Head Back Out For Supplies In Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault

Indie games are always pushing boundaries and when Moonlighter released as a title where you not only get to delve into dungeons as the adventurous Will, but also return home to sell your wares it was a breath of fresh air. At Summer Game Fest we got to sit down with Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, continuing the story of Will and adding a whole lot more challenge to his adventure.

My time with the game caught me up on Will's story, seeking to adventure and raise money in the small town of Rynoka, as well as set up where we meet the characters at the beginning of the adventure. After opening the 5th dungeon, learning they were connected to alternate dimensions, they were tricked by Morloch the Interdimensional Collector who kicked them out of Ryoka.

Now in a completely new and quite harsh location, Will works for Ms Scratch, a strange woman who owns a shop, and she's ready for Will to start making as much money as possible as soon as possible.

This demo was an efficient and effective tutorial. Within moments, you're thrown into combat, have to explore a wasteland, and return to sell your wares. After your first dive you're introduced to a mysterious sentient cube that introduces her/itself as the Endless Vault, from there you're challenged to recover goods enough to gather a large sum of gold.

Combat is a fast-paced hack-and-slash where you'll push to get deeper and deeper into each dungeon with every event. Along the way you'll encounter different 'arenas' where you'll take on enemies, claim a reward, and progress to the next room.

A simple but incredibly satisfying gameplay loop, Moonlighter 2 The Endless Vault is the perfect game to just get lost in as you repeatedly dungeon dive time and time again.

There was some very interesting modifications to each of the runs that I was able to try including causing hazardous effects to deal additional damage or effects, or that certain locations you could travel to as you dungeon crawled would be inhabited by more difficult enemies. The battles would be more difficult, but the reward even greater.

Exploring the town, there were a number of shopkeepers with interesting-looking signs that lent themselves to the idea that, as the story progresses,d there would be a lot to do in terms of upgrading your equipment, abilities, and capacity for items.

In every way this experience felt like Moonlighter but bigger and better. If you were a fan of the original game, or like the idea of a roguelite with a very robust gameplay loop then you should 100% try Moonlighter 2 and it's available demo.

Moonlighter 2 The Endless Vault was previewed at Summer Game Fest.