Despite having just recently revealed their new title at 2026’s Gamescom, the team behind Wolcen 2 already has a playtest available for us to dive into, giving us a very early peek into its dark and gloomy world. Serving as a direct sequel to Lords of Mayhem, Wolcen 2 puts us in the shoes of the Warlord, a bastard son of the shadow god, who will use his powers to either fulfill or defy the prophecy that paints him as the world’s savior.
The closed playtest gives us roughly an hour of gameplay, where we get to check out the game’s exploration, voice-acting, enemy types, skill-learning mechanics, and a very unique talent tree, culminating in a pretty exciting boss fight against a massive, disgusting spider boss.
The Bread and Butter
Instead of the usual stats like health or defense, most of the equipment found only features affixes, as the game places a higher emphasis on stacking passives and resistances over base stats, something that most ARPGs leave to their endgame stage. There’s a good bit of freedom as to how you approach your build, as the Warlord can either dual-wield two weapons of the same type or mix and match to have both melee and ranged options, allowing players to truly make the Warlord their own character.
One of the more unique things about the game’s combat is that the main character in Wolcen 2 doesn’t heal by chugging potions like most ARPG protagonists, instead leeching health from enemies by attacking them. This system seems intentionally built so the player is always on the offensive, also forcing the player to think of ways to deal with crowd control and stun effects, since not being able to fight back is basically a death sentence when potions aren’t a thing.
A Warlord Born in Shadow
The game’s skill-learning system is directly linked to the equipment you find, as you can temporarily equip skills that come attached to your gear, and after killing a certain number of enemies with that skill, you gain the ability to permanently use it as long as your current weapon supports it. This makes sifting through gear drops much more exciting, because even if the stats on a piece of equipment aren’t interesting, there might just be a whole new ability waiting for you in your inventory.
Each skill can be individually upgraded, and after putting enough points into them, you get to pick modifiers that greatly increase their effectiveness. It’s not to the point of something like Last Epoch just yet, where every skill is highly customizable, but it does feel very satisfying to max out a skill and see just how destructive it can get with every perk equipped.
When it comes to its major talent tree, Wolcen 2 does things a little differently, where instead of featuring nodes with predetermined buffs, it features gem slots, where you can equip different shards that increase your stats depending on their rarity. There are also constellations that when completed provide major buffs, like doubling your melee damage or substantially increasing your health.
Final Thoughts
There’s a good bit of freedom as to how you can build the Warlord in Wolcen 2, allowing players who enjoy min-maxing through hybrid playstyles to have a field day. The idea of classless gameplay doesn’t sound as alluring on paper as a traditional class system, but the freedom that comes with it usually pays off, and we already see hints of it through the customizable talent tree.
Wolcen Studio promises a clean slate with this sequel, as shown through their extensive FAQs and increase in communication with the game’s playerbase. Making the switch to a more future-proof engine, as well as having redone their server architecture, are definitely good first steps, but we’ll only know for sure once the game’s first act releases in early 2027. Wolcen 2’s playtest was a very short and early first look at the game, but it did manage to entertain me thanks to how exciting the skill-learning system is, which goes quite well with its brutally smooth and flashy combat system. Only time will tell if the game can succeed as a live service title, but for now, this is a great start.
