Barony

A genuinely rare genre combination, earned over a decade

Barony's pitch is specific and, according to reviewers, genuinely unmatched elsewhere: "the premier first-person roguelike with cooperative play," letting up to four players "adventure alone, or gather a party with iconic and unusual RPG classes to face off against the brutal dungeons." What reviewers consistently single out isn't just the difficulty, but the specific combination of features that makes it distinctive. "I love this game because it's the only 1st person, 3d, coop, dungeon crawler/roguelike that I know of. 1st person and 3d are rare in this genre, and it's even more rare that there's cooperative play without forced PVP," reads a 2026 review. That's a meaningful, specific claim about genre scarcity rather than vague enthusiasm, and it's echoed consistently enough across the review base to treat as a genuine, durable strength the game has built over more than a decade of continued development from the same small studio.

A currently active, well-documented controversy

This review lands during a specific, recent period of tension worth addressing directly rather than glossing over. This review checked Turning Wheel LLC's own official changelog directly: a major update, "V5.0 Release - Instruments of Destruction: Part 1," shipped 29 January 2026, alongside the separately purchased "Deserters & Disciples" DLC pack, followed by further balance-adjustment patches in February and April 2026. A large, concentrated wave of reviews dated from February 2026 onward describes the changes in specific, consistent terms. "Barony has always been a punishing roguelike, but recent changes feel less like refinement and more like deliberate friction layered onto an already unforgiving experience... The magic system has been split into three distinct schools, each with progression so restrictive that reaching level 100 in all three is effectively impossible," reads a February 2026 review. Another February 2026 review reports a specific, concrete complaint about pacing: "the appraisal system paired with nerfs to other systems make it almost unplayable without major amounts of RNG grinding," while a separate review states the frustration even more plainly: "Making me walk away from my computer for 30 minutes to wait for my items to appraise is just bad game design." Checking a broad sample of reviews from this specific post-update window, this cluster of complaints — appraisal slowdown, restrictive magic-school progression, and removed systems like swimming — appears independently and consistently enough to read as a genuine, current design controversy rather than a handful of isolated complaints.

A specific, verifiable monetisation complaint

Layered on top of the balance controversy, several reviewers raise a distinct, directly verifiable complaint about the same update's commercial structure. "Over half of the classes and almost all of the races besides human are paywalled behind another $30 Canadian. To fully experience this game, it w[ould cost significantly more than the base price]," reads a 2026 review. Checking the game's own store listing and DLC page directly confirms the underlying structure: the "Deserters & Disciples" pack and its companion race/class packs are indeed sold separately from the base game, which itself already sits at a mid-range indie price point. Whether that specific pricing structure is reasonable for funding more than a decade of continued development is a matter of reasonable disagreement, but the complaint is grounded in a directly confirmable fact rather than exaggeration.

A studio that's still actively engaged, not indifferent

It's worth balancing the controversy above against what this review found checking the developer's broader update history. Far from an abandoned or coasting project, Turning Wheel LLC has continued shipping substantial content — new classes, a magic system redesign, a cooking system, dungeon generation changes — with public "sneak peek" posts throughout the second half of 2025 building up to the January 2026 release, and further balance patches (V5.0.1, V5.0.2) following the update specifically in response to player feedback. That pattern — a large, ambitious update followed by rapid, iterative balance follow-ups — is consistent with a studio actively responding to the current backlash rather than ignoring it, even if the most recent reviews checked for this piece suggest the adjustments made so far haven't fully resolved every longtime player's concerns.

Weighing solo play against the game's co-op strength

Separate from the current update controversy, a persistent and longer-standing theme across the review base concerns the gap between solo and group play. "Don't play this without friends, its an honestly miserable experience. With friends, fun," reads a 2026 review, a sentiment echoed independently by several others describing solo runs as considerably harsher than co-op sessions with a party. This review treats that as a genuine, structural design characteristic worth flagging clearly for a prospective buyer rather than a flaw exactly — Barony's core pitch is built around cooperative play, and reviewers evaluating it primarily as a solo experience are, by the game's own design intent, engaging with a harder, less forgiving version of what it's built to offer.

Final verdict

Barony has earned more than a decade of goodwill for a genuinely rare, well-executed combination of first-person, cooperative, permadeath dungeon crawling, and this review has no reservations about recommending that core experience, especially played with a group. What keeps the score moderate rather than high is the specific, current and well-corroborated controversy surrounding the January 2026 update — verified directly against the developer's own changelog — alongside a directly confirmable complaint about how much of the game's race and class content now sits behind a separate purchase. Prospective buyers should check the most recent reviews for how the post-5.0 balance has settled since this review was written, and budget for the DLC if broader race and class access matters to how they plan to play.