Rogue Eclipse is a spaceflight action roguelike that boasts an “easy to learn, tricky to master, and impossible to put down” experience. Developed by a solo developer at HUSKRAFTS and published by HUSKRAFTS and Outersloth, Rogue Eclipse was released on August 14th, 2026. Taking inspiration from both arcade spacefighters and Arabesque Futurism, players must solely take down fleets of enemies across several sectors. Players can edit their ship’s design and capabilities before each run with new pieces being unlocked as you progress. Players need to hone their piloting skills in order to stay alive in this challenging game.
I should start off by saying that I am a bit biased against two main features of this game. Aerial dogfighting style of combat was never my thing and I much prefer a roguelite over a roguelike. However, I do believe that some players will enjoy the game for what it is and can give the game a slightly favorable review. The challenge and difficulty promised is certainly there. The flight, for me, felt smooth and I had no trouble maneuvering around space. Rogue Eclipse doesn’t try to overcomplicate things and wants players to easily be able to pick up and play. Simply put, the “easy to learn, tricky to master” aspect is absolutely true.
However, I noticed quite a few things that the current state of the game seemed to be lacking. It takes a decent bit of progress to unlock many ship components. This leaves players stuck with the same few options for many runs due to the challenge level. Mid-run improvements are minimal so runs begin to feel repetitive after a short while. The game is challenging yes, but partly due to the limited number of options to choose from early on. This feels more frustrating rather than entertaining. Overall, I can certainly see why some players will absolutely enjoy this game. Myself and many others will not, leading to a polarizing split of enjoyment.
Malak Against the Phiraun Fleet
The story of Rogue Eclipse begins with Malak, the player pilot, being beckoned within a dream before waking up. A panicked Dr. Noor is glad to see that Malak is alright and informs them of the current state of things. The Phiraun fleet has killed and destroyed most of their fleet and buildings, including their headquarters. Malak is all that Dr. Noor and their allies have left—a last beacon of hope.
After this brief exposition, players can then configure their starfighter. Initially, there isn’t a whole lot available to change, but players unlock more options eventually as they progress. The starfighters frame has the most impactful change I’d argue. Not only does it give a different shape but it also has big increases/decreases in shielding, speed and weapon capacity. The generator and propulsion effect similar aspects but not as highly as the frame. Different ordnances are the different weapons for the starfighter to use alongside the cannon. This includes missiles that lock onto targets or the particle beam to burn through enemies. The expansion is an effect you can use sparingly during combat—initially starting with overcharged weapons or shields.
After launching, players are then able to play the tutorial which only covers the basic controls of the game. I say “only” purposefully because there was a bit more that I wish was mentioned in the tutorial, but I’ll discuss that later. After the tutorial, you are then on your first sector, battling it out against the Phiraun fleet. The combat stays fast paced and consistently intense. Slowing down will leave you vulnerable to attacks and stopping completely is practically a death sentence. Players will need to know when its best to boost, strafe and go on the offense, especially on higher difficulties. If you survive and destroy the Phiraun fleet, you can jump to the next sector in the chapter. This conveniently now displays a counter for how many sectors are in the current chapter.
After jumping to the next sector, you can tune your starfighter, giving it a slight increase in one aspect. Some will give you a longer duration for your overcharge while others give you increased weapons or shield capacity. You can make a new selection or improve a previously chosen one each time you jump to a new sector. The battles only get more difficult as you progress, including different environments such as in an asteroid field. Inevitably, you will fail.
In typical roguelike fashion, you can try again after failing. This brings you back to the difficulty selection screen—recruit (easy), cadet (normal), and ace (hard)— and to configure your starship, especially if you progressed far enough to unlock new frames and/or components. Then the cycle repeats. If you travelled a few sectors previously, you are able to jump ahead to those sectors instead of doing each one every time. You do miss out on the tuning between the sectors though, which may have a slight impact on your chances of success. The end of the each chapter features a unique boss fight. Completing it allows you to move on to the next chapter.
Rogue Eclipse keeps its core game mechanics simple, but don’t get fooled. Simple does not equal easy. It took me many attempts to pass some sectors for the first time, particularly sector 3 of the first chapter. In fact I had to turn the difficulty down in order to pass it. I ended up sticking with the recruit difficulty for the rest of my gameplay—and even then it was still a challenge. Also, keep in mind that this is not a roguelite. Beyond configuring your starship, there are no permanent in-between upgrades that help ensure that you will make progress with each run. You can reasonably die in sector two even after reaching sector six in earlier runs, or end up stuck on the same sector for multiple attempts as I did.
For what the game does offer, I can see how it will appeal to some. The game delivers simple, smooth flight controls and executes its intense dogfighting combat exceptionally well. Rogue Eclipse accomplishes at being a challenging roguelike experience that embodies the “easy to learn, difficulty to master” idea. I will discuss the negatives in the upcoming section, but those are more so for players like me who this game does not appeal to. If this section alone sounds appealing to you, I encourage you to give the game a try before reading ahead. I do think that Rogue Eclipse does well what it intends to do, resulting in a slightly favorable score for my review.
Simplicity Eclipses Interesting Variety
Though I can appreciate Rogue Eclipse wanting to keep things simple, I do think it’s a bit too simple, especially early on. Part of the game’s challenge comes from the limited variety available early on, with new options locked behind progression. The rate at which you do unlock things through progression is very slow. Unfortunately, when you do unlock new things, they’re not always the most exciting pieces of equipment. You will still be working with the same core stats with every unlock, just with different levels. I read a comment from the developer stating that there are 15 unlockable starfighters and 20 sub-components. Sure, some variety might exist, but unless some of these starfighters and sub-components come with unique passives outside of the core stats, then what makes any of this variety interesting? The design? That’s not enough for me.
A similar thing could be said when it comes to tuning the starfighter between sectors. These improvements are very minimal, with most only 5% or 10% increases to the given stat. I believe the highest increase I saw was 30% for shield capacity. This made me feel a bit more safe, but the rest didn’t have the impact I was hoping for. That’s probably why one could just as easily skip past multiple sectors at a time and still have relatively the same experience compared to if they went through each sector and picked up multiple upgrades. And again, they all go back to the same core stats with seemingly no interesting variety that really makes an impact on how I would play. There are no fun traits such as applying elemental effects to your weapons, or maybe an additional ordnance so that you have two.
When the game offers little variety, the runs start feeling repetitive quickly, particularly in the early hours with few starship configurations available. The game definitely relies on the player’s skill in dogfighting more than the starfighter’s capabilities. Again, this will absolutely appeal to some, but for me, it just felt bland. As mentioned, I do have the bias against the two main features of the game, so these negative critiques are fully just my own opinion. However, I believe having more an of interesting variety overall can still result in a challenging, aerial dogfighting roguelike without things feeling too gimmicky. The variety can be relatively tame to allow for more challenge, but can also still feel interesting and purposeful. I want to be excited to try out a different build when I start a new run—not that I’m getting the exact same experience as before.
Lastly, there are some things I’m still not quite sure about or took me way too long to figure out. For starters, I had absolutely no idea what the number in the upper right corner meant until I watched the gameplay overview video on Steam. Apparently, the longer you take in each chapter, the higher the number goes which leads to larger fleets spawning and tougher challenges—an increased difficulty timer. This is not explained in game. For my entire gameplay, I thought that my starfighter was silently leveling up as I defeated enemies. Another thing I’m unsure about is how health and shield regeneration works. It seems that when you destroy an enemy ship, you regenerate both but this doesn’t seem to happen every time? Maybe it depends on which ship type you destroy? I’m really not sure.
This Rogue will Stay In Bed
Overall, I think Rogue Eclipse is somewhat split down the middle for players that will and won’t enjoy it. Players that enjoy challenging roguelikes and aerial dogfighting style of combat will get a kick out of this one. Visually, the game is quite good, with different space environments serving as the backdrop for the combat. The game keeps things simple, allowing for an “easy to learn, tricky to master” style of gameplay. Rogue Eclipse requires the player to actually be decent at the game’s combat. It doesn’t allow for cheap gimmicks or overpowered starfighters to carry you to victory. Popular user-defined tags include “Souls-like” and “Difficult” and they were chosen for a reason. I think for what Rogue Eclipse is, it executes it very well and for this I can give a slightly positive score.
However, this one just doesn’t do it for me, and probably for the many players who are like me. Unlocking new starfighters and components takes a long time and initially your options are very limited. When you do finally unlock new things, they don’t feel vastly different from what you already have, as they seem to all just be different variations of the same core stats. I would have loved for the inclusion of not only an earlier increase to variety available, but also for a much more interesting variety. This would make each run feel like I’m trying something different and not just relying on my same strategy every time. The same thing carries over into tuning the starfighter during a run. Unfortunately for me, the “impossible to put down” aspect just isn’t hitting as I was quite able to put this one down.
Thank you for reading and good luck out there to all you Malaks!
