“It shouldn’t be this hard to play the best version of one of Japan’s great roguelikes today,” PC Gamer contributor Kerry Brunskill wrote earlier this year in a retelling of her long fight to get her hands on a PC copy of 2002’s Shiren the Wanderer: Monster of Moonlight Village. She also expressed hope that the latest game in the series, the Nintendo Switch-exclusive Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island, would eventually make its way to PC. Good news for Kerry—it’s on the way, and you won’t have to get someone in Japan to mail it to you.
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island is now listed as “coming soon” to Steam, with all four of the free feature updates included. The Plus Pack, with 10 new dungeons and other content, will also be available as DLC, as will the Serpentcoil Island soundtrack.
The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island sees Shiren the Wandered and his partner Koppa—a talking ferret—in pursuit of gold, treasure, and a mysterious woman in distress. “In the Mystery Dungeon, the layout of its many floors, the tools you obtain within, and the presence of both friends and foes are different every time you enter,” the Steam page says. “The situation changes each time, so it’s up to you to prepare and adapt to unexpected challenges as they appear. Arm yourself with knowledge of the dungeon’s threats, collect useful resources, and gather allies to make it through. Strive to reach the dungeon’s deepest depths and highest summits!”
The Shiren the Wanderer series has been around literally for decades: The first, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, came out in 1995 for the Super NES and much later on the Nintendo DS. (Shiren the Wanderer is a spinoff of the even older Mystery Dungeon series—there’s a reason Kerry wrote that the original “launched a thousand roguelikes” and that “even the likes of Hades owe this series at least a respectful nod.”) Numerous Shiren sequels have been released since, but almost none have made it to PC. The one exception, aside from Serpentcoil Island, is Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate, which arrived on Steam in 2020.
A release date for Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island on Steam hasn’t been announced, but Spike Chunsoft said it will be out sometime in winter 2025.
