When you compare and contrast Moonlighter and its Early Access sequel, The Endless Vault, the difference is night and day.
The first game is a charming pixel-art fantasy adventure with tightly-packed arenas, stiff controls, and a clever gameplay loop that really made the most of the roguelite format, as it was back in 2018.
This sequel is all that and more, with a fresh visual style, an expanded story, a new combat system, and even more loot. Let’s dig in…
What is Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault?
Developed by Digital Sun, this action-RPG sequel is focused almost exclusively on tight combat and sweet, sweet loot.
A typical day in the world of Moonlighter 2 involves getting up, selling some gear, adventuring for new stuff to sell tomorrow, and advancing the story a bit. It’s a simple yet effective way of keeping things moving.
What’s more, this gameplay loop of sleeping, selling, slaying, and story is really well put together – so far, at least.
Sell, sell, sell
During the day, you get to sell the items you’ve found on your past adventures. The better the gear, the more money you can charge your customers, and if you’ve got loads of gear to shift, these segments are quite engaging as you dart about the place, tending the store.
Once you’ve sold out and the shop is closed, you can then spend your earnings on upgrades and temporary buffs, making you stronger for the next run. It’s a neat system, and it encourages you to talk to the locals, as many of them have ways to enhance your future attempts.
When out on adventures, you’ll fight enemies to grab rewards. These items can be arranged cleverly in your backpack to raise their respective values. It’s another neat system that keeps the inventory management more than simple drag and drop economics.
Slay, slay, slay
I really enjoyed the new combat system, which is more responsive than the old one. You can light and heavy attack, dodge, fire a limited-use gun, take advantage of the environment, and of course, you can utilise newly unlocked powers during battle.
The roguelite part of the loop kicks in when you’re given new abilities that intersect with each other, enhancing your attack strategies. For example, you might inflict fire damage, ideal for agile builds where you don’t want to sit still for very long.
To be fair, Moonlighter 2 leans into the Hades school of combat, which means you never want to sit still for long, and movement is a key part of your arsenal. Similarly, you can unlock several weapons, each with a number of variations, and then upgrade them further to boost different playstyles. I’ve been enjoying the gauntlets.
Story, story, restart
The story is thoughtful, and it makes an interesting point about the displacement of a whole community, all told against a fantasy-themed backdrop. My only problem is that these story-driven moments quite often preceded some technical issues.
I can’t level it as a major criticism, seeing as the Steam Deck version of the game has a Yellow tick instead of the verified Green one, but even after a recent patch aimed at improving things on Deck, it still keeps crashing on me. While anecdotal, if you’re planning on playing this on a handheld, this is probably useful information to have.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that I had zero issues when playing on my main PC.
And so, putting that technical complaint to one side, I should like to wrap up by saying that Moonlighter 2 is already a deep and engaging game that evolves the original enough to keep it feeling fresh while retaining its charm and spirit. It needs a bit more of everything, not least some extra technical stability, but the foundations are in good shape for the adventures still to come.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is out on PC Steam and Xbox Game Preview (including on Game Pass). I played via access kindly provided by the publisher and their loyal customers in PR.
