If you couldn’t already tell by how many roguelites we’ve been reviewing lately, we love the genre. But what we love even more is when developers take roguelite mechanics and graft them onto a genre that has nothing to do with run-based progression. Megabonk did it with horde survivors, Ball x Pit did it with brick breakers, and I tried it myself with turn-based JRPGs in Better Luck Next Run. Today’s reveal might be the most ambitious genre mash-up yet: Shot One Fighters, a 2.5D roguelite fighting game from Red Moon Workshop.
Developed in collaboration with FGC veterans Justin Wong and JMCrofts, Shot One Fighters takes the structure of a single-player roguelite and pairs it with real fighting game inputs. Players pick a fighter and earn moves throughout each run, with every move you unlock being one you actually have to perform with the controller. Combos, projectiles, launchers, counters, and gap closers are all on the table, and the moveset evolves run by run. Artifacts dropped throughout the run can warp the rules in unexpected ways, with some boosting your build, some breaking it, and cursed ones threatening to derail the run entirely (or set up something genuinely broken if you can weaponize them).
The story follows Volley, a fighter who broke the seal on something called Paradox and lost her best friend Vlad to the Void as a result. Each death drops her back into the severed head of a kaiju-sized war mech she calls home, where the allies, outcasts, and enemies she pulls out of the Void come back with her. The mech functions as the persistent hub between runs and evolves over time as Volley brings more characters and resources back to it. Boss fights cap each act and are designed to wreck your run regardless of how powerful your build feels, with the rewards for surviving them being the most powerful moves and artifacts in the game.
A six-button control scheme keeps the inputs accessible to players without fighting game experience, but the depth is there for anyone who wants to engage with it on a competitive level. Red Moon Workshop is promising 100+ moves across multiple characters, 100+ artifacts, more than 60 unique events and NPCs, and multiple acts of bosses and elite encounters. There’s no release date yet, but the team has been developing this for years with a Kickstarter that ran earlier this year, and the announcement trailer that dropped today is the most polished look we’ve gotten so far.
Translating real fighting game inputs into a roguelite progression structure is a wild design problem, and the involvement of Justin Wong and JMCrofts gives me confidence that the team understands what makes the genre tick. I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
