The long-awaited followup to the acclaimed deck builder roguelike, Slay the Spire 2 certainly generated its share of hype upon its announcement and even more upon its Early Access release. But does the sequel live up to the legacy of the first, or does it spiral into oblivion?
Slay the Spire is a game I was absolutely enamored with; between the desktop version on Steam and the mobile version on my phone I sunk a solid 300 hours into it. Just an impressively deep, fiercely addictive experience, and each run lasts about 30-40 minutes so you don't feel too crushed when you get close to the end and don't quite make the final push. So of course when Slay the Spire 2 was released on Early Access, I went and grabbed it as quickly as I could. I was reluctant to do a review for a long while since it's still in early access as of this writing, but the gameplay and mechanics are largely finished and the game just seems to be awaiting some final polish and art assets, so I think it's in a good enough state to review now.
The core gameplay remains largely unchanged from the original - you progress through a randomized path of rooms on your way through three increasingly difficult dungeons, with each capped off with a boss battle. Each room contains a battle, a semi-random event, a shop where you can spend money on new cards, relics or to thin out your deck, or a camp where you have the option to rest and recover HP, or forge one of your cards into a more powerful form. The strategy of course comes in as you try to hone your character's build and tweak your deck to deal out and defend against damage efficiently, and make the best of whatever random drops the game sees fit to hand you.
Combat also remains largely familiar. Attack cards inflict damage, Block cards decrease the damage you take that turn, and various debuffs and buffs can be added by both you and your enemies to gain advantage or weaken the other side. Some of these can get pretty insidious too, like enemies poisoning your cards to increase the damage you take if you play them, or "freezing" them to prevent you from playing them at all that turn. Boss battles in particular also like to nullify the effects of relics or other permanent buffs, ensuring they remain formidable even if you get a really good build going during a run. Some even have unique mechanics to contend with - one in particular is called the Insatiable, and it's a sandworm that will slowly draw you toward it, swallowing you whole for an instant kill if you get too close. At the start of the fight you get five temporary cards that will let you delay this by a turn, but their energy cost gets more expensive each time they're played, so ending the fight quickly is still paramount to victory.
In addition to may new cards to play, attributes can be applied to existing cards to give them further upgrades. These include Sharp (extra damage), Replay (plays twice for the same cost) or Sly (the card plays for free if you discard it during your turn). One wonders if they took a cue from Balatro when designing these; it wouldn't surprise me considering how ridiculously popular that game got in a very short time. Of course, there are also plenty of new relics to uncover (some universal, some character-specific) and many new potions that are in the same boat. Two notable ones being that occasionally you'll find a "foul potion" that damages you when you use it, but you can sell it at the shop for a good amount of gold, and a rather humorous "potion-shaped rock" that simply gets thrown at the enemy for damage.
As you'd expect of a sequel, there's more playable characters this time around too. The watcher is no longer present (at least in the current build), but the Ironclad, Silent and Defect all return, playing similarly to how they did before with a few added tweaks and gimmicks. Two new classes are currently included, and both add some new gimmicks. The Regent is a comically arrogant character who spends each run seated on a throne carried by two servants, and their best attacks are fueled by a resource unique to them called Star power. They also summon a sword called the Sovereign Blade whose damage can be gradually upgraded mid-battle until it becomes a beatstick capable of doing hundreds of points of damage and buffing your defense in the process. The other is the Necrobinder - an undead sorceress who automatically summons a skeletal hand named Osty that serves as both an attacker and a shield to protect her HP. Osty at first only has a single hit point, but by playing cards that apply Summon, its maximum HP will increase (and should it die during a turn, it will revive again the next turn with 1 HP). The Necrobinder also places heavy emphasis on a resource called Doom - playing cards accumulates it on enemies, and if their total Doom exceeds their current Hit Points at the end of a turn they die. Some cards (and enemies) can also apply Doom to the player, though, so that's another danger to consider.
A new addition this time are "Epochs" that also serve as a creative means to reveal the game's backstory. Basically, as you complete certain goals you'll unlock panels on a storyboard, with each containing some character motivations, dialog or simply humorous flavor text alongside a piece of artwork. Like a good portion of the card and event art at this stage of development, though, many currently only appear as crude sketches rather than fully polished art pieces. Presuably these will be finished up as development continues.
Slay the Spire II is what you'd expect - it's instantly recognizable as a sequel to its predecessor, just adding in a little more of everything and polishing up the balance considerably. Most stage-clear rewards now feel like, well, rewards rather than side-grades (or outright downgrades), it's got two new fun characters to play as and the returning three get some new gimmicks and plenty of new cards to experiment with. All this, plus the constant reward of unlocking new cards, epochs, relics and of course the increasingly difficult Ascensions and daily challenges, make it another exceptionally fun and captivating deck building experience. Basically, my favorite roguelike of all time gets even better; this is an easy contender for my favorite game of 2026 even if it's not finished yet.
Publisher: Humble Bundle
Platform: Windows