A release date has been scheduled for Monster Train 2, a locomotive-sized sequel to the hit deckbuilding roguelite. Monster Train 2 will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and PC on 21st May – and if you can’t wait that long, then there’s still a Debut Demo available on Steam!
The Monster Train 2 release date trailer gives us a look at the arriving Titans, who have turned up to try and destroy the world, forcing Heaven and Hell to put their differences aside to survive the new onslaught, and push them all the way back to their home in the Abyss.
Building on the original’s three-floor battle system, you’ll have this new enemy faction to face off against, and helping you to do that are the five playable clans, each of which has specific advantages and battle styles. New unit abilities have been added, which can be activated at the player’s choosing to maximise their effectiveness, while there’s hundreds of new and familiar cards in your deck, with the debut of some new card types. Room Cards will boost a single floor of the train, Equipment Cards stack powers onto units, and the clan-agnostic Neutral Cards will be a general purpose stopgap.
There’s new ways to play with an Endless mode, Daily and Dimensional challenges, run mutators, leaderboards and more, and you can draw upon some buff-granting train customisation too.
The demo gives two of the five new clans in Monster Train 2 – the Banished and the Pyreborne – and is limited only to the full run experience. It also doesn’t include many of the new clans, cards, artifacts, modes and features that will come to the full game… but it is a demo, so that’s fine.
We rather enjoyed playing Monster Train after its debut into Early Access in 2020. “Monster Train already feels like a fairly well-polished roguelike,” Jason said at that time, “and it’s doing something a little bit different with the card-battling side of things too. It’s exciting to see it playing so well and already feel perfect for the “one more run” mentality that lets a roguelike thrive. It’s certainly one to watch, and hopefully, the arrival time of the game will be more reliable than the form of transport it’s based on. Given that they’re Hell trains, I assume it’s Southwest Trains specifically.”
Source: press release
