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Valve just announced a special event that will run from May 2 at 10AM (PT) to May 9. The event, Going Rogue: A Festival of Persistence, will offer discounts on games that can commonly fall under the roguelike and roguelite genres of video games.
Confused about what the differences are between roguelike and roguelite? Valve has you covered here as well. The team created a long writeup about the differences that you can check out ahead of the start of the event. Their writings cover what the differences are, plus a little bit about Souls-like, Metroidvania, and more.
Roguelike
The procedural content and other elements of Rogue serve as inspiration for many games that follow, hence their categorization as Rogue-like. Roguelike games feature the same complexity and random maps along with perma death, as well as some of the many other familiar tenets we'll outline again below.
Though the procedural and design aspects of Roguelikes imitate those of the original Rogue, they also can fall into one of several themes. That's why you'll also see terms like Action Roguelike when browsing.
Roguelite
But as time went on, not all roguelike games followed these sensibilities to the same degree. Roguelites borrow from these elements a tad more loosely, with perma death not-quite-so-permanent: You can often earn points, upgrades, or objects that you bring with you even when you die, for example.
The procedural content and other elements of Rogue serve as inspiration for many games that follow, hence their categorization as Rogue-like. Roguelike games feature the same complexity and random maps along with perma death, as well as some of the many other familiar tenets we'll outline again below.
Though the procedural and design aspects of Roguelikes imitate those of the original Rogue, they also can fall into one of several themes. That's why you'll also see terms like Action Roguelike when browsing.
Roguelite
But as time went on, not all roguelike games followed these sensibilities to the same degree. Roguelites borrow from these elements a tad more loosely, with perma death not-quite-so-permanent: You can often earn points, upgrades, or objects that you bring with you even when you die, for example.
