It’s been a year of massively anticipated indie sequels, from Citizen Sleeper 2 in January to Hades II and Hollow Knight: Silksong in September. Sneaking in before the end of the year, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is only entering Steam Early Access, but so far, it’s building on the original Moonlighter in ways that have me captivated far more than I expected.
Like its 2018 predecessor, Moonlighter 2 is a game in two halves. At times, it’s a third-person roguelike where you’ll hack and slash through hordes of enemies in procedurally generated worlds. At others, it’s a shopkeeping sim, putting you in charge of your own store selling the relics you unearth on your adventures. Despite how much is familiar, a lot has changed, too. Moonlighter 2 replaces the first game’s pixel art with a new 3D style, moves its setting from the village of Rynoka to a town full of interdimensional travelers, and trades out the original’s dungeon for a series of encounters spread across the kind of node map that’s now ubiquitous in roguelike games.
