I’ll not do the usual thing and give you an introduction to Mortal Glory 2 in the opening section, because the Q&A below does all the heavy lifting for me on that front.
What I will do is say “thank you” to AuroDev from Redbeak Games for taking the time to answer my questions. In the answers below, you’ll find out what kind of roguelike Mortal Glory 2 is, what the recently announced expansion is all about, and also some of the standout skills and features that are being added to the game.
It’s a really insightful read, and whether you’ve played MG2 or not -which if you haven’t, you absolutely should because it’s really good. Anyway, that’s enough of me, here is the Q&A in full:
Congratulations on the launch of Mortal Glory 2 earlier this year. For the uninitiated, what is the game all about?
Thank you! Mortal Glory 2 is turn-based gladiator roguelike where you manage a team of traveling gladiators and participate in a brutal tournament. In order to deal with the competition, you’ll need to find the best recruits, discover powerful item combinations and come up with clever tactics on the battlefield.
The “2” in the title gives away the fact that this is a sequel – how has the game evolved since its first incarnation?
Mortal Glory 2 is basically a turbo-charged version of the original Mortal Glory with some extra goodies added on top. The original game was the first game I ever made and it was technically pretty clunky in many places, so I completely rewrote the codebase for the sequel to make everything smoother and more polished.
With the sequel I also especially wanted to focus on the variety of the game to keep it replayable for longer periods of time. This basically means I spent a lot of time adding content to the game: skills, items, events, perks and so on. There are also many new features that I could spend too long describing so I will just list the major new features: Progression through map, relic items that give unique effects, environmental tiles, battlefield objects & boss characters.
I understand that there’s DLC coming out later this year, called Reign of Tyrants. What’s in the expansion?
The main feature of the DLC is a new game mode where you get to play with powerful boss characters that have unique legendary perks. Along with this, there is a bunch of new content to check out – over 70 new skills, 40+ new items, new playable races and more.
How does playing as a powerful boss change things from controlling a whole team of gladiators?
It really feeds into the power fantasy of being an unstoppable killing machine and wiping the floor with your enemies. You still get to recruit other characters also, but there is now more focus on that one starting character and finding the best ways to make them as big of a wrecking ball as they can be. There are 10 different boss characters with varying unique effects so the gameplay and potential strategies will be different for each boss character.
Can you give us a little tease about some of the exciting new skills that you’re adding?
Sure! There are over 70 new skills in total to try out and some of my favorites are: an instant melee knockback that you can use up to six times per turn, the ability to make your next skill not consume a turn, and lastly a skill that lets you consume the corpses of your enemies. I chose to mention the last one because it feels like such a brutal thing to do in middle of a fight!
After reading the Steam listing I can see that there are going to be new maps added – what kind of environmental things are you adding to mix up the gameplay?
The new maps use a new tileset to increase the visual variety in battles, but functionality-wise they don’t come with new bells and whistles. I could, however, sidestep a bit and mention that many of the new skills and unique effects will add new synergies tied to environmental tiles, like being able to teleport to blood tiles or always applying knockback to enemies when attacking from within smoke.
The listing also mentions new game modifiers and special rules – what kind of twists and turns can we expect?
Oh there are a few funny ones! One game modifier will double all unit in battles so you can have 8vs8 mass brawls. Then another one will remove all equipment restrictions so you can come up with crazy combos by equipping four different relics on one character or whatever clever combination you come up with. If you enjoy auto battlers, there is also a modifier that lets AI take control of your team in battles so you can take a backseat and just focus on the management aspect.
What roguelikes have inspired you?
The main inspiration for Mortal Glory comes from a Finnish indie classic called Areena 5 (2000). If you know Finnish or want to brave the language barrier, I highly recommend checking it out! Other than that, modern classics like Slay the Spire and FTL have also been a big inspiration.
Finally, are there any that you’d recommend for players who are enjoying Mortal Glory 2?
I feel like there are so many great new roguelikes coming out constantly, but unfortunately, I barely have any time to play games nowadays after becoming a father last year. So, I’ll have to defer the question and suggest that everyone reading this go find out about the hottest new roguelikes at rogueliker.com 🙂
Thank you for those kind words!
Wishlist Mortal Glory 2: Reign of Tyrants via the link, and you can check out the base game via its Steam page for more details, should you require them.
