The Dungeon Beneath

I went into The Dungeon Beneath expecting a lightweight timewaster and came out three hours later genuinely annoyed that my front-line tank had been vaporized by a room-condition ability I had not accounted for. That is not a complaint. That is the game working exactly as intended. The core loop is a lane-based tactical autobattler wrapped inside a roguelite shell: you assemble a party of up to five characters from a pool of heroes and dozens of unlockable units, position them on a small grid before each combat, and then watch the fight resolve while your earlier decisions either pay off or collapse spectacularly. Each party member slots up to three pieces of equipment, and rarer party-wide artifacts can reshape an entire run's strategy. The decision space is narrower than something like Slay the Spire but wider than most pure autobattlers, which puts it in an interesting middle ground. The positioning mechanic is where the game earns most of its Steam goodwill, sitting at a Very Positive rating from over 700 reviewers. Front-row units absorb damage, back-row units deal it, but most characters cannot switch lanes mid-fight without burning their turn, while enemies often move and still attack. That asymmetry forces you to think carefully at the setup screen rather than reacting on the fly. Campfire stops let you level up members or swap them out entirely, which adds a useful layer of roster management between floors. The procedurally generated dungeon layouts and enemy pools keep early runs feeling fresh, and the escalating boss difficulty, including a New Game Plus mode, provides a clear target to chase. Here is my honest assessment of the depth problem, though. At base difficulty, a reasonably attentive newcomer can clear the game without too many runs. That is fine for genre tourists, but players chasing higher difficulties will run into what the negative reviewers correctly identify: balance that funnels you toward one or two reliable team compositions rather than genuine build variety. Some heroes feel considerably weaker than others, certain room modifiers can erase carefully laid plans through no fault of your own positioning, and the roguelite unlock progression does not do enough to open new strategic avenues. The New Game Plus spike in difficulty has been called out by the community as steep to the point of feeling punishing rather than challenging. For newcomers to the autobattler or roguelite genres, The Dungeon Beneath is actually a reasonable entry point. The loop is short enough that a failed run rarely costs more than twenty minutes, the setup screen is intuitive, and the satisfaction of watching a well-positioned party dismantle a boss is immediate and tactile. Veterans of Teamfight Tactics or deeper roguelites like Monster Train may hit the ceiling faster than they would like. Mod support is not a factor here, so what you see at launch is largely what you get. The developer has been active in the community, but balancing changes post-launch have been inconsistent in their reception. If you are the kind of player who enjoys figuring out team synergies in short, focused sessions rather than committing to a 200-hour campaign, this scratches that itch competently. Go in at a discount and you will likely get your money's worth across ten to fifteen runs before the build diversity ceiling becomes visible.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

Be the first to comment on The Dungeon Beneath.