2021's best indie is now an Xbox Game Pass must-play

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing, over and over and over and over again – but what if, in repeating your life in a continual loop and learning a little bit more about the reason for your existence each time, you actually made progress? What if, instead of being doomed to insanity from repetition, it actually saved your life?

That is the core conceit of Loop Hero – the critically acclaimed indie game that spread its roots through the greatest minds in gaming back in 2021, and kept a whole audience of hapless would-be heroes invested in its cycling mechanics for months. The game, developed by Four Quarters and already massively popular on Nintendo Switch and PC, landed on Game Pass earlier this month. And I’ve already sunk a good 20 hours into it, all over again.

Why? Because Loop Hero is a unique blend of roguelike, strategy, and RPG elements that somehow manages to take a handful of ingredients you know like the back of your hand and have tasted before, and combined them into something wholly new. Something delicious, and unexpected. Something moreish, and filing. Something – somehow – unique.