I woke up this morning to a couple of really interesting tidbits, but the most intriguing of all was the announcement of new details concerning Rift Wizard 2.
It’s a full sequel to popular magic-infused roguelike Rift Wizard, a game that has been steadily refined under the direction of developer Dylan White. Yesterday we got new info about what he has been working on.
White has updated the original over time, however, the changes and evolutions that White wanted to make “would be wildly inappropriate for a patch.” That being so, we’re getting a full sequel.
Shrines are out, Equipment is in
According to the post over on Steam, the biggest difference between the first and second games will be the introduction of equipment in place of the old shrine system.
This twist has resulted in more game-changing items and adds “a flavour of chaos and randomness to the game that RW1 lacked.”
According to White we can expect each run to have “a sense of uniqueness and gravity”. And who doesn’t love a bit of gravity!
Massive monsters and powerful spell synergies
There was a whole bunch to unpack from the Steam listing, so I’ve tried to grab the highlights.
In my mind, the highlight is the “massive list of unique spells, skills, and equipment” that “means there are myriads of potential builds to explore.” I love the idea being able to experiment and evolve my magic powers.
We are also promised that we’ll be nice and powerful by the end, unless of course you “[derail] your spellbook into a useless pile of antisynergy.”
I’m also very much not looking forward to the “massive [multi-tile] monsters, new wizards, and procedurally generated variant monsters.” For all of the new tricks that we’re getting, it sounds like there’ll be a whole bunch of big challenges to overcome in return.
Rift Wizard 2’s release date and Early Access plans
According to White, Rift Wizard 2 will be with us some time in January, 2024. The plan is to keep the game in Early Access for around a year. The focus during that time will on adding new content and balancing.
At the time of writing, the game is roughly 50% complete, but you can wishlist Rift Wizard 2 on Steam to stay in the loop during that time if you prefer to wait for the finished article. If you’re happy to roll your sleeves up, there’s a stable build and a chunk of content there already to get you started.
