Link: https://www.ign.com/articles/slay-the-spire-2-launches-immediately-shatters-a-concurrent-player-record-on-steam

Slay the Spire 2 has topped 177k concurrent players on Steam, and is steadily rising, setting a new record for a roguelike on the platform just weeks after Mewgenics smashed the previous record.

No gog release ?

Played a few runs, the game is pretty darn fun as you might expect but since it's still in early access it might not have that much content yet. I will say it feels like a much more polished and fun version of StS1 so far, and I haven't even tried multiplayer yet.

Does gog usually get early access? Genuinely curious

It's an option available to devs, but I can't speak to "usually".

it's so gooooooood, one of my favorite games in the last decade, I'm so excited!

But it hasn't launched? It's only in early access (IE pay us to beta test our game).

Thank you. People misusing the words launched and released really bug me.

Could you tell me what are the differences from the first edition? I played a bit of it and liked it but I can't fathom what they could change without drastically changing the game completely

this is EA, not a release

EA bought Slay the Spire company??? What the hell!

I'm pretty sure Sts2 has more content than the first game already even though its in early access

Early access

Early Access, not Electronic Arts

Everything is more animated, new player classes/enemies/mechanics/events, lots of lore. Also multiplayer.

The servers were struggling with all the people trying to buy it at release, including me. I had been hoping to get a few floors in before heading to work...

lol the panic. You don’t deserve down votes

There are a few devs who seem to do it right. Slay the spire 2 is stable, complete, and reasonably balanced in it's current state.

If the game didn't get another update after today id still feel like I got my money's worth.

Hahaa, fella acted like a dog who heard the word bath 😄

I had the same visceral reaction as that person.

EVERY Balatro streamer is doing StS2 today

Ahh, gotta love UCA (useless confusing acronyms)

When Slay the Spire 2 was announced, I was honestly skeptical of how they'd top the original. StS is the game that ruined all other roguelikes for me just for how damn polished it is.

I can confidently say StS2 has raised the bar. It's actually the smaller details that have impressed me most, like the way doing nothing is never an option at events. And enchantments are such a cool mechanic, gears are spinning in my head looking for fun things I can do with them. Equally cool when enemies can negatively enchant my cards too, new kinds of combat challenges.

I still don't know how I feel about Ancients, it's weird not having energy relics anymore. But part of me kind of likes that this is weird and different, it is by far the biggest change that makes for a totally new meta to explore. I can already tell that mastering this game will be a journey.

It's valid! I'm just delighted by the genuine human feeling of it, people are great.

YOU are great.

(⁠•⁠ө⁠•⁠)⁠♡

Co-op is the major new selling point. Beyond that, the core formula hasn't changed too much, they've mostly just expanded on it with new characters, cards, enemies, etc.

But for anyone who's put a lot of time into the original, I think you'll really appreciate all the littler elements that really add up. They've had a lot of time to rethink some nitpicks with the original and learn some lessons from it.

For example, a lot of events in the first game were a binary choice of either taking something or taking nothing, in which case the event becomes an empty floor. Act 1 events in particular were often a trap. MegaCrit has talked about how StS2's events are being designed so that simply doing nothing is never an option, and I really really really like this! Just exploring all the new events is great, I'm suddenly prioritizing ?s on my paths just to see them all.

Boss relics have been replaced by a new system called Ancients. Part of me is still not sure how I feel about this, part of me is kind of excited by the fact that I don't know how to feel. The game feels very different without energy relics (mostly, there actually are a few but many runs will not see them), and that's definitely something that makes for a new and different challenge to get used to.

There's also a new mechanic where cards can receive Enchantments, either permanently or just for the duration of combat. You can come up with some very cool combos to experiment with using this system, and on the flipside the enemies that are able to negatively mess with your cards are super interesting to me.

I was up hours past my bedtime. I saw the email and bought without hesitation. It may not be my favorite game, but the original has my highest recorded play time in my library. I'm sure a game like smash or minecraft are up there, but I don't feel the same way about them. Like I actively avoid slay the spire otherwise it will impact my personal responsibilities.

Yup, I played more and it turns out there's a ton of content, including alternate stages with different enemies/bosses. This game is so good.

Only played two incomplete runs so far, but am I crazy to think that the game is nearly identical to the first game? It's the same game!

It's the Street Fighter 2 to Street Fighter 1.

There are about a half dozen new mechanics woven into the game.

They learned a little from Balatro, added some questlines like FTL, and added a whole multiplayer component.

Then I look forward to playing more... Street Fighter 1 and 2 are pretty much completely different genres though, so I dunno. Seemed more like SF2 vs. SF3 or something.

It's really hard to improve on perfection. In this case they did it.

Everything is animated, but it's all snappier and more responsive somehow than the first game