This year we’re stuck in many video game time loops, but one of my absolute favorites is Loop Hero. I never thought an autobattler RPG would appeal to me the way it did, but I spent hours helping a little knight around a seemingly endless void, and there was a Great time to do it. If you didn’t get a chance to play it earlier this year, it’s now free on the Epic Game Store until tomorrow. I sincerely encourage you to choose this one, it is one of the our favorite game of 2021.
Loop Hero is an auto-battle, card-based RPG with the aesthetics of an ’80s PC RPG. Your goal is to help a small character defeat a series of bosses who seem to It’s like turning the world into a giant void, and you do that by laying out landscapes, fighting monsters, and collecting loot as you go around in circles.
It’s a lot more fun, the kind of game where I have to say, ‘Ah, come on, just one more loop,’ over and over. Steve Hogarty also liked it in Review Loop Hero, praising the strategic freedom and ability to keep you steady.
“A game about walking in circles, Loop Hero has every right to feel vain, but the opposite is true,” he wrote. “There’s something incredibly rewarding about constantly finding yourself where you started, getting absolutely nowhere and doing nothing, but having a slightly better pair of boots than you did when you hit the road. Loop Hero is an odd mix of realistic role-playing and light-hearted strategy-based cards. It’s a must-have, cozy thing.”
If you want to read more, earlier this year Kat Bailey found out how Loop Hero taps into the deepest parts of RPG historyand Brad Lang talked to Four Quarters developers abouthow to survive Loop Hero’s impossibility of ideas.
Or you can personally watch what the fuss is about and go to Epic game store now to claim it for free. You have until 4pm GMT tomorrow to add it to your library. Epic is giving away one free game every day for 15 days during the holiday period, and daily 4pm is when new games are available.
