This year had us stuck in many video game time loops, but one of my absolute favourites was Loop Hero. I never thought an autobattler RPG would hook me the way it did, but I spent hours upon hours helping a little knight circle a seemingly endless void, and had a wonderful time doing it. If you didn’t have a chance to play it earlier this year, it’s now free on the Epic Game Store until tomorrow. I heartily encourage you to pick this one up, it’s one of our favourite games of 2021.
Loop Hero is an autobattling, card-based roguelike with the aesthetic of an 80s PC RPG. Your goal is to help a little character beat a series of bosses who’ve seemingly turned the world into a giant void, and you do that by laying out pieces of landscape, fighting monsters, and collecting loot as you round and round a loop.
It’s incredibly moreish, the sort of game that had me saying, ‘Ah, go on, just one more loop,’ over and over. Steve Hogarty enjoyed it too in his Loop Hero review, praising its strategic freedom and ability to keep you on your toes.
“A game about walking in circles, Loop Hero has every right to feel futile, but the opposite is true,” he wrote. “There’s something profoundly rewarding about repeatedly finding yourself back where you started, having gone absolutely nowhere and done nothing, but having a slightly better pair of boots than when you set out. Loop Hero is a peculiar blend of hands-off roleplaying and light card-based strategy. It is a cosy, compulsive thing.”
If you’d like to read more, earlier this year Kat Bailey dug into how Loop Hero taps into the deepest parts of RPG history, and Brad Lang talked to developers Four Quarters abouthow Loop Hero’s impossible mishmash of ideas came to exist.
Or you could personally see what the fuss is about and head over to the Epic Games Store now to claim it for free. You have until 4pm GMT tomorrow to add it to your library. Epic are giving away a free game every day for 15 days over the holiday period, and 4pm every day is when the new one becomes available.
