The original Rogue was published in 1980. A procedurally generated dungeon crawler, the game’s story was as barebones as they come. You were an adventurer. You needed to acquire an item from the depths of the dungeon. You needed to escape.
Conversely, the game play was nearly infinite. Given that each dungeon was a different layout with different monsters, no two delves were exactly alike, and no matter how strong your character got, your next run featured a new protagonist who had only your knowledge and skills. It was truly revolutionary for the time, and to this day, we have both roguelikes (games that follow closely to Rogue’s original design philosophy of procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid based movement, and perma-death mechanics) and roguelites (games that some degree of inspiration from Rogue, but did not necessarily adhere to all of their trappings).
Disregarding the massive outlier of hours that Destiny 2 contributed to my FPS hours, the roguelike is where I spend the majority of my gaming. I like getting the full experience within smaller increments. I like the rush of snowballing. I like the fact that I can leave and come back to it without feeling like I’ve lost my place or need to start over.
Ever since FTL, I have been enamored with the loops. And my history speaks for itself. One of my first ever video game reviews on this site was Into the Breach, I have talked about how Roguelikes translate into games like Elden Ring and Remnant 2, and have talked about the modern roguelike at length.
In that last article, I talked about how Hades did something different by more fully anchoring the gameplay into a fully fleshed out narrative. Narrative has never been the backbone of this particular genre. Hell, one of the most popular roguelikes of the last decade is Balatro, a game that doesn’t even have lore. The enjoyment of the genre comes from the dopamine hit of fitting disparate puzzles together. Any flavor was a nice little side dish and not the main course.
I have played over one thousand hours of Slay the Spire. Cycled between the Ironclad, Silent, Defect, and Watcher for hours climbing the titular spire and defeating the Corrupted Heart at the end of Act 4. I never questioned the motivations of those characters. I never really cared about what the Spire was and where its denizens came from. I was intrigued by the tidbits and flavor text. It’s a world where fresh fruit is scarce and a mix of fauna, flora, and robot inhabit a dangerous and eldritch ecosystem. The atmosphere gave just enough context to justify the thrilling deckbuilder’s carefully programmed interactions creating a puzzle game that consumed me such that the announcement of Slay the Spire 2 had me (quite predictably) foaming at the mouth.
I did not need an overarching narrative to look forward to the core game mechanics. MegaCrit, however, was kind enough to provide one, and it inadvertently ended up becoming one of my favorite aspects of the game, largely due to the gameplay integration.
Slight spoilers for Slay the Spire 2 ahead.
Previously, unlocking cards was just a matter of scoring points in a run to unlock a pack of cards, relics, or potions to be added into the loot pool. It was a standard metaprogression. Slay the Spire II has streamlined the unlocking process a little, by associating certain achievements to different Epochs within their new Timeline feature. These are as simple as completing runs and defeating bosses, but each achievement also gets you a card that situates things within the larger context of Preon.
And while this does not quite constitute the same level of narrative depth as the premier example Hades, these epochs manage to further situate the characters and their stakes in the world. I am particularly devastated by the robot partnership of Defect and Flaw and the entirety of the Necrobinder’s tragic backstory, although the tales of the Ironclad, Silent, and Regent are equally compelling.
It is not revolutionary in and of itself, but as someone who was already incredibly fond of the Defect, a social outcast of the Spire’s odd mechanical order, getting to know their motivations for climbing the Tower, risking life, limb, and dorb for a chance to repair their friend Flaw. Suddenly, there’s a deeper level of attachment there. Suddenly, there are additional moments of oohs and aahs and smiling at the incidental kismet that Defect’s patron is Darv, one of my favorite Ancients gameplay wise because all of the all-powerful Snecko Eye.
When the gameplay loop is solid enough, you don’t necessarily need a narrative. Tetris has managed to do just fine without a story mode. However, there is something to be said about the human want for a story, for characterization, for connection. And it goes much further than I ever expected.
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