Solo or PvP: 9 Games Like Backpack Battles
Two games in one box, and lists keep replacing the wrong half
Backpack Battles runs two loops at once. The first is spatial: you buy items in odd shapes and rotate them into a bag, and its own store page says placement is the whole point, with over 500 items and 7 classes to fit together. The second is the fight, where your packed bag is thrown at another player’s packed bag and resolves on its own while you watch. Put the two together and you have the genre it sits in: an inventory auto battler is a game where you buy and craft items between rounds, arrange them inside a fixed grid, then watch the fight play out on its own with no input once combat starts.
Almost every “similar games” list swaps out one loop and quietly drops the other. So the useful question is which loop you came for.
One detail decides most of this page: the Steam listing for Backpack Battles carries Multi-player and Online PvP and no Single-player category at all. If you liked the packing and merely tolerated the opponent, the game you want is a different genre from the one your friend wants.
If you install one game off this page, make it Turnbound. Three games here keep both halves, and Turnbound keeps them in Backpack Battles’ own shape: an item grid you arrange by hand, thrown at builds real players left behind, with the single-player mode Backpack Battles does not list. Its store page describes it as an inventory battler with async PvP against the ghosts of other players. The catch is scale: it carries 473 Steam reviews and a Mostly Positive rating against Backpack Battles’ 20,614.
Which half each game gives you
| Game | Which half of Backpack Battles it gives you | Single-player listed on Steam | Price (as of August 2026) | Steam reviews (as of August 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backpack Hero | The grid half, inside a dungeon run | Yes | $19.99 | 8,489, Very Positive |
| Save Room - Organization Puzzle | The packing half, as handmade puzzles | Yes | $2.99 | 2,485, Overwhelmingly Positive |
| Luck be a Landlord | Adjacency synergies, on a slot machine | Yes | $9.99 | 11,520, Very Positive |
| Turnbound | Both halves | Yes | $14.99 | 473, Mostly Positive |
| Down with the Ship | Both halves, bolted to a ship hull | No | $14.99 | 807, Very Positive |
| Toy Smash Kaboom! | Both halves, arranged on a desk | Yes | $13.99 | 680, Very Positive |
| Super Auto Pets | The auto battle half, on one row | No | Free | 36,121, Very Positive |
| The Bazaar | The item board and the PvP | Yes | $19.99 | 15,453, Mostly Positive |
| Mechabellum | Placement and the watching, at army scale | Yes | $14.99 | 19,284, Very Positive |
If you came for the grid
In these three the arranging is the whole game, and nobody is packing a bag against you. The board being the puzzle is a pattern worth reading about on its own in deckbuilders where the grid matters.
Backpack Hero
Backpack Hero puts the Backpack Battles bag inside a dungeon crawl: the same rotate-and-fit inventory, where a pickup only pays off if you can find it room next to the right neighbours. Steam lists it as single-player, with Steam Workshop support and full controller support. It is a heavier game than its cousin, with a town to rebuild between runs, so a session asks more of you than the five minutes a shop phase takes.
Save Room - Organization Puzzle
Save Room is the packing itch on its own terms: reloading guns, combining herbs and making every last item fit inside a cramped inventory grid, across what the store page counts as 40 handmade levels. There is no run structure, no combat and no randomisation, which is the point and also the limit. At its price it is the cheapest way to find out whether the grid or the fighting was doing the work for you.
Luck be a Landlord
Luck be a Landlord swaps the backpack for a slot machine and keeps the mechanic underneath: symbols that only pay off when the right neighbours land next to them. You never place a symbol by hand, so the craft is thinner than packing a bag, and the pressure comes from a rent number that climbs faster than your board does. We cover it at length in games like Luck be a Landlord.
If you came for the auto battle
These build against other people. Turnbound, Down with the Ship and Toy Smash Kaboom! all call their PvP asynchronous on their own store pages: you fight a build somebody else saved, whenever you feel like starting. Mechabellum is the one that puts a live person on the other side.
Turnbound
Turnbound is the closest of the three both-halves games to what Backpack Battles does, and the reason it sits at the top of this list. You manage a hero’s inventory to escape a haunted board game, tile by tile, and its async PvP throws your build at what other players left behind. The other two move the board somewhere else: Down with the Ship bolts its parts to a hull and lists no solo mode, and Toy Smash Kaboom! spends its grid on summoned toy units rather than on the items themselves. Turnbound arrived in May 2026 and its review count is small enough that its rating could move in either direction, so treat the Mostly Positive score as provisional.
Down with the Ship
Down with the Ship moves the grid onto a spaceship hull and keeps the asynchronous fight: you draft from a pool the store page puts at over 200 items, bolt them to the ship, then send it at another player’s design. Steam marks it as still in development, so the item pool will shift under you, and its listing carries no single-player category, so there is no solo mode to fall back on.
Toy Smash Kaboom!
Toy Smash Kaboom! is the friendliest way in: you arrange and combine a toy army inside a desk, then crash it into someone else’s across the tabletop. Unlike Backpack Battles it lists a single-player mode next to online PvP, so the arranging survives a night when nobody is around. It is the lightest game here, and the one least likely to hold you for a hundred hours.
Super Auto Pets
Super Auto Pets runs the fight on a single row: pets you buy, merge and reorder, free to start with in-app purchases on the store page. Position matters in one dimension only, which means it answers the “watch my build fight” craving and does nothing at all for the shape-fitting one. It is also the only entry here you can try without spending anything.
The Bazaar
The Bazaar keeps the item board and the player-versus-player structure and hangs a live-service economy off both: your board is a row of items on cooldowns, and between shop turns you are matched against other players’ boards. Its rating sits at Mostly Positive and no higher, and the store page lists in-app purchases, so go in expecting the monetisation to be part of the experience.
Mechabellum
Mechabellum is placement at army scale: you buy mech units, position them on a field, then watch two armies collide without touching anything. The pieces are units and ground, never items in a bag. It also runs live 1v1 matches with a person waiting on you, so a planning phase cannot sit half-finished the way it can in the asynchronous games above, and an abandonable shop phase is most of what I want out of this genre. Take it as the endpoint of the “I only came for the formations” branch.
Where Hellmate sits
Our own Hellmate sits beside this list rather than on it, because it takes the build-a-board half and points it somewhere else. It is a roguelike deckbuilding chess game set in the seven floors of Hell, where each floor belongs to a deadly sin and every sin crowns its own king. You summon pieces and cast spells with mana, brand your army with sigils, and try to melt the king’s HP before your turns run out, across 60+ sigils, 40+ spell cards and 7 kings.
The differences belong in plain sight. There is no auto battle in it: you move the pieces yourself, every turn. There is no player-versus-player mode either, since Hellmate is single-player, listed for Windows and macOS with a release date of 19 January 2027. Being unreleased, it has no ratings or player figures to show you, which is exactly why it is not on the table above. If the chess side interests you more than the backpack side, our roundup of chess roguelikes is the better starting point.
Quick answers
Is there a single-player version of Backpack Battles?
No. Its Steam page lists Multi-player and Online PvP with no Single-player category. Backpack Hero is the usual substitute for the bag itself, and Turnbound gives you a solo run with an optional fight against other players’ saved builds.
Is there a game that keeps both halves of Backpack Battles?
Yes, three of them. Turnbound, Down with the Ship and Toy Smash Kaboom! each pair a board you arrange by hand with an asynchronous fight against a build another player saved. Turnbound stays closest to the original bag, and Down with the Ship is the one with no solo mode on its listing.
Is Backpack Battles free to play?
No. It is a paid game on Steam. Super Auto Pets is the free route into the auto battler half, funded by in-app purchases, and Save Room is the cheapest route into the packing puzzle half.
How many of these list a single-player mode on Steam?
Seven. Backpack Hero, Save Room, Luck be a Landlord, Turnbound, Toy Smash Kaboom!, The Bazaar and Mechabellum all carry the Single-player category, while Down with the Ship, Super Auto Pets and Backpack Battles itself do not. Two of the seven need a footnote: Mechabellum’s solo mode is survival against waves of AI enemies, and The Bazaar’s sits inside a live-service game with in-app purchases.
If the run rather than the inventory is the part pulling at you, what makes a good roguelike goes further in that direction. Otherwise the fork this page opened with is the whole decision: if packing the bag was what you replayed, install Backpack Hero or Save Room, and if it was watching the bag fight, install Turnbound.
Updated August 2026. Every price, review count and store category here comes from the Steam US store and was checked in August 2026.
