We stay fly, no lie, and you know this.
There’s seemingly no shortage of roguelites available for you to play at any given time and sometimes the ones that stand out have an interesting hook. Whether that be a deck builder that’s built around poker rules or a brick-breaker with evolving mechanics stacked atop. The premise of BALL x PIT when it was initially revealed was, on the surface, enough to tickle my interest in what appeared to be a novel take on a roguelite. After dumping a couple dozen hours into the brick-breaking adventure, it’s safe to say I was having a ball.
The setup for BALL x PIT is quick and simple. A meteor sized object comes zipping out of the sky, crashing into the city of Ballbylon and completely obliterating it. Leaving the titular pit in its wake, you set out to dive for treasure and rebuild the once hulking home. From there, you’re thrust right in. Reach the bottom of the pit and rebuild Ballbylon. Sounds simple enough.
In order to do that though, you’re going to need to get a firm grasp on how BALL x PIT plays and how to elevate your playstyle as you progress. There are two major gameplay segments both playing pivotal roles in your quest to reach the bottom of the pit– brick-breaking and city building. During the brick-breaking sections you’ll be trying to clear your way through a tier of the pit defeating its waves of enemies and bosses by collecting passive upgrades and unique balls. While during the city building component, you’ll be slowly rebuilding New Ballbylon and in doing so you will be harvesting resources, recruiting new heroes to play as, and constructing buildings that may have permanent stat boosts or other unlocks attached to them. Both of these modes playing crucial roles to conquering the pit.
Moving and shooting balls directly at foes or bouncing off of walls to create new angles was satisfying in its own right but leveling up and acquiring special balls and passive perks were what elevated each dive back into the pit. Gobbling up different balls and upgrades each run helped me discover my playstyle and curate my runs. Would I want to focus on things with area of attack bonuses like the lightning ball or would I look for things like the iron ball that would move slower but deal higher damage upon on striking an enemy. This was how I would tackle early runs in the game, but as the game slowly shows you there are synergies you can uncover that will not only let you merge your balls to create powerful fusions but also if you possess the right balls you can evolve them into even more impressive spheres. This continued to make each run exciting as I was almost always pursuing new breeds of balls by collecting a different assortment as often as I could.
This experimentation of ball combinations led me to eventually develop multiple builds that I would prefer to use on a run. Which became important for later levels of the pit but also it gave myself avenues for flexibility in order to try and maximize my success with the randomness of a level roll. This coupled with having to clear tiers of the pit with multiple characters in order to progress forced myself to have multiple character combinations that I enjoyed using. Especially since some of the heroes you can unlock have much more unique gameplay quirks that change how you play, I appreciated being nudged into a scenario where I needed to shuffle around and not just play the one character who I was the best at using. Rethinking how to approach a level when you choose a character that shoots balls from the top of the screen or being able to bounce them off of the long shield of another character and play more closely to a brick-breaker are just a taste of how slight variations completely augment how you handle your balls in any given level.
The ball busting biomes that you’ll encounter each level of the pit varied in a multitude of ways. The types of enemies you encounter, how they attack and move, and other variations to the board are all unique to each level of the pit. This lead to further strategizing behind what hunter I chose to play as in addition to being more selective with my abilities and ball choices. The deeper the level the more depth to the gameplay, and it continued that way throughout.
Returning back to New Ballbylon in-between runs was a crucial element in reaching the bottom of the pit. Whether it was simply harvesting resources before diving right back in or if it was building new structures in hopes to gain a new edge– spending time tinkering with the city building is an aspect of BALL x PIT that I don’t recommend overlooking. At first it may seem inconsequential but once you start opening more and acquiring permanent stat boosts you’ll value each moment you have the ability to upgrade something. This mode was an interesting way to tie the minimal narrative into an important aspect of the progression of BALL x PIT. Although, I do think it still could have done a tad more for an initial playthrough. Once I got my space to where I needed it later in the game, I saw less of a need to change things or even add more harvesting plots, which was a shame because at some point I was just returning to the base camp to simply send off my units to harvest in the same path to hit the same buildings. For those seeking to max stats, break the game, and complete every challenge I’m sure there were maybe a few more optimal things to build and layout, I just never felt compelled to do so.
Volleying balls towards waves of enemies when the board is slowly expanding, my health is low, and a boss is encroaching were the blood pumping moments that BALL x PIT sang. Sometimes a game doesn’t have an elaborate story. Sometimes a meteor crashing into the city and leaving a gaping hole is all you need to want to jump in and see what’s good. BALL x PIT is that game and is that good. A simple premise with solid gameplay that could’ve been fun as a quick and arcadey brick-breaker but the execution of the roguelite elements layered within coalesced in a way that rises above just being a gimmick. BALL x PIT got me feeling like Jim Jones in ’06 because after I finish writing this, no lie, it’s back to ballin’.
We played BALL x PIT on Xbox Series X with a code provided by the developer.
BALL x PIT releases October 15th, 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, and Nintendo Switch.
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