Moonlighter was one of 2018’s best indie games. It realized a concept that felt so obvious it was shocking no one had done it that well before: go out and explore dungeons to find loot to sell in a shop players manage. It’s a game I’d still highly recommend to fans of 2D action dungeon crawlers, roguelike fans, or shop management game fans to this day, and also one I’m eagerly awaiting a follow-up to.
Developer Digital Sun Games took some time away from Moonlighter to create The Mageseeker: A League of Legends Story and Cataclismo. However, the studio confirmed last December that it is making a 3D sequel to Moonlighter. Titled Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, I recently saw this game in action and asked a developer some questions at an ID@Xbox roundtable.
It looks like Moonlighter 2 will improve upon its already fantastic predecessor in some important ways. Hopefully, that’ll mean it’ll be just as easy to recommend when it comes out.
At its core, Moonlighter 2 shares the same loop as its predecessor: explore dungeons, obtain loot, sell that loot, use that money to improve your gear, repeat. To explain the reset of progress compared to the first game, Moonlighter 2 sees protagonist Will whisked away to Tresna, a town in a different dimension. As players try to get Will home, they’ll engage with that core gameplay loop and slowly restore Tresna into a bustling town. From the combat to the shopkeeping, there were a lot of places where Digital Sun wanted to improve with this sequel.
Communications Manager Israel Mallen explained that while the first game is more of an action-RPG with roguelike elements, Moonlighter 2 aims to embrace the roguelike side of things a lot more. “This time, we’re going for a full roguelike game, and that means that every weapon, every perk in the dungeons, and every perk in the shop should feel different,” Mallen explained.
This is most clearly seen in the dungeon-crawling, where combat has been vastly fleshed out. While Moonlighter played like 2D The Legend of Zelda, Moonlighter looks more comparable to Hades or Furi. Players create character builds that fall into archetypes like tanks or ranged and go from room to room, clearing them of enemies. Players can also enhance their mid-run abilities with perks found after clearing rooms.
Occasionally, a tough boss will have to be defeated. I saw a fight with one called the Herald, which constantly shot projectiles at the player and hid behind a sound barrier wall. Will had to hide behind walls and constantly roll dodge away from projectiles before disabling the shield and attacking the best. The on-the-fly thinking from Moonlighter 2′s runs comes from deciding when to return to Tresna, as players can lose all of the relics obtained if they overextend themselves.
On the shopkeeping side, players will want to maximize backpack management during a run to get the most out of what they obtain. When opening a shop, elements like where items are placed, how synergistic the items being sold are, and more are important to success. While the jump to 3D is the most immediately noticeable new thing about this sequel, Moonlighter 2 wants to up the ante from its predecessor in several ways.
That speaks to how Digital Sun has grown as a team, as it’s a more experienced studio now than it was when the first Moonlighter was developed. “We were a small team back then and we wanted to do a lot of things we couldn’t do at the time,” Mallen said. “This time, with more resources, more time, more experience, we’re aiming for adding a lot of replayability.”
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault will be released for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S later this year and be part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate catalog from day one.