So, my group has recently tried Ignite the Depths demo, and now we’re looking for something else to scratch that itch.
Most of the time 2-4 of us will play at once.
In case you haven’t read the community name, it has to run on Linux, I don’t have Windows installed and another member plays on Steam Deck. Whether the game runs through proton or natively doesn’t really matter.
Our schedules don’t match too often, and we usually use it to play TTRPGs, which means we generally don’t play all at once, so a tens of hours long campaign would be hard to play without someone having to grind up or fall behind.
Suggested games don’t have play too similar to Ignite the Depths, we find the combat too simple, but we’re looking for RPG elements like classes we could choose before starting a run and level up on the way.
There was also not enough variety among the enemies and locations, bu Ignite the Depths devs will probably add them along the Early Access.
AFAIK we don’t have any more strong combat preferences regarding tempo and pace, so we’re fine with, for example, something closer to Dark Souls series.
We’ve tried playing with friendly fire on and off. Playing with it turned on was harder, but we enjoyed the additional communication challenge.
Any sort of in-game story end goal would be a huge advantage. It’d help a lot with bringing us back, and convincing me - the group’s rogue-like hater. BTW if you’d like a deck builder rogue-like with a really good story, try Chrono Ark.
And now, the personal preferences you can treat as a bonus:
Me
- progress even on the worst runs
- flashy combat, as long as everyone can see what happens; I know it’s hard to do in multiplayer
- low on progress-blocking grind
- core class gameplay doesn’t change depending on the loot - see Loop Hero, you can focus on certain aspects of the class, but no matter what you pick, necromancer will summon minions to fight and tank for him
Member 1
- low price, short on money for the next month or two, but we’d rather wait than waste our time on a mediocre Free to Play
- magic restricted to certain classes, low availability of elemental weapons and such (might conflict with Member 2’s preference)
Member 2
- loves magic, more = better (might conflict with Member 1’s preference)
Member 3
- likes dragons - they didn’t express it, but I know them well enough I included it
Other people have not specified any special preferences.
One game we’ve found interesting, but haven’t bought yet, is Elden Ring Nightreign. Seems to check most of the boxes. Still, more options to choose from would be nice.
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This isn’t exactly what you’re looking for, but since there’s already been numerous good suggestions here’s a slightly different one:
I thoroughly enjoyed Death Road to Canada co-op.
It’s a bit different from what you asked for, but you could give Streets of Rogue a try.
Cult of the Lamb is a 2 player coop RPG with roguelite gameplay! I’ve only played single player though so I can’t speak to the coop.
One of my favorites is Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos. It’s a Zeldalike roguelite with city building and a bunch of player classes. I had a blast with this one. Looks like you need a custom GE-Proton for this.
Also a shoutout to Rabbit & Steel, which is a 2D MMO raid simulator roguelike.
I think most of us are familiar with CotL, but we’ll see if anyone would be up for coop
RH:RoT looks great, we’ll definitely check the demo
R&S looks interesting, I’ll put it on the list
Thanks for recommendations.
Barony
I was going to mention this! Seems to tick all the boxes.
I am so pumped for the next update, one of my favorite games. I only play wizard but experimenting with the races hah.
+1 for Barony, especially with the DLCs. However, it’s important to go easy at first. Don’t scoff at the assistance shrine/items and custom options like turning off hunger or modding to make your first runs a bit easier. Vanilla can be excruciatingly frustrating, and you might bounce off a really fun game!
Considering how many times I’ve died in the tutorials, yeah, we’ll probably start on lower difficulty if others also got it when Epic was giving it for free
I replied elsewhere but now that I’m at my PC I have some more recommendations:
- Sunderfolk - can’t believe I neglected this before, drop in drop out TTRPG you play couch co-op; could be remote played as well with screen sharing. You use your phones as the controllers.
- Barony - ARPG roguelike dungeon crawler
- Dysplaced - drop in drop out co-op, fully destructible environments, base building, ARPG
- Sworn - alternative take on Camelot, isometric action roguelike, similar to Hades and others
- 33 Immortals - co-op action-roguelike for 33 players
While I prefer normal campaigns over roguelikes, do you think it would work with 2-3 different people playing every session?
I’ve got Barony on EGS, if others got it too, we’ll probably try it on a lower difficulty. Tutorial felt like Iudex Gundyr (first boss of DS3, nicknamed tutorial by the community)
Dysplaced - I’d rather just go to the dungeons without survival elements
Sworn - reviews and discussions are saying it’s basically Hades minus story, and I didn’t even finish Hades, so nah
33 Immortals - when I want to play with strangers, DOTA’s got me covered
Thanks for recommendations.
Sunderfolk we’ve played with players rotating throughout the campaign. You always have 4 characters in the party which can be controlled by 1-4 people playing one or more. The mechanices are easy enough for someone to catch on within a round or two. In addition to the campaign there are one shots also available and I think player created adventures were on the roadmap.
I’ll put it on the list, then. Thanks.
Cheers!
I would recommend trying out Enshrouded. They just did their 1.0 release recently, been playing it during development for the past 2 years with friends. Works great through Steam/Proton, I’m running Kubuntu on my system at the moment, and it runs without issues. Game has a ton of content, quests, things to fight, and places to explore. You can run through quests as a group or solo. Not everyone has to be on to advance the storyline. If someone misses a mission, the game will list them so the player can go back and run through them if they want. Not required but nice to do just to level up. You can build a character any way you want on the skill tree. Pick a mage route, or barbarian, assassin, archer, etc. Multiple routes spread out radially from a hub and the skills interconnect. Choose a pure route or mix and match any way you like. Should be enough options for whatever the folks in your group want to do, and you can pull your points and re-spec to something else if you feel like it. Good game with a lot of new things added in with the recent release. It’s been fun even though development, and now it’s just even better.
It’s also easy to run your own server. I’ve got one running on an old PC so folks can hop on any time they feel like it, and we aren’t paying rental fees every month.
I’d rather just go straight to the dungeons instead of bothering with collecting resources and open world (unfun fact: the only open world games I’ve ever finished are Risen series)
I feel that. I have a friend who really likes these games, and i like playing with them. When enshrouded released and he played it, i downloaded the game to also play with him. After 20 min i refunded it, vecause it was: gatger wood, gather stone, build… Holy shit, it’s literally the last 4 games we played.
Maybe Shape of Dreams? It’s a Moba/ARPG Rogue-Lite for 1-4 Players.
Looks really good, but does it have a good moment to end that’s not 100% completion?
You can quit anytime as runs are saved frequently.
A good point to quit would probably be after completing a biome and transitioning to the next. One biome takes 7-15min depending on how fast you go and where in the game you are; the later biomes usually take longer simply because there’s more to explore but you can always choose to take the fastest way to the boss A full run takes 40-60min if you don’t loop.I meant a more permanent quitting, maybe could’ve expressed it better
Oh in that case, not really. Maybe once you have all characters unlocked or defeated the final boss once on the highest difficulty (assuming you don’t do it first try, which is unlikely).
Thanks for the infó
They’re more first person slashers than action RPGs, but have you considered the Vermintide games? 4 player coop with 4 distinct “classes”, magic restricted to one class, half hour to 45 minute missions, and there might be a dragon somewhere? They’re usually very cheap, but they’re low on classical RPG progression, so might not be a complete fit.
“necesse” might scratch that itch.
I’ve got my eye on Wyldheart. Fellowship might be a good boss battle roguelike. Unconventional but Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands might work.
We’re planning on trying Wyldheart in a few hours
Fellowship looks like it needs to keep oneself in the loop, pass
I think I have TTW on Epic, but I’ve tried Borderlands 2 and Destiny 2 and didn’t like them. Do you think I should still give it a go?
I think I have TTW on Epic, but I’ve tried Borderlands 2 and Destiny 2 and didn’t like them. Do you think I should still give it a go?
No, it’s Borderlands but with a Dungeons and Dragons/fantasy magic theme and slightly more over the top scaling than normal Borderlands. It was a COVID-era project that was a nice thing to have between Borderlands but Borderlands 3/4 are better Borderlands experiences for the time spent.
Reply how you like it if you think to do so. I suggested it because it seemed to fit your criteria, but still haven’t tried it.
To quote my cooperator, “Genshin has more gameplay than this”
It’s empty, “quests” are pointless (go to dungeon fight boss repeat), and the only good thing is combat animations
It’s also far too easy, put on most armor you can and only other players (friendly fire perma on) will have enough damage to cause you to lose more than 1 hit point per hit
Thanks for saving me some time.
This might be way off, but I had a good time in Jump Space. I haven’t dove too deep though.
My friends and I have being enjoying Gunfire Reborn and Ravenswatch. There’s enough diversity in the classes in each they might work for all.
I see they don’t have a story, but I’ll put Ravenswatch on the back of the list, thanks
Lort looks like it might fit the bill, haven’t tried it yet though!
Looks a lot like Risk of Rain 2, and I didn’t like that one. Thanks for suggestion.
If you don’t like risk of rain, you won’t like lort i think. Have you guys ever played deep rock galactic? It has a bit of a slow start, but once you get into weapon mods and overclocks and figuring out what each class does, it’s an absolute blast. It has a lot of skill expression even if it looks pretty basic at first. And 4 players would be perfect. If you miss a guy or two, drg has hands down the nicest community i have ever seen in any video game, and if you fill with random, there is a relly good chance that they are super nice.
Yup, forgot about its existence, but DRG sounds nice. Thanks.
The games my group has gone through seems similarly themed. Currently the game that might fit the bill is far, far west. Similar gameplay to helldivers but dramatically more forgiving and easy to complete runs in 15-20 minutes or spend more than an hour scouring a map.
I personally have been absolutely loving jump space. No classes per se, but flexibility to choose your load out with variable gameplay and relative forgiveness in missions. It’s still early access and I’m just very excited for its future.
Other games we have enjoyed at length that might fit some of your listed interests:
Risk of rain 2 - tactical 3rd person fps
Gunfire reborn - tactical fps rogue like
Deep rock galactic - tactical fps Inkbound - turn-based
Slay the spire - deck builder
Vellum - similar to gunfire and risk of rain but with a book/literary theme similar to inkbound
The ascent - not rogue like, but top-down action shooter
Gatekeeper - isometric/top down shooter with a similar feel/theme to risk of rain 2 Trine - not really an RPG, but it has classes and you have to cooperatively solve puzzlesI’ll consider Far, Far West. I’ve played Helldivers 2 with my friend, but it didn’t take too long before the skill gap got so wide I became a deadweight.
I’ve played RoR 2 a few years ago, didn’t find it interesting.
You sure GR is tactical? Cause it looks more like Doom Eternal
Vellum looks more interesingForgot about DRG’s existence, I’ll put it on the list.
I wouldn’t consider StS 2 an ARPG, but for future reference, does it have any good point to end playing that’s not 100% completion?
I’ll keep The Ascent and Gatekeeper in mind
Thanks for recommendations.
Far, far west has been more enjoyable for our group and scratches the itch left by helldivers. We have similar skill gaps and with the variety of weapons and spells, any player can still feel like they’re contributing. Plus death is not as punishing; there’s no maximum respawn and you can still move and attack while you’re dead! This also allows you to run to your teammates for a revive.
Gunfire has multiple classes to pick from and I feel is similarly forgiving. I will say that the early game might feel like a bit of a grind as you work to have enough in-game currency to unlock things.
Once that is done, the variety of choices during a run allow each player to work toward mechanic and while there is synergy between some classes and builds, the game does not punish you for NOT pursuing those. So it isn’t crunchy tactical like xcom might be, but it still requires coordination at higher difficulty levels.
I have about 500 hours played in gunfire and they continue to have engaged road maps and interesting DLC that keeps me coming back.
Would agree about StS2. Our group had a bunch of fun while we each tried the different classes. Now that we have most of the content unlocked, we stopped playing to wait for the final release.
Hope that your group jives with some of these and have fun gaming!
If you don’t mind isometric view, Grim Dawn is amazing both solo and co-op!
I didn’t like Diablo 3 nor Path of Exile 1, so I doubt I’ll like it. Thanks for suggestion.
