as long as i can remember Barony roamed the edges of mine Steam store page. It's one of those games I've been meaning to buy and kept finding reasons not to; the retro, boxy art style did most of the hopping; it reads like a simple, almost disposable, thing you pass by on your way to something shinier. That said, I finally ran out of excuses when the Steam Summer Sale came knocking Barony down to $2, and while I'm sure late to the party, what a party it is.
Beneath that pixelated exterior wasn't the cute little dungeon crawler the screenshots promised. Barony is a sprawling, punishing, systems-obsessed roguelike that honors the most archaic nooks and crannies of the RPG genre while still feeling good to play in the year 2026. For $2, this might be the most game percentage I've ever bought, and I own Minecraft.
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What $2 will actually get you Barons
for context, Barony is an indie first-person RPG from Turning Wheel LLC, a small remote studio that launched it back in 2015 and has refused to stop working on it ever since. It actually surpassed a million copies sold this year, and that kind of slow success only happens when a game gains a cult following one dive after another. And what can I say, eleven years of updates have turned the gritty 2015 release into something much stranger and deeper than its current price tag suggests.
According to developer Sheridan Rathbun, BaronyThe list of inspirations is quite extensive, ranging from titles like Spelunky on Systemic shock 2. My personal elevator is a Dungeons and Dragons a campaign filtered through the bones of early first-person RPGs—think dungeon crawling DNA TES: Arena or Daggerfall in a modern package, welded according to merciless logic Rascal and NetHack (the last of them Barony“greatest inspiration” according to Rathbun). In many ways, it's a love letter to an era of design that most studios have spent the last two decades sanding the edges of.
The narrative setup wasn't particularly relevant to my time with the game, but it's commendably themed as a piece of pure pulp fantasy: an undead lich named Baron Herx has cursed the town of Hamlet, and you descend into his dungeon to end him. Barony but he knows what it is; the story is a thin excuse to send you somewhere dark and dangerous. Most of what's fascinating about this game is in its systems, not its script.
Barony features very little hand-holding and fewer apologies
The first thing I noticed while playing Barony was that it has an eight-part tutorial that covers every element of the game, from the intricacies of spellcasting to hunger and how to throw rocks; clumsy as it may have seemed at first, in retrospect it was absolutely necessary. No matter which class you choose, you will die Barony– a lot – but the game refuses to feel bad about it, so you shouldn't either. Permadeath is the backbone of the entire experience, and the dungeons are procedurally generated, so each run is a fresh set of traps, monsters, and bad decisions waiting to be made; you can starve or eat rotten food, be flattened by a boulder, or lose everything by identifying the cursed potion with your taste buds, not the scroll.
This last bit maintains the archaic trappings of all those old-school RPGs, because in much the same way BaronySystems do not equalize to be accessible. Items arrive unidentified, effects are composed in a way that will either ruin or shake your afternoon, and the first part of the recent Instruments of Destruction update rebuilt the entire magic system around three schools of magic and eighty or so spells. Whether you're a barbarian with a human sword and deck, a cursed, hungry vampire, or a duck-loving Myconid hermit –Barony it assumes you're smart enough to figure it all out, which is both a compliment and a threat.
Note: The second part of the Instruments of Destruction update will launch later this year, along with two new biomes, new secret levels, new music, and more.
Co-op and class for every kind of masochist in Barony
At the thick of it, there are 13 classes in the vanilla game that are based on humans, 26 that span multiple races when all three DLCs are considered, and they all range from the soothingly normal to the wildly chaotic. You can roll a standard warrior, wizard, or rogue if you want a softer landing, or you can choose a sexton, joker, or arcanist and accept that you chose violence. Each one reshapes how running actually plays, which is the main engine behind the game's replayability.
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Barony is unique in the sense that, despite its intense systems, the game also supports four-player co-op – online, split-screen and crossplay – which makes the game stand on its head and feel even more hectic. Shared spaces and friendly fire means your party will kill you just as much as the monsters but BaronyPacing really seems to balance things out more than not. Still, this is a co-op roguelike, so the funniest deaths remain the ones your friends cause on purpose.
Barony's Three Quality, completely optional DLC
Now, Barony it's been out for over a decade and is still in live development, so it has paid DLC – three to be exact – but they're modest in price and quality on their own. Myths and Outcasts and Legends and Outcasts add four new monster races and signature classes, from vampires and succubi to goblins and insectoids, while the newer Deserters and Disciples pile on another five each. They double the number of ways you can build and break a character, but remain completely optional for those worried about missing out on the “core” experience.
Whether you're a barbarian with a human sword and board, a cursed, hungry vampire, or a duck-loving Myconid hermit, Barony assumes you're smart enough to figure it out, which is both a compliment and a threat.
The extensions add a meaningful layer of complexity, but in this particular case they also inflate that bargain price over two bucks in a hurry. Ninety percent off base game is an easy yes; a fuller experience with add-ons climbs to the price of a normal indie game, sale or no sale. If you want a full buffet of monster races, the math stops being so absurdly in your favor, but again, it's not particularly necessary. in my case Barony I was so impressed that I almost felt obligated to give it a go – Turning Wheel LLC earned my money honestly and fairly, which is surprisingly rare in this industry these days.
Barony is the easiest $2 to spend in Steam Summer Sale 2026
Eventually, Barony at this price, it's a steal no matter who you are, but it has to be said that it may not be a comfortable recommendation for everyone. The difficulty curve of this co-op title is huge, the interface shows its age, and a bad early run can end you before you've learned anything useful. Barony is a game that requires patience and careful refinement from the player; if you need the game to meet you halfway, this one leaves you standing in the lobby.
But the way I see it, that's exactly the point Barony it does – and if you lean into it and start speaking the language of the game, it can be immensely rewarding. If you're already on board with all of this, Barony is the total package: a feature-rich, decades-honed RPG that requires patience and rewards that patience with the kinds of gameplay that some titles charge $60 for. For the price of coffee at the gas station, Barony is one of the most unbalanced trades I have done in recent years.
Barony is currently available for $2 during the Steam Summer Sale.
