With 2026 shaping up to be a landmark year for roguelikes, we’ve spent the opening days of the year looking ahead to the releases we’re most excited about.
After rounding up everything we know so far about Edmund McMillen’s Mewgenics, we’re now turning our attention to Slay the Spire 2.
A sequel to the most influential deckbuilders of all time, Slay the Spire 2 looks to raise the bar once more, this time with deeper systems for returning players, a more welcoming on-ramp for newcomers, and a visual overhaul powered by the Godot engine. Here’s everything we know so far, put as succinctly as possible for your convenience.
What is Slay the Spire 2, then?
If you’ve somehow lived under a rock for the past decade, Slay the Spire, and by extension its upcoming sequel, are deeply strategic roguelike deckbuilders. Each run tasks players with climbing the titular Spire and ultimately defeating its final boss.
Along the way, players choose their route through a series of branching encounters, weighing risk and reward as they battle enemies, face powerful elites, and stumble upon unpredictable events. Success hinges on carefully optimising a constantly evolving deck, built from hundreds of unique cards and synergistic relics, with no two runs ever playing out quite the same.
Check out our gushing review of Slay the Spire right here!
An experience for new and returning players
Whilst the core structure of Slay the Spire 2 remains largely the same, the sequel introduces several key changes.
In a PC Gamer documentary, Anthony Giovannetti, co-founder of Mega Crit Games, explained:
“I definitely thought about what made Slay the Spire so compelling to people and how we could make it better in Slay the Spire 2.
“We want to add more complexity for returning players,” he continued, “but without overwhelming newcomers. Managing this has been interesting, and I think we’ve got it just right.”
Supporting new players is an adaptive tutorial system. This can detect when players are struggling and offer guidance, creating a more approachable experience without sacrificing any depth for seasoned players who already know what they’re doing.
Playable Characters
Just like the original, Slay the Spire 2 will feature four playable characters, with two returning and two new faces.
The Silent and the Ironclad are making a comeback, each with updated powers, skills, and attacks. The Silent has the lowest HP of all characters but can unleash deadly poison attacks to decimate foes. The Ironclad, in contrast, boasts the largest HP pool and is considered to be the most beginner-friendly character.
The first new character to be revealed for Slay the Spire 2 is The Necrobinder. Said to be the most complex character in the series, she has a risk-reward playstyle that is targeted towards returning players. Her unique companion, a hand named Osty, grows larger as its HP increases, adding an extra layer of strategy to each run.
A unique setting and a new engine
Slay the Spire 2 is set 1,000 years after the original game, with the Spire lying dormant for the entirety of this duration. With a millennium having passed, the Spire has reopened “hungrier and more dangerous than ever,” making for new perils that demand sharper strategies.
As mentioned earlier, the game has also received a fresh visual overhaul, with the developers moving it to the Godot Engine. This engine may already feel familiar to players, having powered recent titles such as fellow rogue Brotato (which just got pets).
Slay the Spire 2: Early Access, Platforms, and Price
Whilst it was originally slated for release in 2025, Slay the Spire 2 was hit with a slight delay last September, with Mega Crit noting that “the game just needs more polish to meet our standards.”
It’s now scheduled to launch on Steam in March 2026 (exact date TBC), and its pricing is yet to be confirmed. The game will be heading to Early Access, and if it follows a similar path to its predecessor, it should make a full 1.0 release at some point in late 2027.
We don’t have a confirmation on console ports either, but looking at the original once again for guidance, the game landed on PlayStation, Switch, and Xbox consoles in the same year it exited Early Access. The following year, it arrived on Android and iOS devices. Will the sequel follow a similar path? Only time will tell.
On the decision for using Early Access once again, Anthony Giovannetti said: “I’m happy we’re launching into Early Access. For Slay the Spire 1, we constantly pushed our updates and our players loved it. That direct feedback allows us to improve the game at an incredible speed.”
Consider us hyped, and you can bet that we’ll be back with deeper coverage once we’ve got our hands on the game!
