Endless Dungeon review: the good reboot

We are starting to get to know the French people of Amplitude well. Their name has been around for more than ten years in circles of strategy enthusiasts. Many of them have already heard of games like Endless Space, Endless Legend or most recent Humankind, a big appeal to Civilization fans who were looking for something to refresh a 30-year-old formula. But Amplitude, we also know them for another title, perhaps a little more discreet: Dungeon of the Endless. A great game, but also very different from the studio’s previous productions. Exit the genre of 4X and turn-based strategy, here we open doors.

Almost ten years after the release of Dungeon of the Endlessthe Parisian studio decides to release a new game, which also has a title that is really easy to remember, and which there is no risk of confusing it with another game. No, that’s not true, it’s called Endless Dungeon.

Strong points

• A well-balanced mix of tactics and action
• This visual atmosphere, pure
• The tension, present from start to finish

Weak points

• Sometimes too dependent on randomness
• Still a few visible technical problems
• Playing it alone has very little point

Oh no, door to door again

Endless Dungeonhe’s a bit like the trendy little brother of Dungeon of the Endless. He’s going to do everything like him, but he wears more stylish clothes, he moves better and he wants to play it cooler, by incorporating a little more action into the formula. The story is about a crew who crash lands on an abandoned space station. The only way to get out is to reach the Core of the station by escorting a small orange crystal on legs, a sort of little robot that follows us everywhere and that we must protect as if our lives depended on it. That’s good because our lives depend on it.

With each new shipment (yes, it’s a rogue-lite), it’s the same refrain. We arrive in a station spread over several floors, themselves made up of several rooms hidden behind doors. The aim of the game ? Open enough doors to find the exit, leave the floor and go down to the next one until you reach the Core. Said like that, the game may seem easy but that would forget one of the big risks incurred when opening a door. You never know what’s behind it.

When you open a door Endless Dungeon, we are rewarded with some resources. Industry, Science and Food (the same as in the other games of the Endless license), which we will spend during our expedition to buy improvements, equipment or turrets to defend ourselves . It is therefore vital to open as many doors as possible to accumulate resources, while keeping in mind that each open door comes with a chance of seeing dozens of monsters land on the screen.

They come in all shapes, sizes and colors, and wait quietly behind certain doors for someone to come and disturb them. There are a whole bunch of threats in Endless Dungeon, arranged in several archetypes ranging from Insects to Robots, to Specters. Nothing really dangerous in small numbers, but all these little critters can quickly become a major problem if you don’t install sufficient defenses. This is where we touch on one of the biggest qualities of the game, namely that it is a formidable tower defense.

More than one trick in my bag

When luck is not on our side, a newly opened room can house a nest, from which a mind-boggling amount of monsters will emerge when a wave is triggered. To contain the invasion, you must place turrets in the different rooms and pray that they manage to kill the majority of the wave without ending up destroyed. Exactly like in a classic tower defense, you will have to study the layout of the rooms and the overall layout of the level to place your defenses in the best place.

It is clearly this tactical layer which adds density to Endless Dungeon, which goes from a simple game where “we shoot things” to a game that is certainly very action-oriented, but which also relies on our ability to anticipate all the problems that tirelessly end up arriving. Together, we will start to study the probabilities and make bets on the new rooms, preferring to open one door rather than another to pile up all the monsters in a corridor that we have previously filled with turrets.

However, no matter how hard we try to plan everything, even a plan that we think is well-oiled leaves room for improvisation when the game decides to trigger a random wave at the worst moment. Opening doors actually raises a danger gauge, constantly displayed at the bottom right of the screen. The higher it is, the greater the risk of experiencing a new wave, and this is when you must coordinate with your team to bring out the heavy artillery.

One last round for the boss

Endless Dungeon features a cast of eight playable characters, each with unique abilities and weapons that you must learn to combine to get the most out of them. Some heroes like Bunker will be able to take a lot of enemy damage, others can heal players or set traps, or use active abilities that can get a team out of trouble if they are launched at the right time. Coupled with specialized turrets (which project fire, acid or electricity at monsters), the heroes’ skills can exploit the elemental weaknesses of creatures and are clearly the key to a successful expedition.

By mixing rather successful action phases with a well-balanced tactical layer, Endless Dungeon manages to modernize the very good structure of its elder Dungeon of the Endless. It’s always a matter of choice and teamwork, here supported by an artistic direction made of bright colors and explosions that make splash on the screen.

But above all, it’s a game that laughs at us. He loves putting us in this state of permanent tension, which pushes us to be on the lookout for the slightest decision and leaves a gaming session with a little sweat under our fingers. While we think we are calmly setting up turrets while whistling, we are going to create a gigantic wave and, in a few seconds, the whole squad will surround the crystal to protect it by shooting in all directions. These changes of pace add flavor to the experience and create very Starship Troopers which remain in memory once the game is over.

There are nevertheless some aspects that the game manages less well, notably in its rogue-lite part which necessarily implies a fairly present random factor, sometimes a little too much. The success of a game will depend a lot on the layout of the rooms and the random generation, which can be frustrating when you know that a run complete can last more than three hours and that the last floors are particularly hostile, just because the random wants us harm.

And above all, it’s a game that loses a lot of its flavor if you play it alone. Our teammates are then controlled by the AI ​​(with the possibility of switching from one to the other at any time) and make the organization very complicated because they do as they please. Solo games are not unpleasant, but much more chaotic – unfortunately never for the right reasons.

Added to this is a battery of small technical problems, not significant enough to spoil the experience or makeEndless Dungeon a broken game, but one that happens to arise several times during long games. We find characters stuck behind a closed door, problems with desynchronization in multiplayer or occasional hiccups linked to gaming comfort.

To enjoy the best the dungeon has to offer, we advise you to take two friends along before embarking on the adventure. You will then have a very good cooperative game, which will be great once it has resolved its technical problems and worked on its balancing a little.

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