Idle Looter

Most idle RPGs treat prestige as a lever: reset everything, keep a multiplier, climb the same ladder a little faster. Idle Looter, a solo-developed incremental RPG released on Steam on 6 November 2025 for NZ$10.49, does something more interesting with the idea -- and its Mixed, 56% positive score turns out to hinge less on whether that idea works (reviewers agree it does) than on two specific, repeatedly-named problems layered on top of it.

The hook: prestige that keeps your gear, not just a number

Idle Looter's core loop is standard-issue idle RPG on the surface -- your hero auto-fights waves of monsters for gold, loot and experience, you spend gold on upgrades, and eventually you prestige to reset for permanent gains. What sets it apart, and what its most engaged fans -- several with playtimes in the hundreds of hours -- consistently call out, is what prestiging actually does: instead of a flat multiplier, you absorb the stats and special effects off the gear you're currently wearing into a permanent pool that carries forward. "Most upgrades (12 out of 14) are permanent," writes one reviewer with over 700 hours logged, "you can define your build" run over run rather than simply grinding the same numbers up. Legendary gear drops carry procedurally generated effects, and a gem-crafting system -- gamble mighty gems that can shatter on failure -- adds a real risk-reward layer most idle titles at this price don't bother with. "As a connoisseur of idle games," one reviewer writes, "I find this one to be a fresh and interesting take on the genre" specifically because it avoids the trap of "mind-juggling dozens of stats" that many incrementals fall into.

That is a genuinely strong foundation, and it's the reason this review doesn't land where the negative-review headlines might suggest. The problem is what the game asks of you to actually reach that foundation.

"Active Looter": when the idle game isn't idle

The most consistent complaint in Idle Looter's negative reviews, echoed even inside several positive ones, is the Hunts and Bounties system introduced in the mid-game. Unlike the core combat loop, hunts can't be idled through -- they require the player to actively move, initiate, and turn in individual bounties, repeatedly, to keep progressing. "I've enjoyed it," reads one positive review that still marks this as its biggest complaint. "My biggest complaint is that hunts/expeditions are important, but can't be idled... it kinda make[s] the game feel more like 'Active' Looter." A detailed negative review is blunter: "Bounties are a fine system, but this isn't how you do it," describing "a ton of unnecessary utterly pointless clicking" gating further progress. For a game whose entire pitch is built on the word "idle," a system that forces sustained hands-on attention to avoid stalling out is a real design tension, not a minor annoyance -- and it's the single most-repeated line across the negative sample.

Related to this: at least two reviewers report the game has no true offline progress accrual -- close the app entirely, and unlike genre leaders, you don't return to time-based gains. "We are almost in 2026 and this game doesn't have offline progress," reads one, "I'm not fan of leaving computer open 24/7." That's a specific, checkable gap against what "idle RPG" typically promises on Steam, distinct from the hunts complaint but compounding the same underlying frustration.

Scaling that reviewers say gets away from the game

The second recurring complaint is tuning. Several detailed negative reviews describe the difficulty and cost curve as badly uneven once you clear an early prestige or two -- "the tuning for this game is the biggest issue," reads one, calling out "cost scaling vs when you unlock upgrades" as the worst offender, while another compares the grind to "NGU Idle... sadistic level insanity within the first day." The achievement data is consistent with a steep drop after a strong start: 93.4% of players reach hero level 10 and 65.4% defeat 100 bosses, both easy early milestones, but completion falls off a cliff into single digits for late-game unlocks like the Aetherium Forge (0.5%) and Celestial Planes (1.1%) -- a normal shape for an idle game's superfan tail, but one several reviewers say is steeper than the early hours prepare you for.

Credit where it's earned

Idle Looter is a solo project, and several reviewers make a point of crediting the developer directly for staying engaged after launch. One of the sharper negative reviews about the save-reset bug -- "my first save got reset after 60 hours" -- is followed, in a separate later review, by the note that "with 2.2.0 the developer added more safety measures so this does not happen again." Another reviewer calls the developer's Discord presence "super nice guys who actually listens to players feedback." That responsiveness doesn't erase the bugs and design tensions reviewers hit at launch, but it's a real, specific point in the game's favour that shows up independently across multiple reviews rather than being a one-off compliment.

Verdict

6.5 out of 10. Idle Looter's central idea -- gear and its special effects becoming permanent currency across prestige runs, rather than just a bigger multiplier -- is a real, well-executed piece of design that has earned it a genuinely dedicated following logging hundreds of hours each. But the hunts and bounties system asks for exactly the kind of sustained active attention an idle game is supposed to let you skip, the difficulty curve reportedly turns punishing without much warning past the early game, and offline progress is thinner than the genre's best. If you're already an idle-RPG regular looking for more build depth than the genre usually offers, it's worth the NZ$10.49 -- just go in knowing "idle" is more of an aspiration here than a guarantee.