A charming rogue-life game with some rough edges
Look, we’ve all seen a million roguelites by now. Toss in some procedural dungeons, sprinkle a bit of permadeath, stir it around with a few meta-upgrades, and boom—another indie darling enters the ring. Lynked: Banner of the Spark is that game and while it has a very charming art-style and a good mix of combat, role-playing and city-building elements its ultimately held back by crashes, bugs and frustrations. But it does succeed in creating a new sub-genre that I shall dub “rogue-life” (I am sure someone else claimed this lol)
So, here’s the pitch: players are dropped into a broken world overrun by evil military bots, their mission is to save the indigenous Unibots from this invading force. Empowered with a modular grappling hook called the Wyre for attacks and traversal all the while gathering resources to rebuild a bot-town using salvaged junk, spark energy, and the sheer power of vibes.
MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $19.99
Combat is fast, twitchy, and messy in that good chaos kind of way. Players will have about ten weapon classes and over 80 variations, which is fancy talk for “you’re going to hoard cool stuff and probably forget how to use half of it.” But the Wyre? That thing never stops being fun. Grapple-punching a shielded drone, yanking a battery from a wall, and flinging yourself into the next room like an anime cannonball is genuinely exhilarating. Lynked makes movement feel like an attack. It’s not just traversal, it’s strategy.
Unlike most roguelites, Lynked doesn’t just care about your loadout, it cares about your legacy. Every mission feeds into your base: a charming, ever-expanding town full of rescued Unibots, crafting stations, side stories, and even fishing (because it’s legally required in 2025 to have fishing). This is where the “rogue-life” term really earns its keep. You’re not just grinding runs for gear; you’re building a home. Watching your weird little robo-village grow over time is shockingly emotional. It feels personal and even earned. You start noticing bots greeting each other. Vendors remember you. There’s a soul here. It’s not just loop for loop’s sake.
Lynked: Banner of the Spark does have a co-op mode, but I played solo for the bulk of my run. I did dive into some online co-op though and it works out pretty well for the most part. But Lynked in has quite a few issues, as ide from the many, many crashes I experienced, there is a weird glitch where when players load into a level their character comes swinging in but when it loads the character is standing still before the animation starts up. Is this a game breaking issue? No, but it gets annoying to watch over and over because you know it’s not supposed to do that. Other issues I had were with the UI, especially in crafting menus, it can feel overloaded. All these issues can be patched but I am so tired of having to wait for patches to play my video games; anyone else?
Lynked: Banner of the Spark doesn’t reinvent the roguelite genre; it just reinvigorates it. It feels fresh and fun and it’s full of charm with its village building mechanic. It’s a game that is full of heart and weird bot jokes. I just wish there was more time spent on the optimization because these glitches and bugs are enough to have me give up the spark.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
