicate
• Wand-building system has a depth ceiling that players are still uncovering years after launch
• World is packed with secrets, lore, and hidden mechanics that reward exploration
• Each run can feel wildly different depending on early wand finds

Common Criticisms

• One of the steeper learning curves on this list and early deaths can feel completely random until the systems click
• The wand system is genuinely complex and poorly explained in-game
• Performance can struggle on lower-end machines given the pixel simulation load
• Can feel lonely and opaque without leaning on community resources

Quotes from the Threads

“Noita: I have several hundred hours in this game and it’s one of the most challenging yet exciting roguelikes I’ve ever played. There’s also a huge amount of secret content, so much so that the community refers to beating the final boss as ‘completing the tutorial’.” — deleted user (r/gamedesign thread)

“Noita is a physics-based roguelite where every pixel is simulated… If you liked nearly breaking the game in RoR2, Noita offers that ten-fold.” — u/TypographySnob

6. Hades

182 votes and 6th place, and the first game on this list that’s a roguelite, not a traditional roguelike. 

Something worth calling out directly: Hades has meta-progression, a persistent story, and permanent unlocks between runs. So by strict Berlin Interpretation standards, it doesn’t belong in a roguelike list, but the community kept recommending it anyway.

The reason it shows up in these threads is that the combat, build variety, and run structure scratch the same itch for a lot of players. It’s also probably the most polished game on this entire list, which doesn’t hurt.

Available

• PC (Steam, Epic Games Store)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S
• iOS (Apple Arcade)

What Works Well

• Combat is tight, responsive, and satisfying in a way most roguelikes aren’t
• Boon system creates enormous build variety across weapons and god combinations
• Narrative actually progresses with each run, which is rare and genuinely well executed
• One of the most accessible entry points into the genre for players coming from action games

Common Criticisms

• Roguelite, not roguelike; Meta-progression and persistent story soften the punishment significantly
• Some players find the narrative focus distracting in a genre they play for mechanical depth
• Late-game heat levels can feel like a grind rather than a skill test
• Less replayability than traditional roguelikes once the story is complete

Quotes from the Threads

“Hades by a wide margin. Nothing else has come close to it yet.” — u/AguyNamedKyle

“I think it’s because it has an actual story and a reason for the whole ‘doing the same stuff again and again’. You want to keep playing because you want to know where the story goes.” — u/photomotto

7. Balatro

Balatro had 179 votes and came in 7th, just 3 votes behind Hades, the closest race on this entire list. 

It also has the same genre caveat: Balatro is a roguelike deck-builder like Slay the Spire, but it’s not a traditional roguelike by strict definition. Permadeath is present, runs are self-contained, and the synergy depth is real. The game is built around poker hands, not dungeon crawling, and there’s no procedural world to navigate.

It ranked because the community that plays roguelikes tends to also play Balatro, and the recommendation threads reflect that overlap.

 It’s an outstanding game; it just sits in its own category.

Available

• PC (Steam, GOG)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• Joker synergies create build combinations that feel genuinely broken in the best way
• Extremely easy to pick up, extremely hard to master at higher stakes
• Runs are short enough to make repeated attempts feel low-commitment
• One of the most talked-about indie releases in recent memory (and for good reason)

Common Criticisms

• Not a traditional roguelike. Players looking for dungeon crawling or exploration won’t find it here
• The poker framing is a barrier for players who don’t have any feel for card game mechanics
• Less mechanical depth than the top traditional roguelikes on this list once the synergies are mapped out
• Some players find the difficulty scaling on higher stakes more punishing than fun

Quotes from the Threads

“Balatro. So quick and easy to do a quick run, with lots of variety.” — u/QuietPenguinGaming

“Just played Balatro for 6 hours straight on this flight.” — u/PhilsPhoreskin

8. The Binding of Isaac / Rift Wizard

Surprisingly, both games received 170 votes, resulting in a dead tie. 

The difference is in how that number was built. 

Isaac appeared across 10 of the 20 threads, whereas Rift Wizard’s 170 votes came almost entirely from a single thread. That’s worth keeping in mind when reading these two together.

The Binding of Isaac

Isaac is one of the most influential roguelikes ever made, with twin-stick combat, procedurally generated floors, permadeath, and an item pool so deep that players with hundreds of hours still stumble across combinations they haven’t seen. 

It has meta-unlocks, which pushes it toward roguelite territory by some definitions, but the core loop is punishing enough that most of the community treats it as a roguelike.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S

What Works Well

• Item synergies create some of the most chaotic and satisfying build moments in the genre
• Enormous content depth, especially with DLC, with hundreds of items, characters, and challenges
• Each run feels genuinely different thanks to procedural floors and item pool variance
• Strong modding community that keeps the game fresh years after release

Common Criticisms

• RNG can produce runs that feel unwinnable regardless of skill
• Dark, religious theming isn’t for everyone
• Steep learning curve for new players, given the sheer volume of items and interactions
• Performance and visual clarity can feel dated compared to newer entries

Quotes from the Threads

“The Binding of Isaac. I have sunk so many hours into that game.” — u/kurokitsune91

“My girlfriend has played the Binding of Isaac literally every day for the last 3 years and still has tons of content to unlock. Bonus: It’s a really damn good game.” — u/smurf_herder

Rift Wizard

Rift Wizard is a traditional turn-based roguelike built around spell-crafting. You pick a starting spell, build out a kit across procedurally generated floors, and the depth of the spell combination system is what keeps the community coming back. 

It’s less well-known than Isaac by a significant margin, which makes its 170 votes notable, with almost all of them concentrated in one thread where it was clearly strong-armed by a small group of players who know it well.

This is one of the more underrated games on the entire list. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s the point. 

Available

• PC (Steam, itch.io)

What Works Well

• Spell combination system has a depth ceiling that rivals the best traditional roguelikes
• Runs are shorter than most traditional roguelikes, making it more approachable
• Strong community of dedicated players who have mapped the meta thoroughly
• Genuinely underrated relative to its quality, low visibility, and high ceiling

Common Criticisms

• Minimal presentation; this is a pure systems game with no visual spectacle
• Almost all of its Reddit votes came from one thread, which suggests limited mainstream awareness
• Sparse documentation and community resources compared to most games on this list
• Hard to recommend to anyone not already comfortable with traditional roguelike conventions

Quotes from the Threads

“Rift Wizard is surprisingly great. Don’t let the old-school graphics fool you — this is an absolute keeper.” — u/Blood_Bowl

9. ADOM

ADOM (Ancient Domains of Mystery) closes out the top 10 with 130 votes, 40 votes behind the #8/9 tie and 1 vote ahead of Dead Cells, our first honorable mention below.

ADOM is one of the oldest and most traditional games on this list. It’s a tile-based dungeon crawler that predates most of what people think of when they hear “roguelike.” 

It has a persistent world with multiple regions, a real narrative, and a difficulty that punishes carelessness without mercy. It also got a significant modernization pass via the ADOM Steam release, which brought a graphical tile set and quality-of-life improvements without gutting the core experience.

Available

• PC (Steam, paid)
• PC (shareware version, free)

What Works Well

• One of the deepest traditional roguelikes ever made, with a world that rewards exploration and experimentation
• Multiple races, classes, and playstyles create enormous replayability
• Steam version modernizes the presentation without compromising the classic feel
• Strong historical significance; playing ADOM is playing a piece of roguelike history

Common Criticisms

• Age shows in some of the design and certain mechanics feel archaic even with the Steam modernization
• Extremely steep learning curve with limited in-game guidance
• Less active development than newer entries on this list
• Niche audience; this is a game for players who already love traditional roguelikes, not a gateway title

Quotes from the Threads

“ADOM is awesome and massive!” — u/Intrepid_Ad_7042

“I always go to ADOM. Always the best one for me.” — u/andysaxton

10. Dead Cells

Dead Cells finished at 129 votes, one vote behind ADOM at 130. 

It also came up in 5 separate threads, which tells you the community genuinely enjoys it.

It’s also worth flagging: Dead Cells is a roguelite, not a traditional roguelike. 

Permadeath and procedural levels are present, but weapons and upgrades carry over between runs. Same genre flag as Hades and Balatro above. It ranked because the communities asking “what are the best roguelikes?” consistently include it, definitions aside.

If you’re coming from the action side of the genre and haven’t played it yet, check it out.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation 4 / 5
• Xbox One / Series X|S
• iOS / Android

What Works Well

• Combat is fluid and responsive in a way that holds up against anything in the genre
• Weapon variety is enormous, and each weapon genuinely changes how a run plays
• Biome design keeps exploration fresh across hundreds of runs
• Motion Twin’s post-launch support added years of content that makes the base game feel like a starting point, not the whole thing

Common Criticisms

• Roguelite, not roguelike, and carries progress between runs, which is a dealbreaker for strict roguelike purists
• Some players feel the late-game difficulty ceiling plateaus once you’ve mastered the movement
• DLC fatigue is real; there’s a lot of it, and the costs add up fast
• Doesn’t have the build depth of something like Slay the Spire or Binding of Isaac

Quotes from the Threads

“Dead Cells has perfect controls and just feels so good to play. Also love the art design.” — u/Carrotzzzzzzz

“Dead Cells is my absolute favorite roguelike of all time.” — u/richhomiechef

Honorable Mention 1: NetHack

NetHack sits at 124 votes across 7 threads, which sounds modest until you realize this game came out in 1987, is free, has no marketing budget, and most of the people recommending it were doing so to a crowd that had never heard of it. 

On a votes-per-year basis, it probably beats everything else on this list

It earned a spot here for a different reason than Dead Cells: this is the game that the r/roguelikes purists pointed to every single time someone asked what a real roguelike was. 

If you want to understand where the genre actually came from, NetHack is the answer (aside from Rogue, of course).

Available

• PC (Steam — Nethack Vulture’s Eye)
• PC (free download at nethack.org)
• Various fan ports across platforms

What Works Well

• Depth of item interaction and systems that no modern game has come close to matching
• Free, which removes all barriers to entry
• Active community with decades of documentation, variants, and spoilers if you want them
• Every death teaches you something, even after hundreds of hours

Common Criticisms

• Presentation is about as far from modern gaming as it gets: ASCII graphics, no hand-holding, no tutorials
• The learning curve doesn’t just have a steep slope; it has a vertical wall
• Can take years of play before winning a single run, which is either the point or a dealbreaker, depending on who you are
• Item identification systems are so deep they require external resources to fully understand (u/Polisskolan6 wrote a genuinely legendary breakdown of this in one of the threads — go find it if you want a taste of what you’re getting into)

Quotes from the Threads

“NetHack on the other hand… My thoughts exactly. NetHack is a strict upgrade of Rogue, and while young people may struggle with the ASCII graphics, it’s still the most Roguelike of Roguelikes. I’ve yet to find a Roguelike that comes close to it in terms of gameplay depth.” — u/Polisskolan6

“I’m old-school but my favourite one is NetHack.” — u/Azulare

Honorable Mention 2: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

DCSS lands at 117 votes and 5 threads, which puts it just outside the top 10 and makes it one of the more consistent traditional roguelike recommendations across every thread it appeared in. 

It also came up repeatedly in the r/roguelikes threads specifically, where the standards for what counts as a real roguelike are considerably stricter than everywhere else.

It’s free, it’s on Steam, and it’s the game the traditional roguelike community most often points to when someone asks where to start. That combination makes it a must-mention regardless of the vote count.

Available

• PC (Steam and free)
• Browser (free at crawl.develz.org)

What Works Well

• Considered the most beginner-friendly traditional roguelike by a significant margin, relative to its peers, anyway
• Quality-of-life features like autoexplore and dungeon-wide search that most traditional roguelikes don’t have
• Free, which makes it the easiest recommendation to make without qualification
• Enormous race and class variety that creates genuinely different runs without requiring years of investment to appreciate

Common Criticisms

• “Beginner-friendly” is relative. This is still a punishing traditional roguelike with a real learning curve
• Presentation is dated even by roguelike standards, which turns off players who haven’t already bought into the genre
• Less depth than Nethack by the admission of its own community
• Limited mainstream visibility means fewer guides and entry points for new players than games half its quality deserve

Quotes from the Threads

“If you want to try a traditional roguelike, the best in the genre is Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It’s also my favorite roguelike. It has a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, its QoL features are second-to-none in the genre. Furthermore, it’s free, so there’s no cost to trying it.” — u/beamer159

“DCSS is the best starter. It can seem a bit much at first, but it’s very good at presenting all the required information to you and avoiding completely unfair deaths.” — u/AudaxDreik

All Games Ranked by Reddit With Sales Data

The table below combines the full Reddit ranking with VGN Insights business data. Games are sorted by total Reddit votes.

Where VGN data wasn’t available, entries are left blank. Not every game on this list has a robust Steam presence, and a few predate modern sales tracking entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some frequently asked questions: 

What is a Roguelike?

At its strictest definition, a roguelike has no meta-progression: when you die, you start completely fresh. 

In practice, the term gets applied broadly to any game that borrows these elements, even partially, which is why you’ll see roguelites like Hades and Dead Cells described as roguelikes in casual conversation.

What Was the First Roguelike Game?

A roguelike is a genre of game descended from Rogue (1980) that typically features permadeath, procedurally generated levels, and turn-based or real-time gameplay, with each run self-contained. 

Roguelike vs. Roguelite

The short version: roguelikes are strict “start from zero” experiences, while roguelites let you carry some progress between runs. For the full breakdown, check out my Roguelike vs. Roguelite guide.

Is [Game] a Roguelike?

In my research, I noticed a lot of people asking, “Is {Game} a Roguelike?” so I compiled the most popular ones and clarified things once and for all.

Wrapping Up

If you made it this far, thanks for sticking with it. 

This one took a while to put together, and I hope the data was actually useful rather than just another list dressed up as research.

The community consensus was pretty clear at the top: Slay the Spire is the one everyone agrees on. Everything after that is where opinions start to diverge, which is exactly what makes this genre worth writing about.

If you find a game on this list that clicks for you, let me know. And if you think something got robbed, the comments are right there.

Take care and talk soon

The post (Top 179) Best Roguelike Games – 5,512 Reddit Votes appeared first on Rogue Ranker.

Not because suggestions are bad, mainly because Reddit is sort of random: whoever comments early gets upvoted, and that comment gets “pinned.” 

If you read my Games Like Brotato article, you’ll know that I spent some time reading through over a dozen threads, tallying votes (painful, I know), just to understand what “best” meant. 

So here I am, back at it. I read through 15 threads, collected 1,652 upvotes, and summarized data to determine the best bullet heaven games, ranked by the community.

Not sure which game to choose? Take our quiz below

TL;DR — What Are the Best Bullet Heaven Games?

Based on 1652 total votes across 15 Reddit threads, here are the top 10 bullet heaven games ranked by community consensus:

1. Soulstone Survivors
2. Deep Rock Galactic Survivors
3. 20 Minutes till Dawn
4. Death Must Die
5. Boneraiser Minions
6. Brotato
7. Megabonk
8. Picayune Dreams
9. Enter The Gungeon
10. Holocure

Data sourced from 15 Reddit threads · 1,652 total votes

Top Bullet Heaven Games (Based on Reddit Votes)

This chart ranks the most commonly suggested games from 15 Reddit threads, using a combined total of 1,652 upvotes. Soulstone Survivors came out on top with 195 votes, well ahead of the rest of the pack.

Top Value Bullet Heaven Games (Median Playtime per Dollar Spent)

If you care about getting the most game time for your money, this chart ranks bullet heaven games by the median hours of playtime you get per dollar spent. At $1, 20 Minutes Till Dawn wins by a significant margin.

Distribution of Median Playtime Among Bullet Heaven Games

This histogram shows how long these games tend to keep players engaged based on their median playtimes. Most cluster between 4 and 10 hours, with a few outliers pushing well beyond that.

What is a Bullet Heaven Game?

A bullet heaven game is a top-down survival game where you fight off endless waves of enemies, stack upgrades, and scale your damage until you’re the one causing the chaos on screen.

The goal is to outlast the runs, not dodge your way through them.

Bullet Heaven vs. Bullet Hell

The short version: In bullet hell, enemies fire thousands of projectiles at you, and survival means dodging all of it. 

In bullet heaven, you flip the script and become the one unleashing the damage.

We wrote a full breakdown if you want the complete picture: bullet heaven vs. bullet hell

If you find that you like these games, be sure to check out the top roguelike games guide.

When Did Bullet Heaven Games Become Popular?

Most people point to Vampire Survivors as the game that kicked the genre into mainstream awareness around 2021.

It wasn’t the first, though. Magic Survival on mobile holds that title, but Vampire Survivors was the one that made bullet heaven a genre people actually talked about.

About The Data Collection Process

The process here was identical to what I did for the Games Like Brotato guide, so if you read that one, this will feel familiar.

Short version: I went to Reddit, found every relevant thread I could, and tallied every suggestion and every upvote by hand across 15 threads and 1,652 votes.

Here’s how the specifics broke down.

How I Chose Reddit Threads

I started with a Google search, collected every Reddit thread that came up, then went directly to Reddit and repeated the process to catch anything that didn’t surface the first time.

I left out threads where people were asking for mobile-only, console-only, or handheld-only suggestions. Everything else was fair game.

How I Chose Games

If a game showed up in the threads, it made the list. The only exceptions were games that other community members actively called out as not fitting the topic, and anyone doing obvious self-promotion got ignored, too.

How I Ranked Games

I didn’t rank anything personally; the community did.

Every suggestion got the upvote count from its comment. 

If the same game was mentioned multiple times across a thread or across different threads, those votes were combined. A game with ten one-vote mentions counted the same as a game with one ten-vote comment.

Extra Data From VGN Insights

Once all the heavy lifting was done, I took it one step further and added some data from VGN Insights.

• Units Sold
• Average Cost
• Gross Revenue
• Median Playtime

This data was purely for me, but it was interesting to see in the end.

Here are the averages from the data I could find (excluding free-to-play titles and some games with spotty Steam data on VGN Insights).

Average Business Stats (57 Best Bullet Heaven Games):

• Units Sold = 987,889
• Average Cost = $7
• Gross Revenue = $10,368,486
• Median Playtime = 7.4 Hours

Side note: If anyone has suggestions for finding the missing data that VGN Insights didn’t have, please help. 

I’m all ears and would love to fill in the gaps.

Top Bullet Heaven Games (Based on Real Data)

There were 60 games that made the final list (full rankings below).

I went through every thread twice, so it’s possible I missed something. 

Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 bullet heaven games based on real Reddit data, including the number of threads each game appeared in and a quick one-liner if you’re not familiar with it yet.

1. Soulstone Survivors

Soulstone Survivors topped the list with 195 votes across 9 threads, pulling ahead of second-place Deep Rock Galactic Survivor by 74 votes (not exactly a close race).

It kept coming up for one reason: the variety of builds is absurd. Stack the right skills together and runs take on a life of their own.

The game leans into the chaos while giving you enough control to feel like the chaos is yours.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• PlayStation 5
• Xbox Series X|S

What Works Well

• Build depth and synergy system rewards experimentation and keeps runs feeling fresh
• Power scaling feels satisfying; the ramp from scrappy survivor to screen-clearing machine is well-paced
• Enemy variety keeps later waves from feeling like a slog
• One of the more visually polished games in the genre

Common Criticisms

• Late game can feel repetitive once you’ve found a build that works
• Some skill paths feel noticeably weaker than others, which narrows viable builds over time
• The chaos can tip from fun into overwhelming, especially for newer players
• Runs can drag longer than expected compared to tighter games like Brotato

Quotes from the Threads

“I think Soulstone is my favorite, followed closely by Brotato.” — u/Alternative-Way-8753

“Perhaps not a titan, but I’ve been really enjoying Soulstone Survivors. Just the progression and stuff to grind has kept me going back to it for a while.” — u/AMetaphor

“Soulstone Survivors is way too good and it kinda damaged me because all other bh games I’ve tried just don’t do it for me like SS.” — u/Isaiah8200

2. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor came in second with 121 votes across 7 threads, sitting 74 votes behind Soulstone Survivors but well clear of the rest of the pack.

Nobody else in the genre does what this game does. Instead of a fixed arena, you’re actively mining through terrain while holding off hordes, which adds a layer of spatial strategy most games here don’t have.

The DRG universe helps too. If you’ve put time into the original, this one feels like a natural extension.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Xbox Game Pass, Series X|S, Xbox Cloud

What Works Well

• Mining through terrain while dodging hordes is genuinely unlike anything else in the genre
• Biome variety means runs rarely feel like a copy of the last one
• Visually one of the most polished games here, it shows
• Directional aiming adds a skill gap that auto-attack games don’t have

Common Criticisms

• Runs can push 45 minutes, which is long compared to most in this space
• Early upgrades feel a little underwhelming before things open up
• No mouse aiming trips up a lot of players coming from similar games
• Certain weapons only shine in specific biomes, which can feel limiting

Quotes from the Threads

“Deep Rock Galactic Survivor has taken over my life lol” — u/191828

“Nothing has come close to DRG Survivor for me.” — u/ThrawnGetsBuckets

“I put a ton of hours into Deep Rock Galactic Survivor. It’s a blast and really satisfying.” — u/cparksrun

3. 20 Minutes Till Dawn

20 Minutes Till Dawn came in third with 114 votes across 4 threads, a solid showing for a game that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves.

The premise is exactly what it sounds like: survive until dawn. 

Runs are short, the dark pixelated art style sets a mood most games in this space don’t bother with, and the synergy system rewards players who actually think about their build rather than just grabbing whatever looks biggest.

It sits in an interesting spot. Not as deep as Soulstone, not as mechanically unique as DRG Survivor, but for a lot of players it’s the one they keep coming back to.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Mobile (Android, iOS)

What Works Well

• Short runs mean you’re back in action fast, no 45 minute commitments
• Art style and atmosphere are genuinely distinct from most of the genre
• Synergy-focused build system rewards intentional play
• Music is consistently praised alongside the visuals

Common Criticisms

• Build variety can feel limited compared to deeper games in the genre
• Less meta progression than most, which puts off players who like a persistent grind
• Manual aiming takes adjustment for players used to auto-attack games

Quotes from the Threads

“20 Minutes Till Dawn doesn’t get enough love. The art and music are top tier.” — u/Pitiful_Yogurt_5276

4. Death Must Die

Death Must Die landed fourth with 105 votes across 6 threads, just 9 votes behind Boneraiser Minions in fifth.

It sits in an interesting spot in the genre. The core loop borrows from Vampire Survivors, but the god blessing system and persistent gear give it an RPG layer that most games here skip entirely. Runs feel more deliberate because of it.

The community consistently describes it as one of the more unique takes on the formula, which is a hard thing to pull off in a genre this crowded.

Available

• PC (Steam, Humble Bundle)

What Works Well

• God blessing system adds real build variety and keeps runs feeling different
• Persistent gear carries meaningful power across runs without feeling like a grind
• More interactive combat than most, manual aiming and boss pattern learning reward skill
• Pixel art is consistently praised as some of the best in the genre

Common Criticisms

• Reward loops can feel slow compared to faster-paced games in this space
• Map and spawn patterns get repetitive in longer sessions
• Still in early access, so content depth is limited compared to fully released titles
• UI and polish lag behind the top games in the genre

Quotes from the Threads

“How has nobody suggested Death Must Die. It’s like a cross between Vampire Survivors and Hades.” — u/finlopes997

5. Boneraiser Minions

Boneraiser Minions finished fifth with 104 votes across 6 threads, just one vote behind Death Must Die.

Most games in this genre put you in the middle of the chaos. Boneraiser hands you an army and lets the chaos fight for you. The minion-building loop is genuinely different from anything else on this list, and the deliberately goofy aesthetic makes it hard not to enjoy.

It also punches above its weight financially, sitting at around $3 while most games here charge double.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Minion system is a genuinely fresh take on the genre’s formula
• Goofy charm and chiptune soundtrack make it stand out visually and aurally
• Deep unlock system keeps long-term players engaged
• Exceptional value at its price point

Common Criticisms

• Passive playstyle won’t appeal to players who want direct combat control
• Art style is deliberately retro and lo-fi, which isn’t for everyone
• Early runs can feel slow before the minion army scales up
• Less approachable for newcomers to the genre

Quotes from the Threads

“Boneraiser Minions is my favorite. I love pet classes and this game is all about them. Plus it’s goofy as hell.” — u/indiemosh

“Boneraiser minions even at full price is a steal, but at $3.24 should be in everyone’s cart.” — u/plentyofswords

6. Brotato

Brotato came in sixth with 103 votes across 5 threads, which is interesting given that most of these Reddit threads were posted in Brotato-adjacent communities. The fact that it still only ranked sixth says something about how strong the competition is. 

Brotato is still the gold standard for tight, wave-based bullet heaven gameplay. Short runs, deep build variety, and a price tag that makes it impossible to complain about.

If this is your first time hearing about this game, be sure to check out our Brotato review.

Available

• Xbox
• PC (Steam, Epic Games Store)
• Nintendo Switch
• PlayStation (PS4/PS5)
• Mobile (Android, iOS)

What Works Well

• Wave-based format with shop segments creates a uniquely tight gameplay loop
• Character roster is huge, with each one genuinely changing how you approach a run
• Runs clock in around 25 minutes, making it easy to fit in one more
• Build variety is deep without being overwhelming

Common Criticisms

• Fixed arena map can feel limiting compared to games with more open environments
• Some characters have steep difficulty curves that can frustrate newer players
• Visual style won’t win any awards, though it gets the job done

Quotes from the Threads

“If I had to recommend just one it would be Brotato, simple but amazing.” — u/AnorakSirt

“My only hundred hour game and I haven’t even played a round in the abyss yet. So good.” — u/Iggy_R3d

7. Megabonk

Megabonk cracked the top ten with 92 votes across just 2 threads, which makes it one of the more interesting data points in the whole set.

Why? Well, it was released on September 18, 2025, so at the time of writing and data collection, it had cracked the top 10 after 6 months of gameplay.

And for good reason. I have to say, this is one of my new favorite games.

Getting 92 votes from only 2 threads means the comments that suggested it were heavily upvoted. The community that knows Megabonk really knows Megabonk.

It’s a newer entry in the genre, still in early access, but it’s hard to ignore (and for good reason).

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Wacky characters and builds give it a personality most games in this space lack
• Early access community is actively engaged and the developer is responsive
• Fast-paced and immediately fun without a steep learning curve
• Already receiving balance patches, showing active development

Common Criticisms

• Still in early access, so content depth is limited
• Smaller player base means less community resources and guides
• Build variety is promising but not yet as deep as more established titles

Quotes from the Threads

“Megabonk has me fully addicted at the moment. Can’t wait to see it evolve, there’s already been a balance patch.” — u/a_naked_molerat

“Megabonk is new and very fun.” — u/ghostyghostghostt

8. Picayune Dreams

Picayune Dreams finished eighth with 80 votes across 4 threads, and it consistently attracted a different kind of comment than most games on this list.

Nobody called it the most fun or the most replayable. They called it the peak of the genre. That’s a different conversation, and it kept coming up because Picayune Dreams does something most bullet heaven games don’t bother with: it has a weird, unsettling atmosphere and a story worth paying attention to.

Available

• PC (Steam)

What Works Well

• Atmosphere and art direction are genuinely unlike anything else in the genre
• Bullet hell boss fights add a layer of challenge most games here skip
• Soundtrack is consistently praised as one of the best
• Has an actual story, which is rare for this type of game

Common Criticisms

• Niche aesthetic won’t appeal to players looking for something bright and accessible
• More mechanically demanding than most bullet heaven games
• Shorter content depth compared to longer-running titles in the genre

Quotes from the Threads

“Picayune Dreams is the absolute peak of the subgenre.” — u/King10910

9. Enter the Gungeon

Enter the Gungeon landed ninth with 72 votes across 2 threads, and it’s worth noting upfront that this is a bullet hell game that kept getting suggested in bullet heaven threads.

The community was split on whether it belongs here, but the votes don’t lie. 

Gungeon players clearly feel the overlap, even if the mechanics lean harder into precision dodging than scaling damage. If you’ve exhausted the bullet heaven options above and want something that tests your reflexes a bit more, this is the natural next step.

Available

• PC (Steam, Epic Games Store)
• PlayStation (PS4/PS5)
• Nintendo Switch
• Xbox

What Works Well

• Combat feels incredibly tight and skill-based compared to most games on this list
• Item and synergy variety is enormous; runs rarely play out the same way
• High replay value once you understand the systems
• Humor and gun puns are genuinely charming

Common Criticisms

• Steeper learning curve than anything else on this list
• More bullet hell than bullet heaven, which isn’t what everyone is looking for
• Early runs can feel punishing before the mechanics click

Quotes from the Threads

“Enter the Gungeon” — u/codhimself, listed as “worth the sale price”

10. HoloCure

HoloCure rounded out the top ten with 57 votes across 5 threads, and it has one detail that separates it from everything else on this list: it’s completely free.

Built around Hololive vtubers, it’s easy to assume the audience is niche. But the game keeps getting recommended outside of vtuber communities because the actual mechanics are genuinely good. 

Multiple characters that each play differently, weapon evolutions borrowed from Vampire Survivors, and a level of polish that would be impressive for a paid game.

Available

• PC (Steam) – free to play

What Works Well

• Free, with no paywalls or monetization
• Character roster is large and each one plays differently
• Weapon evolution system adds meaningful build depth
• Surprisingly polished for a fan-made free game

Common Criticisms

• Vtuber theme is a barrier for players with no interest in that community
• Narrower appeal compared to games with more universal themes
• Less content depth than paid titles that have been in development longer

Quotes from the Threads

“Hololive save the fans is amazing and free. It’s possibly the best one out there whether you like vtubers or not.” — u/BigPoulet

Honorable Mentions

Here are some ones we couldn’t leave out.

Vampire Survivors

Vampire Survivors finished with just 18 votes across 3 threads, which is one of the more surprising results in the entire data set.

This is the game that made bullet heaven a genre people actually talk about. It didn’t invent it (Magic Survival on mobile holds that title), but it blew the doors open and inspired most of the games on this list.

The low vote count probably says less about the game’s quality and more about who’s posting in these threads. If you’re already deep enough into bullet heaven to be asking Reddit for recommendations, you’ve almost certainly already played Vampire Survivors.

Available

• PC (Steam, Epic Games Store)
• Nintendo Switch
• Xbox (Game Pass)
• PlayStation (PS4/PS5)
• Mobile (Android, iOS)

What Works Well

• Weapon evolution system is still one of the best in the genre
• Massive content depth with characters, stages, and secrets to unlock
• Runs evolve over time in a way most games here don’t attempt
• Available on everything, including mobile

Common Criticisms

• Slower paced compared to tighter games like Brotato
• Meta progression can feel grindy for players who want to move fast
• Visual chaos can get overwhelming mid-run

Quotes from the Threads 

“The OG, but also the Weapon/Trinket pair combo style.” — u/xJazzHS

Halls of Torment

Halls of Torment finished just outside the top ten with 54 votes across 6 threads, making it one of the most consistent performers that didn’t quite crack the list.

It leans darker and slower than everything above it, borrowing more from Diablo than from Vampire Survivors. Runs are deliberate, the atmosphere is genuinely grim, and the boss mechanics add a layer of challenge most bullet heaven games skip entirely.

It’s not the game you pick up for a quick 20-minute session; it’s the one you sink into for an hour without noticing.

Available

• PC (Steam)
• Xbox

What Works Well

• Boss mechanics create genuine tension rather than just wave scaling
• D2-inspired art style and atmosphere are distinct from everything else on this list
• Slower pace rewards thoughtful builds over pure reaction speed
• Progression system takes time to open up but pays off when it does

Common Criticisms

• Takes an hour or two before meaningful progression kicks in
• Darker tone and slower pace aren’t for everyone
• Steeper learning curve than most games on this list

Quotes from the Threads

“Halls of Torment is pretty solid!” — u/iskander1989

“Halls of torment is basically Diablo 2 bullet heaven and it’s great.” — u/Inevitable_Fly1508

All 57 Bullet Heaven Games Ranked With Sales Data

These are every game that came up across the 15 threads I went through, ranked by total votes. 

I’ve layered in VGN Insights data where it was available to give you a sense of how each game is actually performing commercially.

A few things worth noting before you dig in: gross revenue and units sold are estimates, not official figures. 

Median playtime is particularly interesting because it tells you how long people actually stick with a game, not just how long they played before refunding.

Wrapping Up

That’s 1,652 votes across 15 threads and 57 games, which took longer to go through than I’m going to admit.

The honest takeaway is that there’s no single answer. Soulstone Survivors won the vote count, but the game that’s right for you depends entirely on what you’re looking for. Want tight 25-minute runs? Brotato. Want something that feels genuinely different? Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Want to turn your brain off and watch an army do the work? Boneraiser Minions.

The genre is in a good place right now. There are enough options that you can be picky, and enough variety that even if one style doesn’t click, something else probably will.

If I missed a game you think deserved a spot, drop it in the comments. I read them all, and the next time I update this list, I’ll look at community suggestions.

Take care and talk soon

The post (Top 57) Best Bullet Heaven Games – 1652 Reddit Votes appeared first on Rogue Ranker.

My background is in making old school “best of” blogs, but here’s the thing: how do you define “best” without a voting system? You find some rando on Reddit? Oh, wait, that’s me.

Well, if you read my games like Brotato article, I used the same process: collect, count, and summarize. I figured this is the most authentic way to find the answer.

As noted above, there were 84 games in total, but for the sake of the discussion, I only dug into the top 10. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can see the full list in its entirety, along with the VGN Insights data (because I’m a mega finance nerd).

These are super fun to make, and we’ll be making more in the near future, so stay tuned

If you want to see which game is best for you, take our quiz below.

TL;DR — What Are the Best Bullet Hell Games?

Based on 863 total votes across 15 Reddit threads, here are the top 10 bullet hell games ranked by community consensus:

1. Enter The Gungeon
2. Star of Providence
3. The Void Rains Upon Her Heart
4. Tiny Rogues
5. Holocure
6. Nuclear Throne
7. Returnal
8. Death Must Die
9. The Binding of Isaac
10. Dodonpachi DaiOuJou