Slay the Spire 2 has been announced for launch in 2025, heralding the sequel to one of the most popular and influential indie games of the past five years.
Developer Mega Crit announced the existence of Slay the Spire 2 during the recent Triple-i Initiative stream, which showcased a bunch of upcoming independent games. Few will have caused quite the stir of this follow-up to the original roguelike deck builder.
The trailer itself is less than a minute long, and doesn’t contain any actual deck-building gameplay. What it does show is an apparent commitment to a new sharpened up art style and altogether higher production values.
We also see that the original Silent and Ironclad characters are set to return, though there’s no sign of the Watcher or the Defect. In their place is the Necrobinder, a brand new skeleton character with a whopping great scythe.
The trailer ends with the promise of an early access release for the game in 2025. If the original is anything to go by, we’ll be seeing versions on console and mobile soon after.
There’s already a Steam listing for Slay the Spire 2, which features some screenshots of the game in action and a few more details. It’s looking to be very much a direct follow-up to the original, with the same brand of side-on turn-based battles against fantasy monsters utilising an ever-growing combination of attacking and defensive cards.
The developer claims that the game has been “Rebuilt from the Ground Up” with a new game engine, “bringing in modern features, incorporating all-new visuals, and expanding moddability”. The original was a lot of very good things, but it wasn’t exactly a looker.
If you’re wondering why this indie game announcement is worthy of its own news piece, you need only look at the success of and reverence for the original Slay the Spire. Launching in 2019, it proceeded to effectively launch an entire sub-genre of roguelike deckbuilders.
If you’ve ever played a card-based RPG where you embark on random dungeon runs, building up bespoke decks of cards until you fail, forcing you to start the whole thing over again, it’s almost certainly been influenced by Mega Crit’s smash hit.
Personally, Slay the Spire is the game I tend to turn to when carrying out ‘light gaming’ tests on mobile device reviews for TrustedReviews, before invariably losing a couple of hours of my day to it. It’s that kind of game.
You might like…
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
