Rogue Waters

This roguelike heartily embraces trappings of piracy and life on the high seas that flips the traditional pirate ghost story on its head to offer more than appears at first glance.

Ice Code Games' Rogue Waters is a tactical turn-based rogue-lite that's perfect for fans of the genre looking for a pirate adventure.

Rogue Waters isn’t a revolution, but it’s definitely a game that knows what it wants to be and does it well. It offers clever tactical gameplay, an original pirate theme, and addictive roguelite elements. It’s a game for those who love a challenge, tactics, and aren’t afraid of permadeath. If you don’t mind the occasional hint of repetitiveness and can overlook the simpler presentation, you’ll be rewarded with an excellent, engaging, and surprisingly deep strategic journey into the world of sea wolves.

Rogue Waters is an immensely competent mix of tactical RPG and roguelite, elevated by its excellent use of the pirate theme. Unfortunately, the lack of an engaging narrative and the excessively grind-oriented gameplay hinder it a bit, but it is still a game that will please fans of the genre.

Overall, Rogue Waters is a good roguelite, turn-based combat game withs some interesting mechanics and features. It looks good and sounds OK. Some elements are a bit predictable, but I suppose you get that with a bunch of pirates.

A refreshing mix of roguelike elements, strategy, and pirate fun… but it absolutely moves at a peg-legged pace

Rogue Waters delivers an enjoyable mix of tactical ship combat and crew management with fun roguelike elements. However, its repetitive gameplay, predictable story beats, and flat progression system prevent it from being truly great. It’s a solid game for casual roguelike fans and pirate enthusiasts but lacks the depth and variety to keep players fully engaged long-term.

Rogue Waters is a fantastic entry within the rogue-lite and tactical-turn-based strategy genres. Rewarding meta-progression is supported by zany combat that promotes experimentation due to the generous undo feature, allowing for low-stakes trial and error that perfectly suits the slapstick nature of the pirate action. While the naval combat doesn’t feel like it’s fleshed out to its fullest potential, it’s easy to overlook with it being a small part of a much bigger whole that’s generally hard to fault, and if you’re a fan of either genre that Rogue Waters taps into, or, most importantly, a fan of pirates, then Rogue Waters is all but certain to get its hooks into you.

Rogue Waters is worth a sail, especially if you’re craving something with a pirate theme. Just don’t expect to find buried treasure beneath its surface—this is more of a pleasant day cruise than an unforgettable voyage.

Fun turn-based tactical roguelite RPG take on the pirate life with a dash of the supernatural