Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Early Access Review (PC): New Formula Delivers the Goods

The original Moonlighter was a delightful concept when I first played it. A charming indie game that mixed shopkeeping during the day with dungeon delving at night to gather products to sell in said shop. It started to run thin for me, a bit of repetition setting in once the game started feeling the same after each business day. Luckily, Moonlighter 2 introduces more than enough new systems to keep my attention this time, including a new art style, a larger variety of areas to explore, and more meaningful progression to chase, all while becoming a new genre of game altogether. Even in this early version of the game, my plate was full of fresh things to keep me occupied, and I’d advise any fans of the original to give the sequel a spin.

Decisions, Decisions

Moonlighter 2 goes for a massive swing right from the start, changing combat, gameplay genre, and the way players now adventure and gather loot as Will the shopkeeper. No longer directly inspired by games like the original Legend of Zelda, it has transformed with a gorgeous, colorful 3-D art style and introduces action rogue-like gameplay instead of top-down dungeon crawling, both of which I greatly appreciated. Now, when jumping into a dimensional portal, the worlds we visit feel more alive, taking you to new, diverse areas full of monsters and loot to sell at your shop. The worlds, enemies, and bosses have much-needed personality, whether it be unique animations, or bossspecific insults hurled at the player, keeping things fresh during each run to get farther in the pursuit of coin. 

An aesthetic overhaul isn’t all I was greeted with; the genre gets a refresh, with a rogue-like structure and action combat that had me devising new builds on the journey to get one room further. The rogue-like elements themselves won’t be brand new to people who dive headfirst into the genre, as it has you pick the next room on the map mechanic, reminiscent of Slay the Spire. It’s not a game-changer, but given the loop of “gather items to make money”, the choice helps you chase what you’re looking to bring back to the shop by picking exactly what you’ll face in the next room. 

Overall, the rogue-like elements are more than sufficient, but the moment-to-moment combat is my most beloved change. The multiple weapon and armor sets return, with swords, gauntlets, spears, or your trusty shop broom as options, but unlike the first game, these options all felt viable. 

Improving gear is still a necessary endeavor, but I never felt like I hit an unbeatable wall simply because my weapon hadn’t been upgraded to the next tier. That was a massive issue I had with the first game; no matter how good I was, I was always hitting progression walls simply because the number wasn’t big enough. That’s a gripe not felt in the sequel. 

Outside of the technical side of combat, it’s overall more engaging, with combos for melee weapons, a gun always on hand secondary option, and even launching stunned enemies and parrying projectiles by swinging your backpack. At the most basic level, it’s more fun to hit things this time around. Add in memorably designed boss encounters, each unlocking a boss-specific weapon, and it feels like Digital Sun Games made the correct choice in switching up gameplay as a whole.

Master of Capitalism

A largely unique twist for the Moonlighter series, the shopkeeping and townbuilding proportion of the game returns, and while not as thoroughly changed as the combat portion, enough has been done to make it feel its own. You’re tasked with opening a new shop, with the same goal of selling loot gathered during your rogue-like runs, but The Endless Vault appears in town, gifting you unique rewards for reaching sales milestones. This new wrinkle is an added motivation, coupled with improving the town merchants by building up their business, in turn helping you with new upgrades and gear. After most runs, I was able to improve some parts of my town, making progression feel constant early on. That does eventually slow down as things get increasingly more expensive, with my inventory not quite able to pay those bills at that moment. It didn’t get to the level of grind I felt in the first game, but it started to get closer than I had hoped for. 

In addition to all the town building, the backpack mechanic returns, tasking you with fitting the objects you find on your adventures into the grid system of the pack. Each area’s items react differently, with some burning the items they are placed next to, while other world’s items require you to manage electrical charges that empower certain items they are slotted next to. This bit of item management puzzle is essential if you want to sell the best items in your shop, wherein you’ll need to sell these trinkets at unknown prices, until you finally learn the sweet spot that makes your pockets and customers happy. Even in this early access build, the developers nailed the feeling of running an optimized shop, with the carrot on the stick of The Endless Vault being the ultimate reward. 

Final Verdict

Moonlighter 2 carves out its own place in gaming, being a mix of a delightful shop-keeping simulator, with its newly added action rogue-like mechanics to differentiate itself from the gameplay of the original. Every change over the original game was welcome to me, with deeper and more varied combat, and more engaging shop and town management. It’s a tale of two games, and Digital Sun Games has given us an improved and more rewarding experience across both.

Moonlighter 2 was reviewed on PC with a code provided by 11 Bit Studios. It is also available on Xbox.

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