Other Progression Fantasy Series I Want to Try

Caught up on Dungeon Crawler Carl and Victor of Tucson, and I've devoured everything Sanderson's thrown at me, so it's time to dig into some new progression fantasy and LitRPG. Here's what's on deck:

• He Who Fights with Monsters by Shirtaloon — classic isekai setup, dude named Jason gets dropped into a new world and has to figure his shit out from scratch. Ordinary guy turns extraordinary, with some actual moral weight mixed into the power growth. I'm in.
• The Primal Hunter by Zogarth — supposedly brutal progression, which means intense as hell, and I'm always down to watch a character get pushed to their absolute breaking point. Average guy, new world, brutal-ass challenges. Curious how far he can push it.
• Cradle by Will Wight — cultivation-style advancement, characters climbing the ranks in a structured way. Everyone won't shut up about the world-building and how complex the magic system gets. Sounds like watching a strategy game play out.
• Defiance of the Fall by TheFirstDefier — LitRPG mixed with survival, apocalyptic setting, world gets flipped upside down and the hero has to rebuild from nothing. High-stakes rebuilding stories are exactly my shit.
• Beware of Chicken by CasualFarmer — total change of pace. Cozy, farming, base-building instead of nonstop violence. Sometimes I want the stakes to be about growing a life instead of surviving one, and this looks like the palate cleanser for that.

Branching out past LitRPG

After all this talk of progression fantasy, I'm also thinking about branching into horror and more action-heavy stuff. Don't want to get stuck in one lane forever. Trying new genres is like kicking open a new door — no idea what's gonna grab me or catch me off guard. Given how my actual days go, I feel like I'm half-living a low-grade horror story already — might as well lean into it on purpose.

If any of these end up being duds or hidden gems, I'll follow up once I've actually gotten into them.