In one run, I found a flamethrower capable of making quick work of giant, fire-averse bugs, while in another I found a laser cannon capable of ripping through robotic foes. Luckily, Endless Dungeon gave me more upgrades and ways to beef up my character mid-run than was possible in the last preview build, as a whole slew of interesting weapons were now common loot drops to give me an edge in battle. This wasn’t my first time in these cutthroat hallways, so I fared much better than a year ago, but clearly merciless difficulty remains a central focus, and as someone who enjoys a good challenge, that was nice to see. Enemies were relentless and came at me from every angle, and very careful planning, resource management, and communication was required to keep the enemy at bay.

That’s because Endless Dungeon remains a brutally difficult gauntlet that proved incredibly challenging even with several of Amplitude’s own developers as my crewmates. None of these buffs were so powerful that I could brute force my way through a level, and as roguelites go my ability to grind my way to victory was substantially lower, but I’d be lying if I said the extra help wasn’t welcome. Repeated failure is a hallmark of any good roguelike or roguelite, but knowing each defeat got me a little closer to giving my characters a boost here and there certainly made those losses less humbling. Now there were also Chips – essentially modifiers – which gradually built up my characters so they could do things like passively increase their defenses, give buffs to the Crystal Bot I was charged with protecting, or reduce the cooldown of my character’s Ultimate Skill. But the people at Amplitude seem to have shifted that philosophy a bit. Previously no progression existed, and what was planned was largely horizontal progression where new characters and items unlocked, but I couldn’t actually become more powerful except through honing my skill. The biggest change since I played Endless Dungeon last year is the existence of a meta progression system.

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