Game file / ROGUE BY ROGUEBrotato
Brotato is a top-down arena shooter roguelite where you play a potato wielding up to 6 weapons at a time to fight off hordes of aliens. Choose from a variety of traits and items to create unique builds and survive until help arrives.
Why this score?
Original text · Simplified Chinese
把商店经济和角色约束压缩进短波次，构筑密度高；重复敌人与高难度平衡限制长期表现。
Core gameplay
Weight 25%8.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
短波次走位与波间购物衔接紧凑，自动瞄准降低操作负担；敌人和场地变化少影响长时间节奏。
Builds & strategy
Weight 25%8.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
多武器、属性取舍和刷新经济支撑有效策略，角色规则改变最优购买计划；高难度强弱分化较明显。
Replayability
Weight 20%7.5 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
不同角色限制要求重新分配经济和走位，但敌人问题较相似，无尽模式不足以保证新鲜应对。
Randomness & fairness
Weight 20%7.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
购物与移动可管理风险，掉落缺关键装备及高难度数值倾斜仍会让一局缺少补救空间。
Polish & usability
Weight 10%8.0 / 10Original text · Simplified Chinese
快照肯定低配置运行、掌机及暂停续玩；后续更新的存档和崩溃投诉使可靠性不能给到顶端。
- Reviewer
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Rogue by Rogue · AI 资料评测- Version reviewed
Original text · Simplified Chinese
具体构建未知；以所引资料描述的版本为准
Scope and limitations
Original text · Simplified Chinese
基于收录资料与官方页面的主观归纳，未进行试玩。快照混有基础模式、DLC 与 2026 Nightmare 更新反馈；未将新模式争议直接外推为所有模式结论，存档投诉未复现。
Review sources 02
- 01Archived materialView archived external material ↓
Original text · Simplified Chinese
收录评论与社区资料（2026-10-01 快照）
使用 作者观点摘要 的 Tier list Part 1 (2023) 及 玩家好评与批评 中的机制、交互、重复与易用性反馈；未将外部分数或旧等级用于计算。
- 02Web sourceView original ↗
Original text · Simplified Chinese
Brotato 官方产品说明
2026-10-08 访问。确认六武器、默认自动射击与可选手动瞄准、短波次及本地四人合作。 官方页面不单独证明平衡或稳定性。
Video reviews
Reviews and deep dives from YouTube and Bilibili, in every language. Open the original video to watch.
Other voices, for reference.
Archived third-party reviews and community material may refer to different versions. External opinions and ratings are presented separately; consult the original videos for their full context.
Community discussion
A top-down arena shooter roguelite from Blobfish in which a potato auto-fires up to six weapons at alien hordes across short 20-90 second waves, buying items between rounds to craft builds.
Brotato is one of the best-liked survivors-like games on Steam, at 95.9% positive across about 119k reviews (Overwhelmingly Positive), and it has sold an estimated 2-5 million copies at a $4.99 price. Critics are warmer than lukewarm but more reserved than players (Metacritic 76, OpenCritic Top Critic Average 76), mostly praising the addictive short-run loop and build variety while noting limited enemy variety and repetition. It is a full release (early access ended June 2023) that has been actively updated. Development moved from Blobfish to Evil Empire (Dead Cells studio) in 2025, which brought the New Dawn update and later the May 2026 All Pain No Gain update with the Nightmare difficulty. That update drew a wave of negative reviews from long-time players, though the overall score stayed very high.
What players praise
- Huge build variety: dozens of potatoes (characters), lots of weapons and items, and stat-stacking synergies that make each run feel like a different recipe
- Very short waves and quick runs give a strong 'one more run' pull and suit short sessions
- Characters change how you play rather than just tweaking stats, and some only make sense once you figure out their gimmick
- Between-wave shop, rerolls, economy and positioning add real strategy on top of simple auto-aim shooting
- Excellent optimisation: runs on low-end hardware and is praised on Steam Deck, with auto-aim suiting handhelds and the ability to pause/resume a run across devices
- Local split-screen co-op is widely appreciated
- Exceptional value at about $5 with hundreds of hours of replay and cheap DLC
- No grind-heavy meta progression, so new players can start playing the real game immediately (cited by Niche Gamer as a good roguelike entry point)
- Highly addictive, low-friction loop: top-voted positive reviews describe logging hundreds of hours and marathon co-op sessions with friends
What players criticize
- Low enemy variety: several players say build combinations far outnumber enemy types, and the brown arenas and purple aliens feel samey over time
- Repetition and a half-baked endless mode are the most common long-session complaints in aggregated review analysis
- Balance: some characters, weapons and item archetypes are seen as overpowered or near-useless; higher difficulties funnel toward meta builds
- Heavy RNG in shop offers: a run can be decided by whether the shop gives you what your build needs, which feels bad after a 40-60 minute run
- Too many stats to track; losing a long run because a stat like speed or regen was slightly low frustrates some players
- Critics and some players find it light on lore, exploration and traditional roguelite progression, more a 'mini-game' than a full campaign
- Achievements locked behind DLC annoy completionists, and DLC is seen by some as not matching base-game quality
- Save-wipe and crash reports after the Evil Empire takeover updates, with some players reporting lost progress
- The May 2026 All Pain No Gain update is the dominant recent complaint: the most-upvoted negative reviews (400-850 hour players) say Nightmare's bullet spam and tripled enemy health changed the game's feel
Distinctive features
- Survivors-like with a twist: tiny screen-sized arenas, short timed waves and a shop between rounds, closer to The Binding of Isaac item-stacking than Vampire Survivors' big sprawling maps
- Manual movement only with auto-aimed weapons, combined with a six-weapon-slot limit and stat-based scaling (armor, dodge, harvesting, engineering, etc.)
- Potato characters with bizarre constraints, such as a one-hit-death character (The Wounded) or builds around turrets and pets
- Deliberately minimal meta-progression: unlocks and higher danger levels rather than permanent power upgrades
- Runs on almost anything, with cross-platform availability (PC, Switch, Xbox, PlayStation, mobile) and Steam Workshop mod support
Divided opinions
- The All Pain No Gain update: many veteran reviewers feel Evil Empire pushed the game toward a bullet hell and made it exhausting, while others welcome the extra challenge and note the base game had become too easy
- Depth versus accessibility: some want more meta-progression and long-term goals, others value the clean, quick, no-grind structure
- Comparison with Vampire Survivors: fans call Brotato the better, faster game, while critics say it has less skill expression
- Whether DLC is good value for the price
Repetition and friction
- Losing a run late, after 40-60 minutes, and restarting from scratch (several negative reviewers describe starting over repeatedly between waves 3 and 14)
- Endless mode and post-Danger 5 play, which some call pointless or repetitive once everything is unlocked
- Chasing 100% achievements, especially those requiring DLC and new achievements added with each update
- Nightmare difficulty: tripled enemy health, environmental projectiles from screen edges and fog, widely described by unhappy long-time players as bullet-hell spam that makes shop RNG decide runs
- Sifting through a bloated shop and item pool, which the new pets feature is said to have made worse by some players
Hoped-for improvements
- Add native online co-op; Steam Remote Play Together is reported as poor or unplayable
- More enemy types and arena/biome variety, plus a stronger endless mode
- Clearer item descriptions and better in-game explanation of stats and scaling
- Rebalance Nightmare and the shop so it is not dominated by glass-cannon builds and shop luck, or offer a less punishing way to engage with the new content
- Quality-of-life additions such as co-op item exchange, more picks when luck is high, and better save safety between versions
- More lore/world building and optional long-term goals or meta-progression, since some newer players find it a 'cute distraction' lacking roguelite hooks
Launched into full release on PC on June 23, 2023 after early access, then came to Switch, Xbox, PlayStation and mobile. Steam-side it has been consistently very positive. Steam revenue calculators estimate about $28.4M gross and about $8.4M net to the developer with 2-5M owners (Boxleiter-type estimates, not audited). Metacritic has only 4 critic reviews and 252 user ratings on PC, so the 76 is thin. OpenCritic lists a Strong tier, 63rd percentile, with Top Critic Average about 76. In 2025 Evil Empire took over support; the New Dawn update reached PC in late October 2025 and consoles and mobile about a month later. The May 13, 2026 All Pain No Gain update added Nightmare difficulty, a new character (The Wounded) and a new weapon (Railgun), and a cluster of recent negative Steam reviews from 100s-of-hours players followed, along with some reports of wiped saves. Console launch versions reportedly had glitches that were patched.
Community sources
- Top helpful positive and negative English Steam reviews (local file) ↗
- Steam store data: appid 1942280, Blobfish, $4.99, 95.9% positive, SteamSpy owners 2-5M, revenue estimate ↗
- OpenCritic page: Top Critic Average 76, 57% recommend, individual critic scores and verdict snippets ↗
- Metacritic: Metascore 76 from 4 critics, user score 7.8 from 252 ratings ↗
- Aggregated player-review summary: praise, complaints weighted by frequency, suggestions, divisive points ↗
- 200+ hour enthusiast review: combat feel, character/weapon variety, value, console glitches ↗
- CGMagazine PC review (7.5/10) ↗
- Estimated gross and net revenue for Brotato ↗
- Coverage of the All Pain No Gain update and Nightmare mode ↗
- Evil Empire taking over support and the New Dawn update ↗
- New Dawn update release timing across platforms ↗
Archived creator commentary 1
Third-party summaries based on automatic captions may contain transcription or interpretation errors.
Tier list Part 1 (2023)
Brotato is a top-down, single-level arena roguelike where weapons fire automatically and you just move and collect. He loves its huge roster of characters and shop items that each carry upsides and downsides, which makes builds deeply customizable despite repeating enemies and items. He has played it more than most games on the list and calls it one of the better single-level-layout roguelikes. The 'solid eight' is almost certainly ASR for 'A', placed above Arcanium.
What the creator praises
- 40+ characters that play drastically differently, each with big upsides and downsides
- Shop items also come with tradeoffs, so build management is constantly interesting
- Huge amount of build customization even with the same items and enemies
- Easy to pick up and play; auto-firing weapons make it great on Steam Deck
- Sound design and music are great
- Minimalistic animation and enemy visuals fit the game fine
- Everything is focused on the gameplay itself
Issues raised by the creator
- Wishes there were a bit more enemy variation
- Minimalistic visuals and animation (accepted as a fitting choice)
- Looser roguelike: you unlock characters and items but not upgrades
Design observations
- Character design where every character has major strengths and weaknesses forces run management around the pick
- Item upsides and downsides create meaningful choices in the shop
- Unlocks only widen options rather than add power, so it is pure fun to pick up
