Three of the games I’m currently working on right now are Hades II, Absolum, and Ball x Pit.
I like roguelites. I like them a lot. I like the feeling of having a prescribed stopping point each time I fail a run; I like the freedom to experiment with completely different builds; I like to see clever ways that developers tell their story through repetition and how they use interruptions to that repetition to surprise the player.
I don’t always stick with them until the end, but I am always excited to get my hands on a fresh roguelite experience. These were the ones that stood out most at PAX West 2025.
Pax Autocratica
My biggest concern with Pax Autocratica is whether or not players will be in on the joke.
Pax Autocratica is a roguelite shooter and base builder. Your base gives you upgrades that help you go out and blast enemies and gather resources that help you back at the base, with the ultimate goal of ousting the fascist autocracy that’s taken over humanity.
Or, well, I should say the more fascist autocracy, because the whole shtick with Pax Autocratica is that you are… Well, you aren't exactly playing as “the good guys”.
At your headquarters, the game runs like a base builder with very granular population management. You send your workers out to gather resources to build buildings or research upgrades, but you're also managing the population's attitudes about your empire. And I'm not talking about just bar graphs of smiling and angry faces.
In Pax Autocartic, you can zoom in on individual citizens' conversations with their loved ones to see what they think about your leadership. I mean, you are in charge, they should have nothing to hide from you, right?
Knowing what individuals in the community feel gives you the opportunity to manage attitudes by building new structures, issuing edicts, or just by reassigning what sort of work individuals are assigned to.
Once you have ensured that your people are prosperous and proud, you arm them up and take them out to war! This is a roguelite mode that gives you a galaxy map to explore, with each node dropping you into a FPS combat encounter.
Combat is quick and snappy, and I saw encounters of a few different scales with distinct maps. Most encounters only last for a few minutes, but the larger ones are where the combat gets interesting. There is a bit of an RTS feel, as you can issue orders to the citizens you brought with you on the campaign.
I struggled a bit with Wild Bastards last year, because the tight arena nature of the combat encounters got stale for me very quickly. I'm hoping that Pax Autocratic has some variety in the missions to keep me hooked.
But, mostly importantly, I hope that people look at the politics of this game as satire, instead of taking away a message of “hoorah totalitarianism”.
Pax Autocratica is expected to launch this year, and a demo is available now.
Fresh Tracks
I walked by the Fresh Tracks booth with hardly a second glance until I started to hear folks buzzing about it.
At a glance, I saw what looked like first-person Temple Run after a blizzard, and moved right along. What I was missing by just looking at the game was the music.
Once I got setup to play the game on a Steam Deck with a set of headphones cranked way up, I fell in love with Fresh Tracks.
Fresh Tracks mixes rhythm game play with the endless runner format. Like Temple Run, you have multiple tracks you can jump between, grabbing collectibles, avoiding hazards, and even swinging a sword to knock dangers away. But also, like Metal Hellsinger, Bullets Per Minute, or Cadence of Hyrule, everything in Fresh Tracks lands on the beat.
Full disclosure: Fresh Tracks also had the best swag from the show, with a vinyl of the game soundtrack, and it is a heck of a soundtrack. In fact, the game actually tells a lot of its story through the lyrics of songs that you encounter as you ski across a Nordic mountainside.
I'm usually too ADHD to focus in on rhythm games the way they deserve, but there is enough going on here that I'm looking forward to giving Fresh Tracks a deeper look. It's out now for $24.99.
Master of Piece
Auto-battlers don’t really appeal to me. I can see the strategy involved, but the “sit and watch” part of the game play tends to frustrate me. Master of Piece caught my attention at PAX West because of the art design, but now I am really looking forward to giving an autobattler an earnest try.
Master of Piece has combat that runs like a micro tactical RPG. With a grid that’s only a few spaces across, you place your characters on one edge of the board one at a time. Each turn, your characters march towards enemies on the opposite side of the board.
The small board and turn-based structure really worked for me. It’s an auto-battler, yes, but it’s one where your characters move into an active position quickly and precisely. Combine that with the aesthetic, and this feels more like an automated board game than anything else.
On top of that, this is a deck building roguelite! You move through the world on a branching map. Along the way you’ll upgrade units, unlock new ones, and all the other genre standards you’d expect.
Master of Piece is planned for a Q1 2026 launch.
Final Thoughts
I really got into Roguelites when Hades blew up on the Switch. It's been fascinating to see so many developers blend other genres into that structure.
Between these and Kirby Air Riders and Tainted Grail… My biggest concern now is finding time for all of these games!