When was the last time you played as a Tank in an MMORPG? For some people, it’s their favorite role to play in a dungeon or raid. For others, it’s deeply stressful and intense. If you fall into the former camp, you’ll adore Don’t Lose Aggro.
Don’t Lose Aggro is a unique, MMORPG-inspired roguelite that places you in the shoes – greaves? – of a Tank and tasks you with protecting your allies. Here’s Kyusai’s full review of this unique gem in its early access format, examined on PC.
Stop standing in that
Don’t Lose Aggro takes the quintessential Tank experience and tucks it into the roguelite format, tasking the player with protecting their allies from goblins, ghouls, and all manner of classic dungeon beasts.
Instead of working alongside human Healer or DPS team members as you might in a standard MMO dungeon or raid, you’ll be playing alongside computer companions, adding both perks and disadvantages into the mix.
On one hand, you don’t have to deal with DPS players standing in the fire to wind you up or with Healers quitting the raid out of frustration. On the other hand, you can’t communicate with your companions or plan out a boss strategy – it’s all on you to brute-force your way through the dungeon.
It’s a satisfying gameplay loop, with a few different gameplay modes to play around in. You can protect your allies from waves of enemies with the aim of keeping everyone in good health, or you can barrel through dungeons and take down bosses instead.
As the name of the game suggests, you’ll need to keep enemy aggro while playing – essentially, keeping their attention and preventing them from attacking your allies while exploring. Dealing damage or using an aggravating move will let you maintain aggro.
Killing enemies will help you gain experience and level up; for every level up, you’ll gain access to power-ups or new abilities in classic roguelite fashion. These vary from simple buffs for your auto-attack to the ability to chuck your shield around.
While there weren’t endless options to experiment with, I found there were enough abilities and perks to experiment with to help keep each run feeling unique. In some runs, I prioritized adding damage or shield stacks to my basic moves, while in others, I focused on the shield-throw or black hole-like attacks.
Seriously, get out of the fire
Don’t Lose Aggro is a roguelite, meaning there’s a consistent sense of permanent progression. After every run, you’ll end up in a home base of sorts, where you can check out new weapons and allies, along with your skill tree. You’ll unlock new options as you level up and progress through the game.
There were a few different allies to experiment with in the early access build of Don’t Lose Aggro – a healer, a ranger, and a summoner. Each has a vastly different style of play, making it rewarding to level up and experiment with new strategies.
The Steam page notes that, not only will there be new companions in the full release, but there’ll also be a companion progression system, which should offer more depth for folks who like to team-build.
Visually, Don’t Lose Aggro looked decent and had plenty of charm. While I can see it being divisive for some players who prefer more realistic art styles, for me, it felt like an homage to older MMORPG raids in its aesthetic, particularly with its character designs.
In terms of performance, Don’t Lose Aggro ran well during my time with it. I didn’t encounter any major frame drops or visual quirks; there were a few funky textures or clipping issues, but this is generally to be expected for an early access title, and it didn’t hinder my enjoyment of the game.
Fellow MMORPG lovers will get a kick out of Don’t Lose Aggro. It’s clearly been made with love and reverence for the MMORPG genre, but it plays beautifully as a roguelite in the same breath. It’s solid in its early access form, but it has the potential to be exceptional with its full release.
FAQs
Don’t Lose Aggro was released in early access on April 15, 2026.
Don’t Lose Aggro was developed and published by Oren Koren.
Don’t Lose Aggro is an action roguelite with a dungeon-crawling format, inspired by MMORPG games like World of Warcraft.
No, Don’t Lose Aggro is a single-player game.
