"Shape of Dreams expands upon the action rogue-like genre in ways that rival and occasionally surpass Vampire Survivors, something very few other titles have been able to accomplish"
I must admit when I was first made aware of Shape of Dreams, the key art alone almost turned me away, It just didn’t appeal to me, and to be honest, it still doesn’t to this day, and even after looking at some gameplay, my less than enthusiastic opinion of Shape of Dreams’ design philosophy was not changed.
However, after spending some time playing Shape of Dreams, I can safely say that while it may not be pretty, it is incredibly well made, and offers some of the most engaging, easy to pick up, and eventually challenging content that the action rogue-like genre has to offer, with a progression system that rivals and occasionally surpasses some of the biggest names in the genre.
While most action rogue-like titles allow players to play as different “classes” of characters, this often is limited 1 or 2 differences between classes, or occasionally a different starting weapons, however in Shape of Dreams characters represent both difficulty level and playstyle, with players being able to choose between a variety of roles, in addition to each character having multiple specialisation trees called constellations.
This mechanic (constellations) allows players to customise their chosen character even further, by specialising them for certain roles, such as team support or single target damage, an added layer of strategy more commonly found in MMORPGS and similar party based games.
While the entire game can be completed solo, unlike the vast majority of games in the action rogue like genre, Shape of Dreams can be played in groups of up to 4 players, allowing players to tackle harder levels and bosses as a team, build complementarity builds, and take turns raging when they get one shot by a low tier boss because they were not paying attention (To be fair I was checking my phone at the time!)
Shape of Dreams allows players to mix a max a wide array of active abilities called memories and modifiers called essences, which bring unique, and occasionally gamebreakingly powerful (in a good way) changes to active abilities, such as adding addition damage, changing damage type or increasing a certain stat for a set amount of time after use.
Due to the random nature of memories and essences, each run has the potential to be unique (beyond starter memories) forcing players to explore new and exciting combinations with each and every run, helping to make Shape of Dreams one of the most replayable games of its kind.
I am personally a huge fan of turning memories into “super weapons” that apply multiple debuffs and bleeds at once, something which can be the different between victory and defeat when dealing with end of layer bosses, which are surprisingly challenging for an action rogue like title, in which many bosses are of the more traditional “tank and spank” variety.
Throughout each playthrough players will encounter a wide variety of enemies, many of which who have access to unique abilities of their own, from small trash mobs who barely do any damage, all the way up to massive end of layer bosses with complex attack patterns and unique mechanics.
Due to the random nature of Shape of Dreams, beyond end of layer bosses, players can never been too certain what they will face as they process through eager layer, and making the right choice, or taking too long to reach the end of the level may force them into encounters which could end their run real fast.
As players progress through each layer, it is with the knowledge that heading to the final boss of each layer too soon, could leave them woefully underpowered, while also being aware that exploring too deeply, may allow the pursuing hunters to catch up to them, making what would normally be a low level encounter, a fight for survival.
This knowledge helps to make even the most mundane exploration feel impactful, and I personally wish more games utilised similar systems to avoid over farming, and trivialisation of endgame encounters.
A well made progression system is one of the most important distinctions between success and failure when it comes to action rogue-like titles, and thankfully for everyone involved Shape of Dreams progression system is second to none, being both very easy to understand, and incredibly deep, allowing for a level of micro customisation that few other games in the genre come close to offering.
The fact that players retain all Star Dust (a currency used to improve characters permanently) earned from each and every run, regardless of its outcome, ensures that players of all skill levels and abilities have a chance at seeing and enjoying the more difficult content that Shape of Dreams has to offer.
This already amazing system is improved upon with constellation (skill trees) loadouts, create and modify five unique builds per character, which allows players to quickly swap between roles, when choosing to play solo or take on a role in a group based environment.
Meta progression aside, in-game progression is simple to understand for players of all levels, being based around two currencies, Gold and Dream Dust, with the former being used to acquire new memories and essences from vendors, while the latter is used at magical wells to level up memories.
Shape of Dreams is yet another step in the redemption story of Neowiz, who suffered a slew of poor publicity due to the catastrophic launch and short lifespan of Bless Online, and its ill fated relaunch Bless unleashed, titles which are perhaps some of the most well known failures in MMORPG history.
Thanks to the success of titles such as Lies of P (developed and published) and Shape of Dreams (published), Neowiz are once again recognised as a publisher that is worth paying attention to, and I for one, am very excited to see where their “redemption journey” leads them next.
Shape of Dreams is without question one of the most successful indie launches of 2025, selling over 100k copies within 24 hours of launch, it enjoys daily peaks of over 45k concurrent players, and there are over 20k players online right now as I write this (just before midday on a work day), it is truly a success by any reasonable measure of the word.
Unfortunately without matchmaking, a higher concurrent user count does little to help “Jimmy no Mates”, with the overwhelming majority of players choosing to either play solo or with friends in private lobbies, resulting in only a handful of open lobbies for any given region
While players are free to host lobbies of their own, the fact most lobbies only have one or two players present (with some having been listed for over 40 minutes), its clear very few people are using the join lobby feature, making a bad situation even worse..
There is something to be said for server browsers and private lobbies, but for a game to enjoy long-term success and more importantly growth you need to cater to players without preestablished friend groups, and I hope the developers introduce robust matchmaking support in future, to ensure Shape of Dreams’ long-term health and vitality.
Before I continue, I imagine you are wondering why I said “Full Controller Support Is Not Enough“, and I appreciate it is a fairly grandiose statement that reeks of entitlement, however after playing Shape of Dreams, its became clear that it was first developed as a mouse and keyboard game, and support for controllers being bolted on afterwards, which is a problem.
As a result of Shape of Dreams being developed primally for mouse and keyboard users, many menus and interface screens feel unintuitive when using a controller, and while the vast majority of skills work perfectly with a controller (my preferred way to play action rogue likes), abilities which require both accurate aim and precise timing are challenging to use, even for a veteran controller user such as myself (since 1994!).
While the lack of matchmaking and a dedicated controller interface is frustrating, I see no reason why these issues could not be addressed in the coming weeks and months, in light of how well Shape of Dreams has sold, providing much needed morale and more importantly funding further development of the game.
Shape of Dreams, is one of of just a few titles which allows players to play for as little as 3-5 minutes and still make meaningful progression towards your end goal, while also catering to players with more time on their hands, by allowing them to play for as long as they want without interruption (assuming they do not die horrible when facing one of Shape of Dreams’ excellent bosses).
Knowing I can play Shape of Dreams for just a few minutes while waiting for a show to begin, or between tasks at work, and make meaningful contributions to my character’s growth makes me want to play Shape of Dreams all the more.
While many games allow players to play for as little as 10-15 minutes, at times you only have 3 or 5 minutes to spare, and being forced to either leave the game running for hours (not always possible), or quit without saving progress, is not a great feeling, especially for those with limited playtime, or who are casual gamers in the extreme.
With that demographic in mind, I hope Shape of Dreams finds it way to Nintendo Switch 2 soon, as Shape of Dreams is a perfect game for those who like to “game on the go”, and it has the potential to be immensely popular on Nintendo’s latest handheld.
Shape of Dreams is an action game developed by Lizard Smoothie and published by NEOWIZ, it released on 11 September 2025, and is available exclusively on PC.
Shape of Dreams supports the following peripherals:
Shape of Dreams is unrated and contains:
Shape of Dreams is one of the best derivative of the rogue-like genre I have ever played, and with better controller support and matchmaking, I could easily see myself giving it a perfect score, however until that day comes, I can still say with confidence that it is one of the best games the genre has to offer, and that it has the potential to become as iconic as Vampire Survivors and Among Us, (different genre, same iconicity!).
Without doubt, Shape of Dreams one of the best indie games to release in 2025, and I cannot wait to see if the developers move forward with a console release, as I strongly feel that its success on PC will be greatly overshadowed by its potential popularity on consoles such as the Nintendo Switch II and Xbox Series X|S, assuming the developers opt for a deal that would see it included in the Game Pass Library.
We found Shape of Dreams to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
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