Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is a remake of a classic roguelike puzzle game

The old indie darling is back in 3D

Desktop Dungeons, the beloved turn-based roguelike, is coming back with a new style. And while it can be tricky going from a quaint pixel art presentation to a more general modern 3D style (albeit with nice new illustrated character art), the main draw was — and should still be — the puzzle-solving gameplay. Developer QCF Design announced the 3D remake Desktop Dungeons: Rewind for Steam with an estimated Q4 2022 release.

According to the team, “the goal with Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is to bring a game we love to modern devices and modern audiences. For a long time we’ve felt that we’ve under-served players with the resolution choices we made for Desktop Dungeons back in 2011 (!!) and have had to stick with since. This is the perfect opportunity for us to address that, while adding new features to the game to make it smoother and more rewarding to play.”

You can, in fact, rewind

One of the main new features in Desktop Dungeons: Rewind is the ability to rewind your turns when you die, in order to take better steps in the run-up to the boss.

Success comes down to knowing when to poke around the darkness, when to pick fights, and when to double down — you’ll regain health and mana by exploring shrouded dungeon tiles, so it pays to move deliberately. If you play it right, your hero will accumulate lots of XP on lowly creeps and become powerful enough to outlast the boss.

Of course, with different classes, gods, status effects, and other “oh huh…interesting” mechanics in the mix, it’s never quite that straightforward. Over time, you pick up a play style and learn to factor in all of the little considerations that add up to a successful run.

Nowadays, roguelikes and roguelites mean a lot of things to a lot of different people, and plenty of folks are tired of all but the best of ’em. I still have a soft spot for Desktop Dungeons. In my mind, it’s a puzzle game at its heart, especially now with rewinds.

The original game lives on to this day (out of curiosity, I checked to see the last time I played it; 2015), so Rewind isn’t replacing anything. It’s still up on Steam.

Interestingly, old game saves will be “fully compatible” with Desktop Dungeons: Rewind.

QCF Design says to expect “hundreds of hours of content, daily online challenges, the amazing soundtrack by Danny Baranowsky and Grant Kirkhope, all the DLC, and more.”