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Roguelike vs roguelite: what's the difference?
Where the two labels came from, the one difference that matters, and why everyone uses them loosely.
A roguelike makes failure teach you. A roguelite also makes failure pay you. Both are built from short runs that end and reset. The difference is what carries over from one run to the next.
Where the words come from
“Roguelike” means “like Rogue”, a 1980 dungeon crawler with random levels and permanent death. For decades the word described games built the same way: turn-based, grid-based dungeons, generated fresh each time, where dying wipes everything. In 2008, developers at a roguelike conference in Berlin even wrote a checklist of those traits, now known as the Berlin Interpretation. By its standard, almost no modern game qualifies.
“Roguelite” took hold in the 2010s for games that kept the run structure but changed two things. They swapped the turn-based dungeon for other kinds of play, like platforming, shooting or card battles. And they let some progress survive a death. Rogue Legacy (2013) did a lot to popularise the label.
The one difference that matters
Think of it as a dial for what survives a run:
| What carries over | Example |
|---|---|
| Only what you learned | NetHack, Brogue |
| New options you unlock | Slay the Spire |
| Permanent power | Rogue Legacy, Hades |
| Story | Hades |
The further down the table, the more “lite” a game is. Failure stops being only a lesson and starts paying out.
Why the labels blur
Stores and players use “roguelike” for almost anything with runs, because it’s the word people search for. PepperHead makes the same point in his video on the term: the label now stretches to cover nearly any game with random levels and permadeath, while “roguelite” mostly signals upgrades that carry over.
On this site, “roguelite” covers the whole family, and the traditional tag marks games built the classic way.