"Tri Survive is a very enjoyable action roguelike, held back by a near-total lack of build-crafting potential and meaningful in-game progression."
Action Rogue-like games live and die based on the quality of their progression systems, and for a game to succeed in the highly competitive action rogue-like genre it needs to do well in at least two if not three core areas.
Fortunately for Tri Survive it does “ok” in most categories, unfortunately for Tri Survive “ok” will not be enough to ensure its long-term survival.
Meta progression is one of the most important aspects of any successful action-roguelike, as it allows players to feel they are making meaningful progress win or lose.
Stuck on a certain boss? Feel like you are doing too little damage? Grind some gold and invest in damage boosting stats.
Keep dying before the end of a difficult run? Grind some gold and invest in health and mitigation boosting stats.
Allowing players to progress in a small but meaningful, regardless of outcome of each run/session is a great way to keep players playing for longer, especially causal players who may have otherwise found it too difficult to proceed, and are for the most part the target demographic for games of this type.
While Tri Survive’s implantation of meta progression is admittedly rather simplistic, it is functional, and serves it purpose, and while I would have liked it cover more areas of of player progression (XP, Gold, etc), it serves its purpose, and ensures that most causal gamers can see Tri Survive’s fairly basic narrative through to its conclusion.
In-game progression is one area in which Tri Survive falls flat on its face, while the very best games the genre has to offer allow players dozens if not hundreds of potential builds, with players being able to mix, match and combine weapons and abilities in power ways, Tri Survive allows players only to choose the order in which they upgrade their chosen heroes, and with each hero having only 1 ability, there really isn’t much room for build crafting beyond deciding which character you will choose for each role before the run even begins.
While players are able to upgrade each character 4 times during each run, there is no flexibility, with each character having a set progression, allowing no room for build crafting or creativity beyond deciding who gets upgraded first.
While Tri Survive’s narrative is not very strong, it serves as mechanism which aids players in unlocking new playable characters and maps, which I must add look fantastic (for the genre) and for the most part introduce new enemies, which are thematically appropriate for each setting that are often more dangerous that “standard enemies” while also featuring unique attacks and/or abilities
While Tri Survive does not have much to offer in the way of build crafting, combat at least feels impactful, and watching enemies wither before my heroes feels sufficiently rewarding.
While this sounds like no big deal, I have recently played some titles in which I never felt like I was doing real damage to the enemies at all, due a near total lack of death animations and audio, which resulted in enemies fading away once their hp hit zero, instead of being shown to have been defeated in a meaningful way.
I am not saying I want realistic blood and guts in an action roguelike, but a small puff of sparks, or smoke would not be asking too much surely?!
Thankfully that is not the case with Tri Survive, and while combat could be a little faster paced, I am ultimately happy with how it plays it.
While I am ultimately very happy with combat in Tri Survive, It does suffer from rather severe pacing issues due to each run only lasting around10 minutes before bosses show up, in turn giving players very little time to enjoy their party at full strength before they either triumph over the boss (ending the run) or face defeat (ending the run).
This is a very different case than in titles such as Vampire Survivors, in which players get to enjoy their characters at “close to full power” for roughly 50% of each run, and are given the opportunity to “go into overtime”, while facing progressively more powerful foes.
While its not a huge issue, I feel that it is important to mention, as anyone who has player action roguelike titles for long know the early stages of each run are often the least enjoyable part of each run, and unfortunately in the case of Tri Survive that “early stage” is often the majority of the match.
it is all to common when playing an indie game by a small team to encounters visuals that not only look like they were purchased from an asset store (sometimes this cannot be avoided) but also lack all consistency.
For example a developer finds themself needing an “male orc” asset, but the only orc models in their budget have a drastically different design philosophy to the rest of their game.
Fortunately that is not the case with Tri Survive, in which every sprite, texture and asset feels like it belongs in the same “world”, from noble paladins to demonic creatures and cactuses, every asset feels like it belong.
While visually consistency cannot entirely make up occasionally substandard gameplay mechanics and pacing issues, it goes a long way towards making a title feel more polished, and for that I must commend them.
Tri Survive is an action rogue-like game developed and published by Majestic Mind Games, it released on 18 September 2025, and is available exclusively on PC.
Tri Survive supports the following peripherals:
Tri Survive is unrated and contains:
Tri Survive looks fantastic, offers a decent amount of content, and is very fun to play, however a lack of meaningful in-game progression and build crafting, mean there is no real reason to replay it once you have completed the campaign and unlocked all nine playable characters.
Ultimately a very good game, but not the best the genre has to offer.
We found Tri Survive 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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