I love retro arcade beat ’em ups but they haven’t felt the same since Absolum came out last year and raised the bar. While the 2025 roguelike didn’t get as much fanfare as Hades 2, it delivers a similarly satisfying action-RPG loop in ways that felt surprisingly fresh for one of modern gaming’s most well-worn genres. It just came to Game Pass, and optional couch co-op makes it the perfect weekend hangout game.
Absolum joined the subscription service on March 25 and is available on console via both the Ultimate and Premium tiers, as well as Game Pass PC. It’s normally just $25 and very much worth buying, but if you already have a Game Pass subscription and haven’t tried it yet, there’s no excuse not to sink a few runs into it.
Developer Dotemu takes the popular RNG-based branching progression systems of a roguelike and pairs them with the 2D light-RPG action of the old Capcom Dungeons & Dragons brawlers. The result is a retro-feeling side-scrolling arcade adventure that’s elevated by deeper buildcrafting and narrative side-quests that reward repeated playthroughs with new surprises.
What I like most about it besides the beautiful art direction is how much it feels like a fighting game. Unlike Hades where half the battle is responding to the bullet hell playing out in a given room, Absolum‘s combat is slower and lets you leverage blocks, parries, and combos to gain an edge over your foes. There’s more of a sense of playing Street Fighter than a twitchy, hyper-fast riff on Zelda‘s top-down combat.
And unlike a lot of other games in the genre, it lets you tackle the adventure with local co-op. The mode’s a lot of fun and makes it easier to power through some of the usual roguelike grind as you learn boss fights, unlock permanent upgrades, and wait to get lucky with some of events that happen during your run. Play it and you’ll get why it feels like one of 2025’s more underappreciated sleeper hits.
