Last updated on November 30th, 2025 at 07:17 pm
Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG – Entertainment Game Review
Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG is a Entertainment/Roleplaying/Adventure game from HC GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION LIMITED, first launched in 28th November 2017.
It’s rated 12+ and currently has 1,445+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG Stand Out
“9 \ 10 If you enjoy dark sci-fi themes and like a challenging RPG with some roguelike elements, then look no further than Dead Shell. ” Christine Chan, appadvice.com
Blaster-wielding mercenaries vs beasts from the labyrinth: who will win? You're commanding a die-hard assault squad. Destination: Plutonia, a settlement on a Doom-4 class planet. Shuttle cargo: a range of lethal weapons, from axes and chainsaws to blasters and BFGs. Anything might come in handy in Plutonia, the Federation's most remote colony.
Scientists, miners, guards – all sorts of civilian personnel worked there until recently. A week ago, the Center received a mayday signal from the settlement. Demonic roars and screams of terror filled the comm channel, and then it fell dead silent.
It's time to descend into the infernal abyss and show the demons who's the boss here. Fight your way through all the circles of hell to reach the very bottom. Look cosmic evil in the face and emerge victorious.
Game Features
- A new dungeon every time
- Hellish bestiary
- Full range of weapons
- Elite mercenaries
- Level up your squad
@Herocraft
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This Entertainment game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 16th October 2025
Recent improvements include:
Greetings, Space Squad Commander!
In this update:
- Added Mail service, receive messages and gifts from the Federation HQ.
- Fixes and improvements in the Bestial Descent game event.
- Added more victory and defeat cards.
- Many other fixes and improvements.
More cool things are to come!
Stay tuned and thanks for playing with us!
Download & Availability
Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Dead Shell・Roguelike RPG on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Also ads arent available when you start the application. We thought it would start a few seconds after. Nope! It took 5-10 minutes. And youll know when ads are available when you can finally claim your daily reward.
Our rating is for the game/concept itself. We played this game a ton back in 2019, and really enjoyed it. Im not a fan of rogue likes, but the cool synth wave music, and the Doom-esque environment and characters kept us around. We found it again just recently, and the new content is nice to see, but man, its Ads-City. Everything has an ad, everything drives you to buy stuff, and its just too blatant, that the atmosphere is ruined by it. We absolutely want these guys to make some good money, but we think the ad delivery could be done better, where its less intrusive, and even more incentivized. Im sure some of us would pay to have a version with no ads, and just a micro transaction store, if the game is tuned and balanced for loot acquisition and difficulty. Making levels replayable, or ammo less scarce, or maybe more skills to help during fights (like a single stun, or dodge, or accuracy boost, etc), there are many ways to go about it, that Im sure you guys can figure out. We wish the devs success with this game. Hope they can flesh it out sooner than later.
This game is terrific Ive been playing it for years. We played it on our other phone and watched it develop into what it is today. The problems Im having with this game are the bugs. We had our medic and sniper reset on XP when we had them at around lvl 12. Anyone who plays this game will notice how much of a credit sink that is and that the levels arent getting any easier with all the new monsters youll face as you grind. Another bug to note is when youre clearing a level and the next tiles dont get revealed after a fight. Soft locking your sector clear if you hadnt already discovered the exit forcing you to wait for x amount of time for your mercenary to be revived since you failed the last sector.
How do you get ammo Im stuck and cant continue.
Wish there was a save function. If you change phones or have to get a new one. You will lose all your progress. This includes any purchases you have done. As a free game its a novel experience. It has a lot of potential to be a great game though. One of the few tactical rogue strategy games out there.
Its basically an ad-watching app. Watch an ad to restore health, watch an ad to restore ammo, watch an ad to open an extra reward, watch an ad The gameplay is just tapping on enemies. Theres really nothing else to it. Theres no strategy involved, at least not in the first 5-10 stages. Hard pass.
Ive played this game for about 2 years now, use it as a time waster when traveling or whatever. Art style is nice, same with the music and gameplay to. However, grinding for ammo and leveling up your characters is a BIG grind. This game deserves more content and love. Newest review since the recent update: while Im happy to see this game still being worked on im shocked with the sheer amount of ads that are forced on you whether it playing the game or just upgrading your Mercenary's. The ammo grind is even worse now and repeatedly encouraging players to buy ammo bundles which can be burned through in mere minutes is also a big pain to deal with. Final verdict: 3 star compared to our last review since the grinding for resources is even worse than what it was before and im not going to spend 10-20 bucks just for 100 of every ammo which is gonna be gone in the next 10-15 minutes tops.
There is a really fun game here but you have to wade through countless ads to get to it. Why cant we just give you $10 and play the intended game? Everything is ad based. Want some more ammo: Watch an ad, Want to revive: Watch an ad, Want to double your rewards: Watch an ad. If you arent suckered into watching an ad then you are going to spend your premium currency. This game definitely features all of the problems with mobile gaming; great game that you never really get a chance to play.
The game was great – sure, it was a pain to grind, and progress became slow, but it was still a game that we would come back to whenever we had a free moment to nuke some aliens and zombies. We also didnt have to spend money or see ads unless we wanted to, which was how we liked it. With the most recent update, however, we wont be playing anymore unfortunately. Though there is now more content that really fleshes out the game in a much needed way, now there is also a constant ad banner across the top of the screen. Also, a random app ad will pop up in-game at regular intervals. Really interrupts the gameplay for us, and makes what was normally an enjoyable foray into the game now a hassle.
The resource scarcity is so bad its like the old doom with just the pistol. No skill can headshot things to make up for a lack of ammo. No secret room with ammo stores. Just short grinding. Even the free ammo dumps are ones every 6 hour or so and you have to fight entire dungeon groups. You may get 15 ~ 30 bullets for a crate. One dungeon will take 45 rounds. If you have money to burn find a game that isnt this knockoff. This is a drain. A boring one at that.
The game has great graphics and a compelling gameplay loop. You play a mercenary fighting monsters in a rogue-lite dungeon crawler. The wheels come off quickly when you have to start grinding for ammo for the weapons. Ammo is rarely found in levels requiring the player to watch long and intrusive ads for an extra clip to get them through a battle. The monetization is excessive. The rpg elements are poorly implemented and require excessive grinding (which wastes ammo which you also have to grind for). Overall Id say give this one a pass. You will have to wait 12 hours for a supply crate to hopefully get ammo so you can play half a level (and then run out of said ammo and have to watch ads to reload so you can finish the level.).
Fun time killer. Love the music and the Aesthetic.
Ill keep this short: The game is fun and very easy to learn and play. Also, the lack of ads is also a nice bonus. 10 out of 10. Wish there were more games like this in the App Store.
This game we played it when we were in kindergarten and now am in 6 grade miss This game.
Want to game that we can hope in and out during our brakes and this the game.
We recently got this game and love it already! Its addicting and doesnt have any forced ads or in app purchases. And the plot and story is a nice side thing too! Already recommended it to our friends.
Would be better if you could switch weapons in combat to avoid attacking something that has resistance to your weapon or having to melee cause the weapon you chose had not enough ammo.
Game seems neat. Interesting ideas and unique mechanics. Nice pixel art. Not overly monetized. But it features (optional) ads to increase rewards, as many mobile games do, but unlike pretty much all of it's competitors, it has no way to turn off ads for a one time fee (that we could find). This means that, regardless of how good it is as a game, we'll feel compelled to watch ads for half our playtime, which is, sadly, not something we're interested in doing. Uninstalled. Edit: Thanks for the response! If you guys ever implement a way to disable ads permanently for a one time fee, we'll be back for sure. Lots to like here, but we just can't deal with that many ads.
Too many ads that distract from the gameplay.
Will not screen-rotate to landscape mode on iPad, so can't use it. Deleted.
We really want to like this game. The art style and game loop are great, and there really aren't too many adds, but the way it's designed to intentionally limit resources and halt gameplay, forcing the player to buy ammo and "dna" is just awful. If we could pay for a full version of this game for like 4-5$ we would, but as it is now, it's broken. Sorry.
We dont usually type these reviews, but this game is amazing! Its addictive, fast, and an all around good game. With lots of items to find, you will never get bored. We highly recommend.
You should quit around level 150, when youre waiting about an hour for each hero to respawn. Also the amount of time watching ads compared to actually playing the game is ridiculous. Devs – Update your years old paid version and Id happily buy that over playing this.
We love this game, but we hate how you have to spend credits to level up your characters.
Great game. Would rather pay one flat amount to unlock a game then constantly having to grind or pay a stupid amount for credits or crates.
This is one of our favorite mobile games and we were so sad when the audio problem was happening on our iPhone X. The devs fixed that problem and now we can hear all the amazing sound effects and music again. Simply amazing- thanks for listening devs.
We actually like the concept of this game but as of recently Ive had a major issue where Im unable to play it. Every time we start the app up the game gives us a message saying unable to connect and wont let us play any further pass this screen. Please tell us the fix for this so we can change our review to 5 starts cause we actually really enjoy how fun this game can be.
Do you like timers? Do you like loot boxes! Do you LOVE freemium currency?! Boooooooy howdy ding dang doodly doo do we have the tap tastic game for you… Dont bother.
We just have a question. What is the difference exactly between the free version and the paid version? Is the free version just a lite version of the game.
We like this game already but we want to make our own space base please do that we would love it.
This is a pretty quality casual RPG, love the games style, sound, and feel. We cant figure out why there are two of them, but both are pretty fun.
Great game. Great support. We had some difficulty getting the game to load and thought the game was broken. The developers contacted us and helped us fix the problem. Turns out it was a problem on our end. Game works great now.
Whats with the sound being so low we could barley hear anything. It would be even more interesting if u can travel in your own customized spaceship and fight on different planets.
Great art style, sound design and basic gameplay rhythm, but for a roguelike is strangely lacking in a sense of tension. The lack of a player avatar makes you feel detached from the environment, and the fact that monsters dont move or even attack until you strike first gives the uncomfortable feeling that theyre hiding from you in fear (the pitiful wails of the insect-like enemies dont help). We love space horror so we really want to like this game more than we do.
Feels like a great test of a game. Fun to try, but laking anything to keep you going. When you get a new character, they are hopelessly useless. And, while there are hints of a narrative, none of it exists in game. Love the art and can imagine lots of potential.
Games fine, controls well, music/sound is good. The pick 1 of 3 chance game, at the end of a level, feels curated; it shows you a crate, but wont give you the crate until you buy all 3 chances. In 30 levels we have never once won the crate on the first or even second try. (3rd try requires a credit you buy with IRL money) Money is hard to come by and is a progress killer. The grind hurts this game, the prices for equipment are steep.
We do not usually leave reviews but we think it is important to do so now. The audio defaults to phone speakers instead of ear buds/AirPods.
We like the idea of this game, but the execution is really lacking. The fact that you cannot replay previous levels to get xp and are forced to sit and waste ammunition on levels that are too difficult to pass is extremely poor game design. It would also be nice to be able to complete past levels that may not have gotten 100% completion. Its far too quiet, even at max volume we can barely hear a thing. Ive read previous reviews, and it seems this problem has been noted, but nothing has been done about it. Thats highly problematic to us when a developer knows of an issue and does not fix it. The characters and level design are alright, and are really the only reason we open this game. We will probably delete it soon to free up space, however, as its just not worth the data as it is now. Save the space on your phone for a game thats actually worth your time and energy to play.
Cant hear anything even on max volume. So please fix it soon.
The volume is so low even if we put it all the way up it doesnt play the sound in a very loud way as we want it to be.
Simple enough to play while in line at a store, but deep and interesting enough to play anytime and keep you coming back. At the start you're juggling ammo and it's a fun challenge…but after awhile you get to let loose because you have so much saved up, and that's also fun! Download it! We really wouldn't change anything about this game. We would rather like a Dead Shells 2 though, with even MORE weapons, monsters and characters but especially some way for more –strategy– to be involved in the fights. The most rewarding parts of the game for us are when we were backed up against a wall and came up with a plan to survive we want more of that. And getting crazy awesome weapons is always satisfying haha. Really love this one.
Not a bad game to kill some time.
Fun game! We like to play it when Im at the throne – when we played it first we didnt get a tutorial – but the game is simple enough.
Simple but addictive gameplay that doesnt feel cheap or manipulative.
But it will be more awesome if there is a "bestiary" to see every enemy we encounter, many of us players love to see it in games. Besides, there is no iCloud support… We can't export our save data. HeroCraft, many of your games are great, but is sad that we may lose our progress if something happens to our phones. Can you implement iCloud support.
Its great if you love sci-fi bug hunts but one thing is bugging us: In your opening art you have TWO PCs fighting together against the monsters. Then why do they all have to go on solo missions? If you have up to three monsters in a room, then why cant you rig the game to send up to three soldiers in at a time and delegate who carries which weapons into the next room.
Good game we wish there was enemy animations, and we wish you can go back and play previous levels.
The game itself is a decent waste of time. Buy this pack popping up every other dungeon and loot thats obviously geared to push micro transactions is ridiculous though.
We feel like this is a mediocre attempt to make a pixel version of doom rpg. It lacks any kind of depth and has painfully limited resources.
This is a nice chill horror rpg. The controls are simple and the atmosphere and visuals are great at getting the imagination flowing. Perfect for those interested in a low key, futuristic sci-fi dungeon rogue like game. ^_^ we do find it a bit strange that the dev team decided not to show the player sprite in the levels. If its a simple thing to code in, we think it would be cool to see the character appear in the room/section the player just cleared.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.5.4
- Size: 256.00 MB
- iOS: 14.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, JA, KO, ZH, ES, ZH
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes, Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence, Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
- Developer: HC GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION LIMITED
Last updated: 16th October 2025 | Genre: Entertainment, Roleplaying | Developer: HC GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION LIMITED