This covers the game as of its current state in May 2026, as a Steam Early Access game. Future updates of the game may change elements or aspects that may no longer apply to portions of this article.
Roguelikes (and its sibling roguelites) are an enigma to me. I’m one of those people that prefer a clear beginning and ending to games, and having something where I’m starting from scratch and have to complete a “run” isn’t always fun. Granted, in a lot of these the player is given upgrades and unlocks to eventually lead to an ending, but pouring hours into it is not something I actively enjoy doing for a game unless I really like it.
The closest I’ve ever actually gotten the proper ending to a roguelike was The Binding of Isaac in 2014. Other times I dabbled in the genre, like Teleglitch or Ziggurat, were ones I bounced off of because while I liked the environment of the worlds that I was inhabiting, I didn’t really like the mechanics of having to start from scratch each time, becoming little more than rote memorization by that point. It’s like being forced to complete a game in one life with no continues, while some like that challenge, I’m not really a fan of it. That isn’t to say I hate the genre, there are some I enjoyed. Recently I got to try a fairly recent one of these kind of roguelike.
Chickenauts is a rougelite shooter released in Steam Early Access in March 2026. Co-developed by Sneakybox (developers of Atari’s Recharged series of games) and Kautki Cave (Flame Keeper), and published by Untold Tales. I don’t know much about the publisher or developers, but they seem to make perfectly fine video games, so I expected the same here.
Our hero, a red-bearded farmer, finds out his chickens have been abducted by Brooster, an alien chicken who wants to rule the world. With only his trusty weapon, he must invade the spaceship and take down Brooster and his possessed chicken foes, with a little help and some fancy footwork.
Chickenauts is a top-down roguelite shooter. The mouse aims at targets, left mouse button shoots. Right mouse button and spacebar cause the player to dodge, which is important as enemies will shoot bullets that must be dodged to avoid taking damage. After a room is cleared, the player progresses to the next room to fight more foes, lather, rinse, repeat. During these runs, there will be friendly NPCs to save that help the player in future runs, or sidekicks that will help deal with the dastardly foes more quickly. If you’ve played games like Enter the Gungeon or Nuclear Throne, you might be familiar with a lot of these mechanics from the get-go.
