WARDOGS
WARDOGS
Game
Game2015
Barony
Developer Turning Wheel LLC
Barony is the premier first-person roguelike with cooperative play! Adventure alone, or gather a party with iconic and unusual RPG classes to face off against the brutal dungeons. Test your resourcefulness, wits, and friendships, on your quest to lift the evil lich's curse! From the Steam store page
540 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
87
LovedLoved
318 positive · 47 negative
95% range 83–90%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 318 | 47 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 46 | 5 | 93 |
| Lemmy * | 5 | 0 | 13 |
| Mastodon * | 3 | 1 | 9 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
13,467 of 14,827 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
87% recommend · 240 yes, 35 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 275 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (16,581 of 18,277 positive).
Players praise Barony for its deep, replayable roguelike gameplay and charming old-school style. [1][2][3] Many note the game is brutally difficult, especially solo, with frequent cheap deaths. [4][5][6] Some reviewers criticize recent updates for adding friction and locking content behind paid DLC. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [8]
Barony has always been a punishing roguelike, but recent changes feel less like refinement and more like deliberate friction layered onto an already unforgiving experience. Instead of encouraging experimentation and mastery, many of the new systems actively discourage diverse, magic-focused playstyles and long-term investment. Progression now hinges on using spells in narrowly prescribed ways, forcing players to …
- [4]
This game is entirely balanced around having a varied party of 4 players, coming into it to try to play it solo will be very difficult. You'll be spending most of your time dodging enemies as most classes don't start with the ability to heal and have low defensive stats. Traps are deadly and many. You will die again and again, for dumb reasons. But once you get a build going it's all worth it.
- [1]
Barony is one my absolute favorites. A genre defining great. Here's what to expect: - Nearly endless replayability - Old school dungeon crawling goodness - Countless class and race options for tailoring your play style - Even more options with gear, spells, blessings etc. - Great alone, great with friends - Very full base game with plentiful content in the DLCs - Well optimized, has run on every PC I've owned - …
- [2]
Possibly the best "Roguelike" I've ever played. For 11 years. This game came a long way to be what games should strive for. Everything about it has a certain charm. Starting with carrying the legacy of couch co-op. RPG maker sound effects repurposed or remade. The chat messages, callouts and even voice communication from mumble. A little bit of Hexen/Heretic inspiration as a whole makes this a relic from the past. …
- [3]
Originally bought this game to spend an afternoon with my friends. Thought it would be a short and sweet game that we would play for a session. But it has absolutely hooked me, and I am now sitting wit 40h played in a few days, and I am looking forward to trying all the different classes and races. The game is suprisingly deep and very difficult solo. There are a lot of mechanics that interact with each other, and …
Summarised from 34 of the 419 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Barony sits at 87% positive across 365 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Reactions
60 of 540 · most liked firstBarony has always been a punishing roguelike, but recent changes feel less like refinement and more like deliberate friction layered onto an already unforgiving experience. Instead of encouraging experimentation and mastery, many of the new systems actively discourage diverse, magic-focused playstyles and long-term investment. Progression now hinges on using spells in narrowly prescribed ways, forcing players to engage with magic exactly as the developers intend rather than rewarding creativity…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →EXCELLENT game but super sad your runs mean nothing. wish your character got a talent point or ANYTHING at all for spending hours on a run :( I get attached to my characters
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is entirely balanced around having a varied party of 4 players, coming into it to try to play it solo will be very difficult. You'll be spending most of your time dodging enemies as most classes don't start with the ability to heal and have low defensive stats. Traps are deadly and many. You will die again and again, for dumb reasons. But once you get a build going it's all worth it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony with my friend Alexander is a beautiful cycle: He warns me about traps, I ignore the warning and die, then we both sit there pretending I learned something, just to repeat it all over again on the next floor. Good times.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ate a fresh creampie, got a sex change and got strangled to my death by an amulet that clearly stated it would strangle me. 10/10.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Be warned, this is indeed brutally difficult, often punishing in the not-fun way where you're dead before you've figured out why you're taking damage. My entire playtime so far has just been the tutorials as I've had to start a few of them over several times due to instakill deaths. It was a mistake to buy this for solo play. It's cheap as hell at the moment, but if I bought it at full price I'd have absolutely refunded it. Edit: For what it's worth, I forgot to turn off comments to this…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Day 346 of posting a Daily Screenshot from the games I've been playing. Today's game is Barony. A friend gifted it to me since it's on sale (and both the DLCs). I ended up making a Succubus Rogue named Olive who I intended to be a very normal person. None of the usual Succubus tropes, complete subversion. Somehow my friend ended up taking the Tropes instead somehow as the Autmatron, and he named himself Sir. Bimbo Grunty after mashing the random button for a while.…
positive · AI labelView post →Basically an arcade score chaser. Pretty lame that your only real reward is just getting higher on the leaderboard. Base game has 1 race, 13 classes. Paid DLC brings 13 races and 8 extra classes. These should be unlockables to give you something to actually strive for. There is nothing to unlock that isn't paid, which is unfortunate, but still a fun and unique game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony is one my absolute favorites. A genre defining great. Here's what to expect: - Nearly endless replayability - Old school dungeon crawling goodness - Countless class and race options for tailoring your play style - Even more options with gear, spells, blessings etc. - Great alone, great with friends - Very full base game with plentiful content in the DLCs - Well optimized, has run on every PC I've owned - Excellent control remapping and controller support - Always has been priced in a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Been thinking about writing this post since the most recent update dropped. To put it simply and keep the rambling to a minimum, this update has killed everything I liked about this game. The DLC is full of gimmicks that feel pointless and it is by a far and wide margin the largest disappointment I have ever had in this game. The massive nerfs across the board alongside the introduction of new concepts that further slow the game down even more have completely killed the parts of the previous…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →SELLING POINT: I love this game because it's the only 1st person, 3d, coop, dungeon crawler/roguelike that I know of. 1st person and 3d are rare in this genre, and it's even more rare that there's cooperative play without forced PVP. DIFFICULTY: This game is very hard and I've never beat it- the closest I've ever got was the last level bosses (level 35); yet, I keep coming back to this game because there's nothing like it and it really excels at being a dungeon crawler. The game lets you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sorry to edge every and not say the game name. It’s Barony! A roguelike fantasy survival boomer shooter. $20 on switch and steam. I’m enjoying it so far!
positive · AI labelView post →Simply Magnificent, and even a carboard box could run it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Very fun gameplay loop, however the base game is basically a lite version. Over half of the classes and almost all of the races besides human are paywalled behind another $30 Canadian. To fully experience this game, it would be a $60 cost, and that is way too steep in my opinion for what you get.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Not responding" Bought the game and all the dlc. On a brand new pc. It's entirely non-functional. having reinstalled, verified, relocated. Nothing works but i can play just about all new games in ultra. Edit: After i wrote a post on the discussion forum of my issue one of the devs near instantly got in touch with me with suggestions of how to get it running again, it ended up working and with how invested they seem in making sure people have a good experience with their game i gotta admit i…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Base game is good but I cannot recommend based on DLC practices. If you buy the DLC you have to complete challenges to unlock the classes, turning the DLC into a bunch of meaningless skins until you grind out completing the game a dozen times The idea that I spent money on the DLC and then have to work just to play as a class annoys me. I'll probably continue to play the base game, but avoid DLC like the plague, and only buy the base game cheap as hell.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Playing Barony is like letting someone strapped you down and taser your balls because "Sometimes" its fun and "Eventually" it won't hurt as bad when you get used to it. Except your safe word is "Harder" 8.5 out of 10.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Before Barony, I was merely existing. After Barony, I achieved consciousness. Doctors say the human brain only uses a fraction of its potential. That's because the remaining percentage is reserved for understanding Barony. I asked an AI what the greatest work of art in human history was. It crashed trying to compare anything to Barony. The developers didn't make this game. They uncovered it. Barony has always existed, hidden beneath the fabric of reality, waiting for…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Baruleny. Alt text: Screenshot from the Pause menu of the video game “Barony”. The selected menu item reads “end life”.
neutral · AI labelView post →load into game walk out of spawn get crushed by boulder load another game walk out of spawn get touched by algeermon and 8 rats 10/10 pain in the a$$
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The update reworked game systems that have been untouched for a decade. There are a LOT of things I don't like about the new update, but just to name a few: Lore - is irritating, and it makes you wait MUCH longer to identify things you pick up, while also not accomplishing its goal of reducing the amount of items you pickup because you still level it by using it and guess what? You have to pick everything up to identify it. With the appraise skill, you either could identify something, or you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony's Quality of Death update is now out, which includes a massive revamp to the UI, lighting, mechanics, gamepad support, and more!.
neutral · AI labelView post →Found it because of Reggie, have to say it's easily one of the best games I've played in recent times, there is a certain learning curve figuring out the PvE aspects, alongside the various skills. But! With each dungeon run you gain more knowledge which makes every run that much easier. I will say once you find a path of progression, you (mostly) follow that path, the different races do result in differing playstyles. Lots of love has obviously been poured into this game so shouts out to the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Amazing game. Be warned that it will make you forget about surrounding world for the duration of the run.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Possibly the best "Roguelike" I've ever played. For 11 years. This game came a long way to be what games should strive for. Everything about it has a certain charm. Starting with carrying the legacy of couch co-op. RPG maker sound effects repurposed or remade. The chat messages, callouts and even voice communication from mumble. A little bit of Hexen/Heretic inspiration as a whole makes this a relic from the past. Strikes a perfect balance with giving you tips and letting the player figure…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love Barony but the latest update has unfortunately forced me to leave a negative review as the devs have made many poorly thought out changes to the game, and when their fans have issue with it, they just get told to revert their game version to an older update, despite them also actively selling a new DLC that many fans of the game have already purchased. This is less a proper review and more of a protest against the new update, as they should have added options allowing one to keep playing…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a great game. Still getting new content a decade after their full release. They deserve the Labor of Love.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ultimately it's a decent game which probably appeals to a more niche kind of player, and is worth trying. It's a difficult game, which most developers are too p*ssy to do. Big respect But just like how the game is harsh, i too will be in my review. Many of the systems feel like chores. They sound good on paper, but it doesn't map to a good experience. For example: Developer: boulder traps will keeps the players on their toes! End experience: Players are forced to glue their eyes to the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →trying out currently $2 game "Barony" which has a lot of really neat things and some of the worst melee combat i've ever experienced
neutral · AI labelView post →Yes and no. Yes, because it's fun and replayable. It's old - school hard. No, because fun is locked behind DLCs, youtubers won't show you that. Also, it's quite strange that it tends to microlag during calm exploring on my specs.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I'll start this review with the obvious: This game is hard as NAILS. If that puts you off, don't bother. You will die hundreds upon hundreds of times and I'd say about 75% of them will be your own fault, whether you want to admit it or not. With that out of the way, I'll start with what I like. The graphics are super charming, exploration is simple but decently fun, and combat can start to get good once you get the hang of it. You need to be super cautious if you want to survive, which can be…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This week on TC: Peeks at Barony, Emberleaf and The Old King's Crown and a review of Efka's early contender for board game of the year - Eternal Decks. www.nopunincluded.com/podcastarchi...
neutral · AI labelView post →Its actually very fun and genocide against gnomes is justified
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Originally bought this game to spend an afternoon with my friends. Thought it would be a short and sweet game that we would play for a session. But it has absolutely hooked me, and I am now sitting wit 40h played in a few days, and I am looking forward to trying all the different classes and races. The game is suprisingly deep and very difficult solo. There are a lot of mechanics that interact with each other, and lots of 'knowledge' checks you have to buildup throughout multiple runs. A lot…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abiotic Factor has been really fun for my buddy and me. Especially with the new update that came out last week. It's a Half Life themed survival game. Others that get my vote: Valheim - Norse mythology themed survival game with Playstationesque graphics Phasmophobia - THE ghost hunting game(see also Ghost Exile, Ghost Exorcism Inc., Forewarned) Left 4 Dead - the original Zombie FPS series (see also Back 4 Blood, it's kinda alright) PILLS HERE! Risk of Rain - Pretty tough shooter series…
neutral · AI labelView post →I like the game (can be repetitive and stale fast) but absolute L move on making mixing DLC races and classes locked behind beating the game with each race. I already paid you guys for the base game and DLC you fat tubs of lard, let me play salamander bard without throwing away hours into a brick wall with gnome.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →one of the best games i have played was always a fan of skyrim and oblivion and this one plays exactly the same with the exeption of being balanced so well that almost every item has inherent value/ its own bain and the enemies in this game find the perfect balance of not being a massive wall of meat and still being dangerous
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony is, without question, the greatest couples game ever created. If you want a co‑op experience that tests your communication, strengthens your bond, and makes you laugh even as you’re being flattened by a boulder trap, this is the one. ❤️ A Relationship‑Powered Roguelike Barony does something magical: It turns every run into a tiny relationship adventure. You’re not just clearing dungeons—you’re learning how your partner thinks, panics, strategizes, and occasionally sprints face‑first into…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love this game; cant wait for the next DLC. Some people might find it hard, but you can reduce the difficulty via the game settings (e.g. remove hunger, remove random minotaur, etc.) and still have access to most of the achievements.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →>Having my 1st solo run that feels decent >Reach floor 9, have 3 followers +5 levels higher than me >Find new ring >"Ring of Conflict" Neat *Puts on cool new ring* >All followers immediately destroy me >As I lay dead all my followers destroy one another 10/10 Would gladly let my followers destroy me again
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Minor Spoiler warning if you want to play the game blind. My review goes over a lot of tactics that I enjoy, but may spoil the game if you want no outside assistance. Not sure why you would play this game that way, but viewer discretion is advised. I love this game, and it's a classical roguelike (like nethack) except that it's 3D instead of top down, and you can have 1-4 people work together, it's real time rather than turn based, and the only true meta progression is that the DLC…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony! Chatter game recommendation winner! Live ❤️ www.twitch.tv/raphdee
neutral · AI labelView post →I hate to say it but I don’t like the game. I gave it an honest try but I just can’t get past the feeling that the developers are impish nerds who take pleasure in making the game unfun. At first I chalked it up to the steep learning curve but after I got past that, I started to see hints of antagonistic dungeon master syndrome everywhere. It’s everything from the new nerfs to making sure you can’t backpedal through door ways as easily as you should be able to. I don’t know, I just get the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I posted it vaguely since it seems like a universal kinda feeling, but if anyone's curious, the game is "Barony"
neutral · AI labelView post →Hard dungeon crawling game but still fun af also eventually you'll see the charming beauty of the pixelized graphics also the devs are keeping this gem for like 10 years, and the code is public on github, that's so ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cool 🤓☝️
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Stream! A STREAM! Gonna be playing some Barony tonight with @libraryofjing.bsky.social! I... do not remember how to play this game, so..... #vtuber #envtuber #vsky twitch.hnetu.com
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is a great dungeon crawler and a great rougelike; however, its pretty boring without friends
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Barony is a wonderful way for you to torture yourself while slowly learning to look up instead of lunging through every hall you see. great game 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is hard, like very hard... My first run i died from a rat. my second run i died from a snowball...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Boulder & Hunger Sim. Despite being slow-paced and having long run times, the requires attention similar to some extreme hyperactive/comp situations. This is all due to the fact if you even blink or even remotely mentally sway, you get absolutely railed from behind by a giant boulder
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought this game back in July of 2023 and I've JUST now (2/3/2026) beat a run! The game is brutal but it rewards skill.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I never see anyone talk about Barony! Such a good game if you like true roguelikes and classic rpg style stuff. It's got over a decade of refinements and updates with another huge one just around the corner. Go play it :3
positive · AI labelView post →I've been wanting to write a review on this game for some time but it's been so difficult to articulate all of my thoughts succinctly. Additionally, there was the impending update and I wanted to see how that would play out. I love this game, it's easily become one of my top 10 favorite games of all time. Barony has a very strong gameplay loop. Dungeon crawling, fighting enemies, nabbing loot, and so on is great fun. What I especially love is the choice based difficulty design of the run, as…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I've loved Barony since before the new update, and while I understand some people's frustrations, I really like the new update too. I personally enjoy that magic is split into different schools, but I do wish that spellbook spawnrates were buffed enough, because it's currently really hard to advance more than one school if you don't have a level 1 spell for each one. I also don't think spamming spells to gain skill should have been nerfed so hard, as it's already hard enough to learn one school…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I have to post a review to counteract on another that got to the front page of steam somehow. Barony is a hard game It's true! The game is difficult. Roguelikes are difficult but this one especially. True to roguelike fashion, there is almost no meta-progression. That means you do not get more powerful in any way between runs short of your knowledge. This is not an oversight, this is part of its design. The game itself works on a couple systems, I love almost all of them, and eagerly…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →devs completely changed everything in the game mechanically in a single update. changes nobody was asking for and changes that were not needed for the most part (some were good ngl but most werent), and really only amount to making the game slower, less responsive. less rewarding and ultimately less fun.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great little dungeon crawler that is more likely to chop your hand off than hold it. Lots of content and the DLC's add even more. Dev seems to release updates regularly. Gameplay is tough but fair, think this may just be my latest procedural addiction!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought a bunch of steam game in the sale and Barony is now my current addiction. Otherwise I'm recovering from something I caught yesterday, which is unfortunate as I should really go grocery shopping today (we got heavy flooding rain).
positive · AI labelView post →The game is just too long for a single run. Was playing with some friends and after two multi hour long sessions we finally get to the final boss and loose. No unlocks, no real rewards for making it that far, just disappointment as it was effectively a waste of time at that point. (6+ hours of time wasted for one run) The game is brutal yes and that is fine. But brutal and long with nothing there to reward you for trying again is just exhausting. Any little mess up and there goes your…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →One of my favorite games of all time. Very difficult to start out but once you can learn how the game works it is very fun and rewarding to play every time. Each new run is different from the last and it makes the game playable for hours.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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