Lone Ruin

ShackNewsJuno Stump

9/10

Lone Ruin will test your patience, but let’s all be grateful the arcade action comes without the arcade cost. The “just one more try” gameplay benefits greatly from the snappy load screens and menus, even on the Nintendo Switch version, making it easier to recommend this brutally difficult and magical indie hit from Super Rare Games.

Steam Deck HQNoah Kupetsky

8/10

Lone Ruin is a hauntingly beautiful roguelike that makes up for its shortcomings with its visuals and gameplay. On top of that, this one runs wonderfully on the Steam Deck as a Best on Deck game!

Pure NintendoJemma Casson

8/10

Have you heard of Lone Ruin? It’s a tricky twin-stick shooter with roguelike elements that was released earlier this month. Everyone was talking about it, but

GamingBoltMike Alexander

8/10

Lone Ruin is a hardcore, action-packed roguelike game to its core, and it absolutely shines on the Switch. If more content is added later on, this could be an early front-runner for the top indie game of 2023.

GameSpewChris McMullen

8/10

If starting all over again drives you up the wall, then Lone Ruin probably isn’t for you. For everyone else, it’s a frenetic, fun and highly replayable outing that’ll have you coming back for more. But if you do find a strange meteor in your backyard, do the sensible thing and toss it in next door’s wheelie bin.

WellPlayedAsh Wayling

8/10

Lone Ruin nails the brief on what makes an appreciable roguelike – combining a slick and sexy aesthetic with a core gameplay loop that can be rapidly picked up, but is deep enough to beg for mastery.

TechRaptorAlex Santa Maria

7/10

Lone Ruin is a stylish good time while it lasts, but players will want more before too long.

It’s unfortunate that Lone Ruin came about two years after the jokes about every indie doing a pixel roguelike became exhausting. It’s well-made and undeniably entertaining, but there’s so much competition in this space and the developers didn’t seem overly concerned with doing something that would actually differentiate their game. So yes. This is a mechanically very solid production that I can recommend to people that like difficult action roguelikes. Unfortunately, I’ll also likely forget about it by the time the next one of these comes along, and that’s probably sometime next w…

COGConnectedJames Paley

65/100

I have a complicated history with roguelite games. They’re an absolute blast when done right, and an exhausting slog when done wrong. Lone Ruin has all the trappings of an excellent roguelite title. The trouble is, there’s just not enough game here to work with. It’s an appetizer that fancies itself a feast. If nothing else, the building blocks in place are properly solid.

WayTooManyGamesAaron Price

6.5/10

I have a massive amount of love for roguelite games, I can’t help it. That’s even more apparent on the Switch, where it becomes so easy to pick up and play a game for 20-30 minutes when you have time without needing to turn on a TV and boot everything else up. Lone Ruin looked right up my alley then, being an isometric roguelite similar to that of Hades. This is the kind of game I’ve been looking for lately, having done everything there is to do in Hades at this point and waiting for th...

GGReconDaniel Hollis

No summary available

Checkpoint GamingElliot Attard

5/10

LONE RUIN is a roguelike twin-stick shooter with a specific focus on spellcasting releasing from Swedish indie studio Cuddle Monster Games. This is their second commercial release and the game kicks off with a bang as the distinctive visuals and thumping soundtrack get your blood rushing. Unfortunately, LONE RUIN sprints to the finish line far too quickly as credits roll long before you feel as though you’ve earned them.