The action Roguelike genre has been popping in recent years, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be slowing down any time soon. Yeah, Hades 2 might have Roguelike Of The Year locked up for 2025 already, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been room at the table for some other bangers, either.
Thunderful Publishing seems to be developing a keen eye for these projects, as they already pushed out Lost In Random: The Eternal Die alongside Stormteller Games earlier this year, a title I personally had a great time with back when I reviewed that one as well.
Now, we have Godbreakers, a stylish, co-op capable, action Roguelike from the team at To The Sky. I previewed this title way back in July, and I’d had such a good time alongside a couple of my colleagues that I truly couldn’t wait for the game’s full release to see if it could stick the landing.
After spending a wonderful chunk of time with Godbreakers over the last several days, I’m happy to report that this is yet another entry into the 2025 Roguelike catalog that brings something fresh, exciting, and simply fun to the party. Don’t let this one slip under the radar if you’re a fan of the genre.
Vibrant, Stylish Presentation
Right off the bat, and especially once you jump into the first real level after a quick tutorial, you’ll quickly notice that Godbreakers is one of the most vibrant games out there. It’s a visual style that I think works amazingly well, and gives us constant fun and colorful things to look at without falling into the Fortnite-style vibe that many other hyper-vibrant games seem to want to ape these days.
Across the game’s six levels you’ll set out to conquer, the saturation of color on the screen will keep your senses satisfied with each and every run as you (and maybe some friends) set out to complete your mission of becoming human again and saving the sun after AI wiped out civilization.
I will say, the story here is a little sparse overall, and feels a tad generic at times. But there are still some nice reveals here and there, as well as plenty of interesting lore drops you’ll pick up from various interactable items throughout each biome, which autoplay in the background as you continue to progress.
Even if the narrative never truly blew me away, that’s okay. The game runs as smooth as butter, and again, everything looks so awesome that I was satisfied regardless. The strong performance is even more impressive when you factor in that you can play with up to three buddies at the same time. Godbreakers is well-optimized from stem to stern.
The cherry on top of the presentation here is the music, which kicks in at all the right moments and serves as perfect motivation to keep moving forward. The boss fights have truly standout tracks, a couple of which reminded me of the jazzy battle music from Persona 5.
Jolly Cooperation, Or Satisfying Solo Play
Godbreakers can be played solo, or with a group of up to four players. Developers To The Sky will tell you that the game is best experienced with a team, but to be completely honest, I personally don’t have much of a preference myself. I never got a full group of four together, but I was able to run some trios. Ultimately, for this review process, however, I was on my own more often than not.
Truly, I think you’re going to have a great time, whatever your party preference may be. The game also scales based on the number of human players, with enemies and bosses showing up in higher quantities and with more HP/attack power if you have a full squad of four. It’s balanced really well no matter how you choose to experience the game.
If you’re like me and tend to skew more single-player-minded in general, don’t be discouraged by the fact that this is a game that’s being touted as a co-op Roguelike experience. However you choose to play it, the game morphs itself into the best experience possible. The co-op gameplay is more chaotic, and the constant stream of buffs and move synergies between teammates is awesome, to be sure.
All gas, no brakes.
Still, there’s something really nice about the solo experience here too, and the game starts to take on a much more tactical and precise feel when you have no one else to rely upon but yourself in the face of a hulking boss with tons of devastating AOEs, or swarms of aggressive grunt enemies.
All Killer, No Filler
Whichever way you decide to experience Godbreakers, the game is all gas, no brakes for its entire duration. There’s little time dedicated to narrative, nor is there a ton to really manage and fuss with between runs as you attempt to work through all the game’s worlds in one go.
I, for one, am glad about this design choice. Godbreakers’ third-person action combat style is so fun and fluid that I never wanted to waste my time with anything else anyway. All you’re going to be doing here is fighting enemies, and it feels amazing.
You get into a genuine flowstate with every move in your arsenal.
As a Soulsborne diehard, the combat had me feeling right at home in no time. You have a light attack, a charged heavy, and the ability to chain the two together for devastating combo moves. Additionally, you have a dash, a jump, and attack styles to go with both these moves as well.
The cool selling point here, however, is the godbreaking ability, which allows you to inhabit an enemy when their health is low enough, detonate them into oblivion, and steal a single-use of their powers as a result. It’s kind of like Kirby, except much more explosive. These powers can be run winners when deployed at the right times, so experimenting with godbreaking every enemy in the game is a must.
You also have a special move on a cooldown, as well as items like grenades or poison AOEs to leverage as often as their timers reset too. It’s a decent number of things to juggle at first, but once you’re able to wrap your head around everything, you get into a genuine flowstate with every move in your arsenal.
As cool as the combat is, a Roguelike is really only as good as its enemies and bosses, and Godbreakers, once again, is all killer, no filler in this regard as well. Basic enemies all have satisfying movesets to learn and internalize, and each encounter becomes a dance of proper dodging followed by an onslaught of punishment from the end of your blade (or whatever weapon you’re choosing to use from the game’s six character subclasses).
Bosses are all incredibly well-designed with challenging AOEs and often times some kind of unique and creative gimmick to learn all the ins and outs of. The ramp up in difficulty between each one is pretty much perfect, culminating with a really cool final boss that caps off a run in dramatic and rewarding fashion.
A New Meaning To Cancel Culture
One last feature of the combat that I think deserves its own little section of this review is the wonderful dodge canceling mechanic. In fact, back when I previewed this game in July and got to watch a presentation from the dev team, one of the things they were most eager to discuss was this canceling ability.
One of the slickest action games in recent memory.
Basically what this means is, no matter what action you’re doing on the screen, be it an attack swing or a special ability use, you can always dodge out of your move and cancel it immediately. If you’ve ever played Dark Souls and felt frustrated that you feel stuck in an animation and can no longer dodge an incoming attack even if you clearly see it coming, this feature is for you.
Dodge canceling might sound like something small, but this simple addition makes every single combat encounter so insanely fluid and responsive, that Godbreakers ends up feeling like one of the slickest action games in recent memory. I can’t imagine the game without this dodge cancel feature, and honestly, it’s going to be a bummer to go back to some of my favorite action games that don’t have this mechanic now that I’ve used it and loved it so much here.
This simple but incredible feature really drives home what Godbreakers does well, which is all of the little things. No, nothing within the game is truly revolutionary, but it’s all so well executed, thoughtful, and finely tuned that it ends up being a genuine joy to play consistently, run after run.
A good Roguelike also has to feature rewarding progression, unless it’s simply the type that demands you “get good” to overcome the game’s challenges. Godbreakers is a little of both. On a run-to-run basis, you’ll pick up buffs and abilities to make your current attempt a little easier. These include things like more health/better healing, as well as your attacks stacking status effects, like burn, poison, and lightning.
There’s some RNG involved here, so the rewards you get after clearing out rooms of enemies will vary (as they do in most other Roguelikes). That means that you might not always be getting as strong as you’d like, but also that certain runs will give you an incredible loadout of perks that can lead you to a victory.
There are also permanent perks you can unlock between runs back in the hub world, like additional healing items and more items/buffs to choose from on a regular basis during a run. None of these feel like total game changers in the moment, but once you start to stack enough up, you’ll absolutely notice yourself getting appropriately stronger.
All of these things considered, it still only took me three total attempts to “beat” a run. After doing this once, however, you’ll quickly learn the game isn’t actually over, and you need to attempt things all over again with a collection of difficulty modifiers active to make things even more challenging.
You’ll also keep unlocking new subclasses to try out, though my favorite was just the standard Lancer class that you have available. from the beginning. In addition, you’ll also earn a steady stream of fun cosmetics to have your character looking exactly how you like.
Quests For The Sake Of Quests
One area where I think Godbreakers drops the ball a bit is in the implementation of several quests to complete during runs. These are small goals that are area specific, and almost always revolve around something simple like killing a certain number of enemies with a level-specific environmental trap, or reading enough lore logs found throughout an area.
These are all entirely fine, but never that exciting, and end up feeling a little like busy work to juggle while you’re simply trying to survive your latest run. What’s worse is that sometimes, the quest objectives are hardly explained at all, which led to many where I simply had to experiment and try different random things out until I noticed my quest tracker percentage going up.
This would be fine if these were just optional side goals, but you actually need to complete around seven little tasks in each of the game’s levels to unlock all the necessary difficulty modifiers to earn the true ending. It feels bad in the instances where you truly don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, also with the understanding that you can’t actually beat the game till you figure this obscure goal out.
The one additional activity I did think was pretty cool in Godbreakers was the inclusion of random time trial challenges that have the chance to spawn into your run randomly. These are always optional, but offer loot and health rewards if you’re able to clear them within the designated time timeframe.
It was cool and unexpected to see these precision platforming-based trials show up in the game, and I typically had a blast testing my movement skills in these challenges. Do they ultimately add much to the game and feel like a necessary inclusion? No, not really. But it’s just another example of one more cool thing that Godbreakers adds in to the Roguelike formula to keep it all feeling fresh and exciting from start to finish.
Closing Comments:
Godbreakers is awesome solo, and a blast with friends. The Roguelite structure combined with slick, kinetic, third-person action is a wonderful fit and hits a lovely flowstate often. Snappy dodge canceling makes the gameplay consistently fluid and rewarding, and enemy/boss designs are all great. I’m having a very good time running this game over and over with different modifiers, I just wish some of the quests were a bit more clear in their objectives. Still, Godbreakers is well worth checking out, regardless of if you’re going it alone or with a squad.
- Security Camera Installation – indoor/outdoor IP CCTV systems & video analytics
- Access Control Installation – key card, fob, biometric & cloud‑based door entry
- Business Security Systems – integrated alarms, surveillance & access control
- Structured Cabling Services – voice, data & fiber infrastructure for new or existing builds
- Video Monitoring Services – 24/7 remote surveillance and analytics monitoring
Author: 360 Technology Group
.png?format=1500w&ssl=1 "Shudder To Think announce 2026 tour dates")
