Shogun Showdown is a lesson in positioning

Shogun Showdown tasks you with thinking at least two turns ahead. You can’t simply attack whenever you want in this turn-based combat roguelite. Instead, you have to use a turn to load your attack into a queue, then use another turn to unleash that queue on your enemies, who have been advancing on you, turn by turn, with their own queued actions. Complicating matters further, you have to use a turn to move yourself one space forward or backward. You even have to use a turn to, well, turn, as it matters what direction you’re facing.

Put simply, the entire game is about positioning. It’s about setting yourself up for success. In that way, it’s a bit like choosing when to launch an indie roguelite on Steam. It’s not enough just to come out swinging — you have to position yourself well.

Perhaps you didn’t notice that Shogun Showdown recently hit 1.0. Perhaps you hadn’t heard of it at all since it was released in early access in 2023. I hadn’t. And that’s a shame. Developed by Roboatino, Showdown is a crunchy, satisfying roguelite where you play out a series of battles, comboing shuriken into grappling hooks into a slice of your blade as a final flourish. Each 30-40-minute run (perhaps a little shorter if you’re more decisive than I) tasks you with planning out a series of attacks while your enemies do the same, each party sorting out their intentions and moving about a singular 2D lane in turn-based combat that feels equal parts deadly and balletic.

If I have any real qualms with the experience, it may be that the meta-progression of unlocking new combat abilities is a tad slow. I might also quibble with the game’s soundtrack, which grows a bit repetitive over time. Though on both of these fronts, I’m not actually that bothered. Even though I’ve only just unlocked fancier abilities, like a sword that gains one attack power per turn it spends in your queue and a kama that can strike two spaces ahead, ignoring the enemy directly in front of you, I’ve never felt bored by the game’s initial offerings. Likewise, when it comes to the music, newly unlocked areas feature new tracks, and, to be real about my media consumption habits, the game is a perfect complement to any podcast. I played the game on Steam Deck, popping in for a few battles at a time between other tasks, and, like any roguelite worth its salt, the game plays just as well in short bursts as it does over the long haul.

Really, as I played, the only real thing that kept nagging at me was why, exactly, more people aren’t talking about Shogun Showdown.

The obvious answer is the difficulties of game discovery in the year of our lord 2024. I don’t want to belabor the point any more, but it’s impossible to deny the reality that even bangers like Shogun Showdown aren’t getting their due at least in part because of the glut of terrific games on offer this year, month after month, week after week. But I want to go a step further than just explaining it all away with “too many good games omg.” I also think that Shogun Showdown suffers from, of all things, positioning.

I’m not a developer, nor do I possess any particular knowledge of when it’s best to launch a game, but I feel confident saying it’s hard to think of a more difficult year than 2024 to launch a new roguelite. The year started with Balatro, turning us all into card-counting freaks, followed shortly by the early access release of Hades 2. If that all weren’t enough, Windblown, the next game from Dead Cells developer Motion Twin, came out in early access on Oct. 24. Hell, to add insult to injury, there’s even a turn-based roguelike in UFO 50. Safe to say, while it’s never easy to perfectly time a game’s release, when it comes to launching a roguelite in 2024, the difficulty level is bordering on punishing.

Still, I’d like to make a pitch for Shogun Showdown, because, frankly, it deserves your time. Here’s my pitch: Buy it, put it on your Switch or Steam Deck, and forget about it. I mean it. Late 2024 is not the best time to be arguing whether to purchase yet another roguelite, but there will undoubtedly come a time when, in between some other obsession, you’ll remember you bought it. You’ll see it sitting there in your library and go, Oh, right, that one guy on Polygon told me to buy this, and, despite the oddity of his argument, I listened to him. Then you’ll boot up the game, forgetting all about when it launched, or what other games it was in conversation with at the time, and whether it compared more or less favorably to Hades 2, and you’ll just play it. You’ll play it, and, if you like these kinds of games, you’ll have a great time.

Shogun Showdown teaches you, through its mechanics, to think ahead to a time where it will be most advantageous to act. I’m willing to bet that right this second, you don’t have room for another game in your docket. But you will. Probably. Eventually. And at that moment, Shogun Showdown, with its tight combat and perfectly podcastable gameplay loop, will be there, ready to strike. All you have to do right now is queue it up.

Shogun Showdown was released Sept. 5 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was played on PC using a download code purchased by the author. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.