During my time writing about video games, one of my biggest regrets is playing Vampire Survivors as late as I did. By missing the game at launch not only did I miss out on playing for well over a full year, but I also wasn’t able to proudly declare it my Game of the Year back in 2022. Now I’ve more than made up for it by spending hundreds of hours unlocking everything and even devouring all its incredible DLC, but ever since my great Vampire Survivors mistake I’ve been hoping another game would come along that I could champion with the same gusto. That game is Ball x Pit, and it’s about to take over your life just like it’s taken over mine.
In the world of Ball x Pit, Ballbylon has fallen and it’s your job to rebuild it to its former glory. This means exploring the mysterious pit left after tragedy struck, and fighting the monsters within to bring back treasure and materials to the surface. Only the bravest of adventurers are up for this task, and it’s your job to guide them and their balls to victory.
Ball x Pit is a survivor style Roguelike much like Vampire Survivors before it, but instead of running around automatically launching attacks you’ll launch balls in a Breakout style. These balls bounce around the screen dealing damage to any block-like foes coming your way, then roll back down to you ready to be shot again. If an enemy reaches the bottom of the screen it’ll deal damage to you, and once you run out of HP it’s back to Ballbylon to lick your wounds. From my first moments with the game I was enjoying sending my spherical weapons into battle and getting them stuck ricocheting between enemies, and that was before I started experimenting with different magical balls.
Each character begins a run with a special type of ball they’ll fire alongside the regular baby balls. These have all sorts of effects you can use to take out the approaching hordes, from the laser balls that send out damaging beams in straight lines, to the ice ball that freezes foes on the spot and gives you more time to kill them safely. By gathering gems left by those you defeat you’ll be able to level up and gain more balls to use in battle, with three upgrade options to choose from that’ll help you create the perfect winning build for your run.
As well as different offensive orbs, you’ll be offered different passive upgrades when levelling up too. Some of these will enable you to take less damage so you can survive longer, whereas others will summon statue allies that fight alongside you. Depending on the options you pick you’ll have to adapt your playstyle on the fly, as grabbing that dagger that deals critical damage to enemies hit from the right hand side will really affect the best way to send your best ball ricocheting into battle.
All these ways to improve your overall strength in a run are satisfying to take advantage of, but ball fusion and evolution is really where the magic happens. By picking up a swirling fusion icon from a defeated foe you’ll be able to access these powerful abilities, as long as you have the levelled up balls to facilitate it anyway. There are dozens and dozens of different combinations you can use to cause havoc, like by combining ice and wind balls to create a blizzard ball that spreads a freezing effect across a massive area dealing big damage and stopping the horde in its tracks. In true Roguelike fashion you’ll be able to create some seriously broken builds that make the game trivial with a bit of practice, and it feels amazing.
If all Ball x Pit involved was this gloriously arcade Roguelike gameplay it’d be an easy game to recommend, but that’s only half of the ballgame. Once you finish a run you’ll go back to Ballbylon, and can use the materials and gold you’ve obtained to build the city. You can place grain, trees, and rocks which you can harvest for more parts, and create buildings that’ll give you various buffs on your next run. The catch is that for any of these things to become useful you’ll have to send your heroes bouncing around the town to harvest and build things, and you only get a handful of seconds of harvest time until another run in the depths is needed to refresh it.
If you want the incredibly helpful boosts to your stats or the added experience the town can grant, you’ll need to plan your city accordingly. By placing structures and materials in a well thought out layout you’ll make the most of every bounce, which makes for the perfect puzzling distraction from the action. It’s especially worth it as you progress to later stages too, because the things you can build will really provide significant upgrades.
Perhaps more exciting than these upgrades though are the buildings that unlock new characters, who are wildly different from each other. Depending on who you play as, the gameplay changes massively. For example there’s the couple who fire double the balls but are harder to dodge projectiles with, or the mercenary who fires all balls from the back of the field which takes some serious getting used to. There are rewards for beating each of the game’s stages with each character too, so it’s well worth getting to grips with them all.
As a huge fan of Vampire Survivors, Ball x Pit scratches so many of the same itches. It even manages to fix the one issue I have with Poncle’s smash hit: the frustration of finding evolutions. While you can still discover the cool combinations by experimenting, there’s a character who actively helps you uncover new recipes for powerful fused balls. By playing as the philosopher you’ll lose the ability to choose your own upgrades when you level up, and instead this character selects the best tool for the job. This leads to you gaining new knowledge, and is also a great way to play a more brainless run when you aren’t feeling up to the taxing decision making.
I absolutely adore Ball x Pit, and ever since I’ve had it downloaded on my Steam Deck it’s been the only game I’ve wanted to play. If I had to come up with any negatives for the game, I guess I’d say that the city building side of things isn’t particularly well introduced to begin with. It takes some trial and error to figure out how to gather materials effectively and create an ideal layout, but there’s also no punishment for being a little inefficient so it’s barely worth worrying about.
I didn’t think another game would ever replace Vampire Survivors or Balatro as my go-to game for a quick run, but Ball x Pit has done it. The Breakout-style action is such a clever spin on the genre, the fusions create all manner of chaos, and the city building is not only a nice distraction but always ensures you’re progressing. There’s a good chance that when December comes along that Ball x Pit will be my most played game of 2025, and that’s because it’s simply exceptional.
