Despot's Game is like Teamfight Tactics except it's also a roguelike dungeon crawler

Roguelikes must be the perfect genre because it really does seem like you can combine it with any other genre and get something interesting. Case in point: Despot's Game, a roguelike autobattler where you build and manage a horde of naked humans that can be equipped with everything from pretzels to fridges. You then use that army to navigate a procedurally generated dungeon filled with monsters and, occasionally, other human players. The further you make it, the more wacky items you find to give to your soldiers, but when you die you lose all your progress and start over. I like roguelikes and I like Teamfight Tactics, so Despot's Game seems like a pretty safe bet.

If you have no idea what autobattlers like TFT are about, the gist is that you build a team of soldiers who do all the fighting for you without any direct input. The strategy lies in what items you give them and how you arrange them on the battlefield, but once the bell rings and the brawl begins, you just get to sit back and watch the carnage.

If that all sounds cool, you can check out the trailer above which just debuted at the Guerrilla Collective E3 2021 showcase. You can also wishlist Despot's Game on Steam. It launches later this year.

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Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.