RoguedexPart 1 (Sep 2023) · #12 of 18 in that tierWatch the moment (0:17:01)
Brotato
- Developed by
- Blobfish
- Published by
- Blobfish
$4.99
Brotato is a top-down arena shooter roguelite where you play a potato wielding up to 6 weapons at a time to fight off hordes of aliens. Choose from a variety of traits and items to create unique builds and survive until help arrives.
Consensus
A77/100
Steam players95.9% positiveOverwhelmingly Positive119,332 reviews
Metacritic ↗76/100Users: 7.8/10
OpenCritic ↗76/100
VG Insights estimate ↗≈3.6M copies · ≈$12.4M gross
What creators say
Ranked Aug 2024 · #1 of 7 in that tierWatch the moment (0:53:42)
Ranked Aug 2023 · #12 of 13 in that tierListen to the episode
Scored 4.61/10 · tier derived from the score
Ranked Jun 2023 · #10 of 11 in that tierWatch the moment (0:47:25)
Ranked Apr 2023 · #4 of 22 in that tierWatch the moment (2:03:54)
Ranked Jun 2025 · #1 of 11 in that tierListen to the episode
Ranked Apr 2025 · #7 of 8 in that tierWatch the moment (1:12:09)
Ranked Apr 2023 · #1 of 6 in that tierWatch the moment (0:51:17)
What players say
A top-down arena shooter roguelite from Blobfish in which a potato auto-fires up to six weapons at alien hordes across short 20-90 second waves, buying items between rounds to craft builds.
Brotato is one of the best-liked survivors-like games on Steam, at 95.9% positive across about 119k reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive), and it has sold an estimated 2-5 million copies at a $4.99 price. Critics are warmer than lukewarm but more reserved than players (Metacritic 76, OpenCritic Top Critic Average 76), mostly praising the addictive short-run loop and build variety while noting limited enemy variety and repetition. It is a full release (early access ended June 2023) that has been actively updated. Development moved from Blobfish to Evil Empire (Dead Cells studio) in 2025, which brought the New Dawn update and later the May 2026 All Pain No Gain update with the Nightmare difficulty. That update drew a wave of negative reviews from long-time players, though the overall score stayed very high.
Players love
- Huge build variety: dozens of potatoes (characters), lots of weapons and items, and stat-stacking synergies that make each run feel like a different recipe
- Very short waves and quick runs give a strong 'one more run' pull and suit short sessions
- Characters change how you play rather than just tweaking stats, and some only make sense once you figure out their gimmick
- Between-wave shop, rerolls, economy and positioning add real strategy on top of simple auto-aim shooting
- Excellent optimisation: runs on low-end hardware and is praised on Steam Deck, with auto-aim suiting handhelds and the ability to pause/resume a run across devices
- Local split-screen co-op is widely appreciated
- Exceptional value at about $5 with hundreds of hours of replay and cheap DLC
- No grind-heavy meta progression, so new players can start playing the real game immediately (cited by Niche Gamer as a good roguelike entry point)
- Highly addictive, low-friction loop: top-voted positive reviews describe logging hundreds of hours and marathon co-op sessions with friends
Common complaints
- Low enemy variety: several players say build combinations far outnumber enemy types, and the brown arenas and purple aliens feel samey over time
- Repetition and a half-baked endless mode are the most common long-session complaints in aggregated review analysis
- Balance: some characters, weapons and item archetypes are seen as overpowered or near-useless; higher difficulties funnel toward meta builds
- Heavy RNG in shop offers: a run can be decided by whether the shop gives you what your build needs, which feels bad after a 40-60 minute run
- Too many stats to track; losing a long run because a stat like speed or regen was slightly low frustrates some players
- Critics and some players find it light on lore, exploration and traditional roguelite progression, more a 'mini-game' than a full campaign
- Achievements locked behind DLC annoy completionists, and DLC is seen by some as not matching base-game quality
- Save-wipe and crash reports after the Evil Empire takeover updates, with some players reporting lost progress
- The May 2026 All Pain No Gain update is the dominant recent complaint: the most-upvoted negative reviews (400-850 hour players) say Nightmare's bullet spam and tripled enemy health changed the game's feel
Can feel tedious
- Losing a run late, after 40-60 minutes, and restarting from scratch (several negative reviewers describe starting over repeatedly between waves 3 and 14)
- Endless mode and post-Danger 5 play, which some call pointless or repetitive once everything is unlocked
- Chasing 100% achievements, especially those requiring DLC and new achievements added with each update
- Nightmare difficulty: tripled enemy health, environmental projectiles from screen edges and fog, widely described by unhappy long-time players as bullet-hell spam that makes shop RNG decide runs
- Sifting through a bloated shop and item pool, which the new pets feature is said to have made worse by some players
What's unique
- Survivors-like with a twist: tiny screen-sized arenas, short timed waves and a shop between rounds, closer to The Binding of Isaac item-stacking than Vampire Survivors' big sprawling maps
- Manual movement only with auto-aimed weapons, combined with a six-weapon-slot limit and stat-based scaling (armor, dodge, harvesting, engineering, etc.)
- Potato characters with bizarre constraints, such as a one-hit-death character (The Wounded) or builds around turrets and pets
- Deliberately minimal meta-progression: unlocks and higher danger levels rather than permanent power upgrades
- Runs on almost anything, with cross-platform availability (PC, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, mobile) and Steam Workshop mod support
Players want
- Add native online co-op; Steam Remote Play Together is reported as poor or unplayable
- More enemy types and arena/biome variety, plus a stronger endless mode
- Clearer item descriptions and better in-game explanation of stats and scaling
- Rebalance Nightmare and the shop so it is not dominated by glass-cannon builds and shop luck, or offer a less punishing way to engage with the new content
- Quality-of-life additions such as co-op item exchange, more picks when luck is high, and better save safety between versions
- More lore/world building and optional long-term goals or meta-progression, since some newer players find it a 'cute distraction' lacking roguelite hooks
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
Rogue-likeSingleplayerAction RoguelikeBullet HellSci-fiSurvivalArena ShooterLocal Co-OpRogue-liteHack and Slash
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Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Brotato is a top-down, single-level arena roguelike where weapons fire automatically and you just move and collect. He loves its huge roster of characters and shop items that each carry upsides and downsides, which makes builds deeply customizable despite repeating enemies and items. He has played it more than most games on the list and calls it one of the better single-level-layout roguelikes. The 'solid eight' is almost certainly ASR for 'A', placed above Arcanium.
Liked
Disliked