The WhatsNext verdict
Rogue is essential for players who want the raw, foundational thrill of tactical dungeon exploration where knowledge matters more than accumulation. Its influence is enormous, but its harshness and opacity are part of the package.
What it does best
The blueprint for an entire genre
Every step is a life-or-death calculation
A dungeon full of dangerous surprises
The original one-more-run obsession
What might put you off
Permanent death and severe difficulty
Opaque item identification
The setup
What you are walking into
Rogue is a dungeon crawling video game first developed by Michael Toy and Glenn Wichman around 1980. It was a favorite on college Unix systems in the early to mid-1980s, in part due to the procedural generation of game content.
Where it lives
PDP-11Atari 8-bitPC-8800 SeriesCommodore C64/128/MAXZX SpectrumTRS-80 Color ComputerAtari ST/STEPC (Microsoft Windows)MacDOSAmigaAmstrad CPC
Genre
Role-playing (RPG)StrategyAdventure
Vibe
Fantasy
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