Auto Dungeon fuses your monsters into abominations, and we can't stop

There are two types of players: those who want a nice, well-balanced army, and those who want to know what happens when you fuse a dragon with a slime and then fuse the result with another slime. Auto Dungeon was built for the second kind, and after several hours stacking monsters until we got creatures that shouldn't exist, we confirm: it's exactly as unhealthy as it looks.

The context

Auto Dungeon is a roguelite autobattler by Blüd Brüther, available on PC and Linux in its finished version after a long stint in early access. The independent studio polished its game until it considered it done, and the players' verdict is unambiguous: 95% positive reviews, which for a niche autobattler is almost a feat. You play a Summoner stripped of his rings, thrown into a procedurally generated astral plane with a simple mission: rebuild an army, crush five champions and recover what's yours.

Collect, summon, and above all fuse

The base loop is classic autobattler and immediately legible. You explore an endless world tile by tile, you fight enemies and rival Summoners, you pick up cards in combat and in chests, then spend them to summon creatures that then fight on their own. You don't control the blows in real time: you build the team, position it, equip it, and watch the machine run. The pleasure isn't in execution, it's in preparation, and it's a genre you either love or flee.

But the real heart of Auto Dungeon isn't summoning, it's fusion. You can combine units together, again and again, to obtain creatures with distorted stats, hybrid traits and frankly unsettling appearances. Across some fifty hand-drawn units, the game opens a genuinely dizzying number of possible mutations, and that's where the addiction is born. You don't fuse to optimize, you fuse to see, and curiosity always ends up winning over caution.

The chimera laboratory

That fusion system is the idea that makes everything take off. Where most monster collectors ask you to capture then level up, Auto Dungeon turns you into a mad scientist. You enchant, you mutate, you capture enemy critters to throw into the grinder, and each combination can reveal a synergy you didn't see coming. The game never holds your hand about what's going to come out, and that element of the unforeseen turns every run into a lab experiment.

The flip side is that this depth is also a wall. Auto Dungeon explains little and leaves the player to dig through its own system, which will delight the tinkerers and lose the rest. The first hours are a string of gropings where you fuse blind without always understanding why one result crushes another. It's a game that rewards obsession and punishes lukewarmness, and you have to accept that contract before diving in. When the click happens, replayability explodes; until it does, you flail a bit.

A roguelite that holds up over time

Like any good roguelite, Auto Dungeon lives off the variety of its runs, and that's precisely where it does better than average. The procedural generation of the astral plane, the randomness of the cards picked up and the near-infinite tree of fusions mean no run really resembles the last. You start a game telling yourself you'll bet on brute force, you hit a card that changes everything, and you finish with a strategy you hadn't planned. That capacity to reinvent itself from one run to the next is exactly what so many of its rivals lack.

The five-champions objective also gives the whole thing a real backbone. Too many roguelite autobattlers settle for a difficulty ramp with no horizon; here, there's a clear target, legible progression and a sense of accomplishment when a boss finally falls. The game doesn't invent the genre, but it respects its rules with a care we salute, and it adds this mutation system that gives it its signature. That's enough to set it apart in a saturated category.

The tech: modest but legible

Don't expect a visual slap. Auto Dungeon is an independent production on a contained budget, and it shows: the interface is functional more than seductive, and the whole thing breathes small-team craft that bet everything on the system rather than the shop window. But the essentials are where they need to be. The hand-drawn units have character, failed and successful fusions alike keep a real visual identity, and you always read clearly what's happening on the battlefield, which isn't guaranteed in the genre.

For comfort, we have nothing blocking to report, and availability on Linux and Steam Deck is a welcome touch for a game this perfect to snack on in sessions. It's exactly the kind of title you relaunch mechanically for a quick run that calls up three more. The modesty of the packaging is largely offset by the solidity of what lies beneath.

What we take away

Auto Dungeon is one of those small games that look like nothing and eat whole evenings. Its fusion system is a find that turns monster collecting into a chimera laboratory, its procedural generation guarantees real replayability, and its five-champions objective gives a clear heading to the obsession. The 95% positive reviews don't lie: it's a roguelite autobattler cut for min-maxing addicts, and it owns exactly what it is.

But you have to be lucid about the barrier to entry. Auto Dungeon explains little, asks you to dig its system yourself, and its first hours can discourage anyone who doesn't like groping around. Add a modest presentation that won't win anyone over on a screenshot, and you get a game you have to earn. For whoever accepts to dive in, it's a gem; for the rest, it stays an opaque curiosity.

Verdict

A roguelite autobattler that turns monster fusion into a lab addiction: opaque at the start, fearsome once tamed, and impossible to put down for optimization obsessives.

Strengths:

• A fusion system that creates fresh chimeras every run
• Procedural generation that genuinely renews the runs
• A clear five-champions objective that structures the obsession
• Perfect to snack on in sessions, Steam Deck included

Weaknesses:

• A steep barrier to entry, the game explains very little
• First hours of groping that can discourage
• A modest presentation that doesn't do justice to the depth

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Tested on PC.