Knightica

Genre: Roguelike / Strategy / Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

Knightica, released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, is one of those strange blends of genres that’s difficult to describe, but that’s relatively easy to grasp once you’ve played it for a bit, with elements of Roguelike, Strategy, Puzzle, and RPGs, all in a game about commanding your army of fantasy creatures and pitting them after hordes of demons one wave after another.

To describe the gameplay, it’s probably easiest to start with the Roguelike elements. Each battle is preceded by a shop phase where you’ll buy units to permanently add to your army. These units are randomly offered, and players can spend a little currency to reshuffle and/or replenish these offerings.

Once purchased, units are arranged on the battlefield like Tetris pieces, with players being mindful of their positioning as units can gain bonuses or negative effects depending on what other units they’re placed adjacent to. Units can be leveled up by placing another unit of the same type onto it, keeping your battlefield tidy while still making use of the consumed unit’s power. Furthermore, players can spend some of their funds to expand their battlefield to allow for more units to be placed.

Once you’ve spent as much as you can or want to, you can start the next battle, where your forces face off against enemy forces. Your troops will act on their own, following a strategy specific to that unit – some hang back and fling projectiles, some charge ahead to fight enemies in a melee, and some do some other sort of action.

Most Roguelikes live or die by the synergies you can find in different combinations of the random things you encounter, and here this is true as well, with some troop types giving chain reactions of bonuses to others, which then trigger additional bonuses, or other troop types giving a bonus when they die which works in concert with troops that benefit from friendly troop deaths. it is immensely satisfying to get a synergistic group of troop types arranged just so, that build to become something fearsome in battle.

That said, the battles themselves are absurdly chaotic, with unit types all piling up in the same area so they become indistinguishable from each other. And it’s hard to be entirely sure how well your troops are doing, or whether or not one of your troops is contributing enough to be worth keeping. You can do what seems to be a strategically-advantageous battle formation, but in the end it feels like you’re often just waiting and seeing if you’ve put together a good team, rather than being confident that your troops will outdo the opposing horde.

The presentation here makes use of 2D visuals with a distinctive cartoony art style that makes the game look distinct, but once again does little to help with the “everyone piling up in one place” issue. This is backed by some decent fantasy-esque music that works well for the game, but that I didn’t find to be especially memorable, especially over the loud sounds of the battles.

Overall, I really enjoyed Knightica, and I feel like it’s so close to being the next great Roguelike genre mash-up. The only thing keeping it from getting there is the sheer chaos of everything going on, which runs counter to the game’s strategic elements. But even this issue doesn’t stop the game from being a blast, trying to find the best placement of the most synergistic combination of troops for your army. If “quirky unique Roguelike games” is something that catches your interest, you will absolutely want to play Knightica.

tl;dr – Knightica is a game that combines Roguelike, Strategy, and Puzzle elements as players gradually buy and assemble their ideal synergistic army to face off against increasingly challenging demonic hordes. The Roguelike elements here are truly satisfying, and finding a good combo is exactly the sort of thrill you look for in the best Roguelikes. Unfortunately, the chaotic nature of battles detracts somewhat from the strategy. However, even with this flaw, this is absolutely a game that fans of Roguelike genre-mashups will want to check out.

Grade: B

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This game has been nominated for one or more of eShopperReviews 2025 Game Awards:

Runner-Up: Best Roguelike, Best Strategy Game, Best Puzzle Game, Best Misc. Game

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