Best Auto Battler Games

Summary

• Auto Chess inspired the auto battler genre, sparking a wave of diverse and innovative games beyond traditional PvP formats.
• New auto battler titles like Hadean Tactics and Mechabellum offer unique twists and designs, setting new standards in the genre.
• The auto battler genre continues to evolve with games like The Last Flame and Tales & Tactics, showcasing innovation and popularity.

The auto battler genre has seen many clones, offshoots, and hybrids since the original launch of the Dota 2 custom game, Auto Chess. Although Auto Chess may not have been the first game to use the mechanics synonymous with auto battlers, it’s arguably responsible for inspiring the abundance of games to follow in its footsteps.

For those uninitiated, the gameplay of an auto battler is commonly divided into two phases: a shop phase, during which players craft and modify their team (often while managing their economy), and an action phase, during which the game’s combat takes place automatically. These two phases are repeatedly played out until the player either loses or wins. In the case of PvP auto battlers, the gameplay usually remains the same, but often includes an interesting twist, such as Teamfight Tactics augments. In the case of PvE auto battlers, however, games often include a form of progression.

Updated December 12, 2024, by Harry Ted Sprinks:The auto battler genre has continued to be expanded and iterated upon, with smaller developers consistently producing high-quality, polished titles that innovate on the genre and carry it further from its PvP origins and deeper into the world of singleplayer games. Fresh auto battler experiences like Hadean Tactics (PvE) and Mechabellum (PvP) have kept the genre alive through clever twists and designs, becoming the new standard rather than a carbon copy of what came before. Even smaller games, such as Necroking and the upcoming He Is Coming give players unique auto battler experiences, years after the genre’s popularity peaked.

17 Special Mention – He Is Coming (Demo)

A Simple But Satisfying Loop With An Elegant Design

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2025
• Developer(s): Chronocle

Already featuring a variety of bosses and items even in its current state as a public demo, He Is Coming is a promising indie auto battler with a minimalist art-style and an elegant design. The game tasks players with navigating a grid-based map similar to a traditional roguelike, exploring in order to discover valuable items.

Every three days, a new boss arrives and attempts to kill the player. However, He Is Coming is able to combat frustration by telegraphing which boss is on its way, allowing players to prepare themselves appropriately.

16 Automon

Auto-Battling Pokemon

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2022
• Developer(s): Gral Games

Using a combination of charming pixel art graphics and idle combat, Automon distills the mechanics of the auto battler to create a fast-paced game that focuses more on the strategic decisions of building and managing a team rather than trying to add depth to the decisions made in combat.

Automon riffs on and parodies Pokemon to fantastic effect, capturing the spirit of building a team of strange creatures and combining that with the synergy system present in most auto-battlers to create a unique, addictive blend.

15 Team Fight Tactics

An Auto Chess-Inspired PvP Auto Battler

Likely one of the most played auto battlers due to its position as a game mode of the popular game, League of Legends, Teamfight Tactics follows the suit of Auto Chess with its focus on strategizing over a team’s formation and building up synergies to achieve game-changing effects.

An aspect that could be attributed to TFT’s success is its ability to freshen the game mode with every new season; changing augments, adding mechanics, and switching around classes and characters. While Auto Chess does this, too, it could be argued that TFT’s creativity in its updates has helped to maintain its higher player base.

14 Gladiator Guild Manager

Auto Battler Action Meets Gladiator Management

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2021
• Developer(s): Entertainment Forge

This gladiator management game takes place in a fantasy setting and features a cartoon aesthetic. Gladiator Guild Manager tasks players with running a team of gladiators and leveling them up to take on bigger, tougher tournaments.

Gladiator Guild Manager combines auto-battling action with management game mechanics, tasking players with managing their finances and resources outside of combat, as well as managing their team’s equipment. Gladiator Guild Manager can get a little repetitive, but it manages to be a distinctive auto-battler experience.

13 Backpack Battles

An Inventory-Management Auto-Battler

This inventive auto-battler combines elements of games such as Super Auto Pets and Backpack Hero, offering a unique experience that makes the shopping section of the game even more strategic. Furthermore, the game features a crafting element that adds a layer of depth to the gameplay and encourages players to experiment to find new recipes.

Backpack Battles is all about inventory management, trying to make room for as many items as possible in a limited amount of space. Often, the game plays like classic inventory-Tetris, but players are also able to expand their inventory and even rotate new inventory slots to make more room for themselves. Adding extra replay value is the variety of classes, each of which brings its unique strengths to the table.

12 Tales & Tactics

An RPG-Style Auto Battler

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2023
• Developer(s): Table 9 Studio

Combining auto-battling gameplay with RPG elements, Tales & Tactics stands out with its colorful NPCs and fun interactions, as well as its lack of grinding through meta-progression. Rather than having players increase their stats over time, Tales & Tactics has players unlock new possibilities for future runs, much like in games such as The Binding Of Isaac and Slay The Spire.

Although Tales & Tactics features similar gameplay to games like The Last Flame, which combines Teamfight Tactics with the roguelike genre, Tales & Tactics’ skill-based meta-progression and unique charms help to distinguish it from its contemporaries.

11 Despot’s Game

An Army-Building Auto Battler Dungeon Crawl

Despot’s Game is an auto battler rogue-like that sees players build not a squad, but an army of “puny humans,” and lead them through procedural dungeons. Throughout a run, players can transform their basic units into several different classes; wizards, cultists, ninjas, and even pretzel throwers.

The game also includes a class-combo system that works much like the synergy system in games like Teamfight Tactics, as well as a perk system that adds an extra layer of strategy and adds to the game’s replay value.

10 The Last Flame

Teamfight Tactics With A Roguelike Twist

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2024
• Developer(s): Hotloop

This game plays very similarly to Teamfight Tactics but is designed as a single-player game. The Last Flame is structured like a modern-day roguelike, with a Slay The Spire style map for players to progress through, fighting various enemies and mini-bosses until they reach and defeat the boss.

The Last Flame is currently in Early Access, but it’s still receiving regular updates and, at the time of writing, maintains a “Very Positive” user rating on Steam. Although the visuals are highly reminiscent of Teamfight Tactics, the game has a handful of unique mechanics up its sleeve that help to distinguish it from the crowd.

9 Mechanibot

Tower Defense Meets Auto Battler

This game takes the strategic choices of the auto-battler genre, combines them with those of the tower defense genre, and mixes all of that with light micromanagement to create action-packed, chaotic gameplay that manages to remain strategic through its shops and the decisions players make within.

Mechanibot puts players in control of a character and allows them to move around the map and pick up and move their auto-battling towers, adding an extra layer of interactivity that is lacking in certain auto-battler games by turning tactical unit positioning into a challenge.

8 Necroking

An Accessible But Tactical Auto Battler With Deck-Building Elements

• Platform(s): PC
• Released: 2024
• Developer(s): KORO GAMES

Necroking is a simple and easy-to-learn auto battler with a dark, rich atmosphere and crunchy pixel-art. The game’s visual style and accessible gameplay are easily among its greatest strengths, allowing players to pick up and play with relative ease.

However, it’s far from a shallow experience. In the game, players build a deck of minions and strategically place them in one of four areas in battle. These battles are broken up by tile-based exploration, and the game even features boss fights that inject some much-needed variety.

7 Mechabellum

A PvP Mech-Themed Auto Battler

This mech strategy game features an auto-battler combat system that helps to create simplified strategic gameplay that manages to remain deep and tactical. As with most auto battles, Mechabellum has a large focus on unit positioning and progression.

The PvP battles of Mechabellum can be impressive thanks to their large scale, featuring masses of hulking mechanized units. The strategy of Mechabellum, and where most of the fun lies, is in its systems for unit customization and special abilities, putting a massive emphasis on careful planning before each fight.

6 Hadean Tactics

A Tactical Auto Battler With Deck-Building Mechanics

This auto-battler/deck-builder/rogue-like mash-up tasks players with dungeon crawling through a Slay The Spire style map and battling enemies with its immensely unique combat system. Combat in Hadean Tactics combines elements of Frozen Synapse, Slay The Spire, and Teamfight Tactics to create a truly distinct single-player experience.

It’s this combat system that makes Hadean Tactics truly shine, tasking players with tactically positioning their units and playing cards from their hand to manipulate the battle, then watching as their units fight for a few seconds before the game automatically pauses and the next round begins. Hadean Tactics may have begun in Early Access, but after finishing its journey to 1.0 back in August 2023, it has become one of the most polished and unique auto battler experiences on the market.

5 Mage And Monsters

An Active Auto Battler About Building And Leading Armies

Similarly to Despot’s Game, this game sees players building an army. Mage And Monsters, however, describes itself as an “active auto battler” and justifies this description with the presence of spells in its gameplay. Players can cast spells on the battlefield as their army fights its enemies, adding a layer of skill and management to the game.

Mage And Monsters also gives players the choice between upgrading units or spells, and features several unique mages and a vast array of unique units to build an army around. Furthermore, the developer behind the project is an inspiration for aspiring game developers.

4 Just King

Arena Survival And Auto Battling

Just King mixes the synergy-building team strategy of auto-battlers with the automatic attacks and strategic movement of Vampire Survivors. In the game, players control a King leading a party of heroes that they have hired, upgraded, and equipped with various items.

The game features a lot of rogue-like strategy and Vampire Survivors-style action, but manages to maintain its status as an auto-battler through its Autochess-style shop, where players can upgrade their units and equip them with various unique items. Just King also allows players a great deal of control over their team synergies through tokens that players can equip their units with.

3 Loop Hero

An Addictive, Strategic Auto Battler Of Risk And Reward

Arguably one of the best indie games of 2021, this wildly successful auto battler was published by indie giant Devolver Digital and remains one of the more unique entries in the genre. The main gimmick of Loop Hero is its titular loop. In the game, the player character (chosen from an array of unlockable classes) walks a loop around the same map over and over, with the fun twist being that the player chooses how the map grows by placing forests, graveyards, and a variety of other tiles to affect the gameplay.

Combat in Loop Hero is entirely automatic, but players have control of their character’s inventory in real-time, meaning they can swap out weapons and armor on the fly. Furthermore, there’s also an entire progression system after every run that helps to keep players invested in the game after every adventure.

2 Super Auto Pets

Tactical Team-Building Strategy In Asynchronous Multiplayer

Super Auto Pets is a solid and sturdy PvP auto battler that combines Hearthstone-style minions and the team-building strategy of auto battles. The game pits players against each other in asynchronous multiplayer combat broken up by single-player shop segments that see the player building and modifying their team with limited gold.

The greatest strengths of Super Auto Pets are perhaps both its creativity in its unit design and the constant stream of content and balancing updates the developer(s) have put out since its release. At the time of writing, the game has immense replay value; with a weekly mode that changes the pool of units every week, as well as five “packs” of units that players can pick from (four of which are DLC), there are so many ways to play and combinations of units that, even if the developers were to drop development today, the game would remain fresh for a good while.

1 SNKRX

A Snake-Inspired Arcade Shooter

This simplistic arcade shooter, loaded with surprising depth, combines the auto-battler with the classic game of Snake. SNKRX has players build out their “snake” of units and position them along it, changing the way units behave and the bonuses they receive.

What’s unique about SNKRX is its snake-like movement controls that make the action phase of the game a highly intense and focused experience that relies more on skill than luck. SNKRX, like many of the games on this list, also has a low price point.