Part 2 (May 2024) · #2 of 13 in that tierWatch the moment (2:01:02)
Roboquest
- Developed by
- RyseUp Studios
- Published by
- RyseUp Studios
$24.99
Roboquest is a fast FPS Roguelite in a scorched futureworld. You're a rebooted Guardian, ready to kick some metal ass! Fight with your buddy or by yourself and annihilate hordes of deadly bots in ever-changing environments.
Consensus
A78.7/100
Steam players95.3% positiveOverwhelmingly Positive24,460 reviews
Metacritic ↗85/100Users: 8.5/10
VG Insights estimate ↗≈734K copies · ≈$12M gross
What creators say
Ranked Feb 2026 · #21 of 21 in that tierListen to the episode
Scored 7.59/10 · tier derived from the score
Ranked Jun 2023 · #13 of 17 in that tierWatch the moment (0:47:25)
What players say
A fast, colourful co-op-capable first-person shooter roguelite from French studio RyseUp Studios, where a rebooted Guardian robot blasts through branching, procedurally arranged levels of hostile bots.
Roboquest is received very warmly: Steam shows Overwhelmingly Positive (about 95% of roughly 24k reviews, 97% of the most recent 30-day sample), and its small Metacritic critic set (5 reviews) averages 85 with a 8.5 user score. Players praise its movement, gunplay and soundtrack and often call it the best or fastest FPS roguelite. Criticism concentrates on unreliable peer-to-peer co-op with no rejoin after a disconnect, bullet-sponge enemies and unclear projectiles, and some weapons and build archetypes being far weaker than hitscan. It was in Steam Early Access from August 2020 and hit 1.0 on 7 Nov 2023; the developers announced in May 2025 that they would stop producing content updates, so it is effectively finished rather than abandoned mid-way. It later reached PS4/PS5 (May 2025) and has a separate VR spin-off.
Players love
- Movement and gunplay feel: the most repeated praise, with reviewers calling it a fast, flow-state shooter with smooth mobility and satisfying weapon animation and feedback
- Synthwave soundtrack (critic: Carpenter Brut-inspired) is singled out by critics and many players as a standout
- Buildcrafting and variety: many characters/classes, weapons, abilities and upgrades so that most builds can win, and runs do not hinge on finding one perfect seed
- Branching level paths, secrets and multiple difficulty levels give replay value; easier modes do not lock you out of content
- Colourful comic-book art style praised; one top reviewer says it does the look better than Borderlands
- Meta-progression that feels meaningful, with gadgets and unlocks that change how you move
- Co-op with friends is considered very fun when it works, and it runs well on modest PCs
- Good value and feature-complete: players call it an 'ol reliable' they keep installed since 2020, with years of post-launch content (weapons, a class, Endless mode, Dead Cells crossover)
Common complaints
- Co-op stability: a very large share of negative reviews cite disconnects or crashes mid-run with no way to rejoin, which wipes 30-45 minutes of progress
- Enemies are described as bullet sponges, and ranged enemy projectiles of different speeds overlap and hide fast attacks, so hits feel unavoidable
- Status effects (hacks, stuns, blinding orbs) that come from off-screen interrupt the movement flow and feel unfair in a twitch game
- Weapon balance: hitscan weapons are consistently the reliable choice; melee, projectile and close-range options fall off in later stages
- Some enemy types (hidden turrets, teleporting one-shot enemies, no-cover arenas) punish aggressive movement and push players into camping or sniping
- Difficulty curve is uneven, with easy modes described as a cakewalk and the jump to standard/hard described as steep
- Repetitive enemies, levels and music after long sessions, and a limited weapon/upgrade pool cited by veteran roguelike players
Can feel tedious
- Grinding meta-progression (gadgets, crystals, upgrades) before the final boss becomes beatable, reported by one reviewer as roughly 20 hours
- Time-based level grading that pushes speed over exploration, disliked by players who want to poke around
- Long runs with no way to resume after a disconnect, making co-op feel risky
- Hunting for hidden gadgets and collectibles that are key to movement, which some say requires guides
- Eye strain reported by at least one player from fast motion and saturated colours
- Repetitive enemy attack patterns (lobs, missiles, zaps) that reduce play to cover-peek cycles
What's unique
- Arguably the fastest-paced FPS roguelite, combining mobility gadgets (grapple, rocket jumping) with boomer-shooter-style arena combat
- Hero-shooter-style classes (Guardian and others) with their own upgrade trees inside a roguelite structure
- Branching level route choice between stages, Star Fox-like, with secrets and side paths
- Meta-progression delivered as gadgets and crystals that unlock movement and abilities rather than pure stat boosts
- Cross-platform co-op and a cheerful comic-book robot world with a light story, backed by a synthwave soundtrack
- Crossover content such as the Dead Cells collaboration and an Endless mode
Players want
- Fix co-op networking and add rejoin/reconnect so a dropped player does not end the run for everyone
- Make projectile, melee and close-range weapons more viable against late-game enemies, and rebalance hitscan dominance
- Add a dodge/dash or proper strafing option, since some players find base movement sluggish
- Improve readability of enemy projectiles and status-effect sources; reduce visual clutter
- Smooth difficulty scaling between easy, standard and hard, and revisit the final boss being effectively gated behind full meta-progression
- Offer shorter runs or a way to save or pause a long run (runs can exceed 30-45 minutes)
Summarised from Steam reviews and community discussion.
Steam tags
FPSAction RoguelikeRogue-liteShooterOnline Co-OpCo-opFast-PacedLooter ShooterBullet HellAction
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Tier list Part 2 (2024)
Roboquest is a first-person shooter roguelike that he calls one of the two big FPS roguelikes alongside Gunfire Reborn. He says it was a notable omission from his original list. He thinks it is a very solid game that does everything well, and shines most as a campaign-like adventure in its first ~15 hours. He would put Gunfire Reborn just barely above it, but says he will rank Roboquest very highly too, without naming a tier letter.
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