dungeon crawler

noun

plural dungeon crawler

: a video game where the gameplay is primarily focused on defeating enemies while exploring a usually randomly generated labyrinthine or dungeon-like environment

A dungeon crawler is a genre of … game where a player must guide a character through increasingly difficult levels of dungeons while confronting monsters, traps, and other obstacles.

—Christopher Breen

Originally conceived to be an expansion for Daggerfall, Battlespire is a more "pure" dungeon crawler that forgoes many broader role-playing elements in favor of handing you a weapon, sending you into a dangerous pit, and allowing you to grow … your character as you work your way to safety and glory.

—Matthew Byrd

Examples of dungeon crawler in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The 2000 action-RPG (ARPG) by Blizzard Entertainment has long been considered the gold standard for fantasy dungeon crawlers, and is generally thought of as one of the best games ever made. —Diego Argüello, Rolling Stone, 6 Dec. 2024

There's a lot of excitement surrounding the dungeon crawler and, as expected, a lot of questions. —Jason Fields, Newsweek, 5 Dec. 2024

Courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment For the unconverted: Diablo is a third-person, top-down dungeon crawler. —Boone Ashworth, WIRED, 8 Dec. 2022

For the unconverted: Diablo is a third-person, top-down dungeon crawler. —Boone Ashworth, WIRED, 8 Dec. 2022

Word History

First Known Use

1989, in the meaning defined above