a deluxe replacement in every way

I needed Slay the Spire 2 to be good. And by “good” I mean almost exactly the same as the original Slay the Spire, but with a few twists to prove to friends I didn’t have such an addictive personality that I only wanted to just play one game for days on end.

Slay the Spire 2 is good, minus the part where anyone thinks I’m doing anything else but playing Slay the Spire again. If that pisses off people who hoped for a transformative, definition-altering sequel that would reimagine the very fibers of the deck-builder, that’s fair.

Like the 73,000 reviewers who took to Steam to declare their “overwhelmingly positive” love for Slay the Spire, I sank deep into the strategic calculations and monstrous battles of Mega Crit’s hit 2019 game. I climbed the tower of boss stages over and over and over and over and over with a variety of heroes, deploying every type of build, struggling to walk into the final fight so that I could be capped at the knees with no mercy by the Corrupt Heart. Then, one day, I just stopped. I looked away. I touched grass. (Sike, I started Balatro.)

When news broke that Mega Crit was at work on a proper Slay the Spire 2 — and then again when Mega Crit was redoing all of its work on Slay the Spire 2 due to being royally screwed by Unity — I was ecstatic… without knowing where things could go next. The answer, as it turns out, was small expansions in every direction. The early access version of Slay the Spire 2 that launched on March 5 reintroduces three characters from the first game (The Ironclad, The Silent, and The Defect) and adds two more: The Regent, whose cards mine a second resource, and the Necrobinder, who summons a li’l skeleton hand to fight by their side. As you navigate the splitting pathways of monster encounters, rest stops, merchant stores, and question-mark surprises, you still build out your deck one card at a time, praying all the while that you’ve balanced attacks and defense well enough to fend off any slobbering, goopy fiend.

The sensations of Slay the Spire 2 hew closer to a bite of a juicy apple or coming home to a bit of good news. From new cards and relics to new Ancients with pre-act rewards, the team at Mega Crit has found ways to needle at their own design and twist expectations rather than completely upend them. Classic cards are recontextualized based on energy distribution tactics and the ramifications of effects like Sly, which allows a card’s ability to activate upon discard.

In my first 17 hours, grooving with The Necrobinder has been the greatest pleasure, using Ostry the Skeleton Hand as part shield, part attack dog, and a lifesaver as I cast Doom cards to drain enemy health bars in both directions. But I’ve also gone back to rethink how I played The Silent, and how my go-to Poison strategies have been challenged by the sequel’s slate of enemies. Seasoned players will likely breeze through the early rounds — I nailed my first ascent with The Defect as I got a handle on the new Glass orb type — but before too long, the series’ signature slip-ups (“ack, no Defend pulls!!!”) come for everyone.

Mega Crit’s “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” MO reminded me of Team Cherry’s approach to Silksong: with a little more time, a little more nuance, and a little more design, even a near-perfect game can reach further for greatness. Or, to put it in a completely reductive but apt way like one Redditor: “the game feels more like a DLC.” Even Slay the Spire 2’s big innovation, a co-op mode akin to the recent board game edition that tests a group’s might and aptitude against a horde of monsters, feels like an add-on. And yet there’s a very clear and rewarding reason Mega Crit chose a sequel over a DLC — and it’s more than money.

Image: Mega Crit

Slay the Spire 2 looks phenomenal. It’s not the most obvious game for a visual upgrade, nor has it been given some kind of 4K AAA sheen. But by breaking from the original game, and the technology used to build it, Mega Crit has essentially produced its own remaster. Anyone dragging Slay the Spire 2 as DLC in disguise isn’t mentioning that you also get Slay the Spire HD Remastered packaged with it. More detailed art and fluid animation gives way to richer lore: There’s more story here, tracked by a timeline I didn’t know I wanted, and there are higher stakes in the characters’ pursuits to the top. In early access, Slay the Spire 2 feels 90% complete — there’s balancing work to be done — but the only visible issue is key art missing, with temp MS Paint drawings filling in for the time being. I can’t wait to see it all.

Time will tell if Slay the Spire 2 makes replays of Slay the Spire moot. Even if it does, I’m not sure it matters. Slay the Spire remains eclipsed but preserved, as all games should. With this sequel, Mega Crit has issued the new standard for this gameplay, rolling a remaster, sequel, and expansion all into one package. It’s slicker than ever and I can’t stop. See you in four to five years (don’t tell my family).