The recent announcement that Slay the Spire 2 would include four-player co-op support came as quite a surprise to me. This style of roguelike deckbuilder is not known for multiplayer, and with few details shared about it and its reveal seemingly not being positioned as a big deal, I really didn't know what to expect. In spending several hours across a few runs, however, it's clear that co-op is the selling point for Slay the Spire 2, and a fantastic example of how small details can really make a difference.
Co-op in Slay the Spire allows 2-4 players to take on the game's typical roguelike runs. If you jump straight into it with other players before taking on any solo content, the mechanics are a bit confusing: You're all playing the same character, with the same basic deck, the same relics available to you, and so on. Are we sharing a deck? Are potions or gold shared?
It takes a little time to figure out that, while you're all simultaneously participating in the same combat and events, the choices you make and everything you gain belongs to each player individually. The only thing shared, really, is that you're following the same path across the map and benefiting (or being hurt by) the same buffs and debuffs on the enemies you're facing.
Combat happens simultaneously, which encourages communication between players. At a basic level, that means trying to ensure one player inflicts Vulnerable before others use their attacks, to ensure they deal more damage, but the possibilities are vast, particularly as you unlock more cards and relics. One player might play a card that causes the next attack from someone else to be more effective, so you'll want to ensure that follow-up attack is the most powerful one in anyone's hand. Someone else might gain Block based on stacks of poison the team is collectively inflicting on enemies.
There are even cards that are explicitly focused on multiplayer teamwork: A friend of mine focused his deckbuilding on boosting his defense as much as possible and playing a card that diverts all enemy attacks from a teammate to him. That meant our teammate could spend that turn going all-out on offense, without any regard for the damage that might open them up to.
Within a few hours of playing, we found numerous exciting combos that went well beyond my expectation of what a co-op Slay the Spire could be. How your relics interact with other players' builds, and the ability to cast potions on teammates, add additional considerations. This all makes for an experience that pushes players to think beyond themselves and emphasizes teamwork in a deep way. There is so much more nuance to Slay the Spire 2's co-op than simply taking your standard solo approach, just alongside other players who are also attacking a shared enemy.
That's tremendous in its own right, and genuinely reason enough to buy the game if you have other people to play with. It's transformative to the basic gameplay in a way that I don't expect to be mirrored when I eventually move onto solo play, which I've yet to touch given how well co-op works. At this point, with the early characters and cards being carried over from the first game, I couldn't even tell you what's different outside of co-op and the co-op-specific cards, but by playing cooperatively, it feels totally fresh. Any mild concerns I had about still enjoying Slay the Spire's core gameplay after years spent with games like Monster Train, which added wonderful wrinkles to the deckbuilder roguelike formula, dissipated within an hour.
What I might appreciate most about Slay the Spire 2's co-op, though, are all of the smaller touches. For starters, you aren't forced to play solo first. I'm often frustrated when a game forces you to engage in some amount of solo play before being able to play with friends. There's a suggestion here to do so, but you can bypass that and still get some helpful tips/reminders on the basics while playing co-op.
Once you're in a run, you start to see even more thoughtful details you might not expect, especially from an early-access game. There's a semi-translucent hand on screen for each of your teammates that reflects the position of their cursor, allowing you to see what they're doing and the actions they're contemplating. You can click on a teammate to view their cards and other resources to understand their build. Voice communication still seems to be borderline essential, but these basic informational building blocks are communicated automatically.
This thoughtful design extends far beyond combat. A roguelike of this sort lends itself to taking a lot of time to contemplate a purchase at a store or an upgrade to a card--sometimes. Other times, you might be ready to zip right ahead. That tees up a potential stress point, where one player is eager to move on to the next stage while someone else needs time to strategize. Mega Crit came up with a great solution by giving you something to do on the overview map: Players killing time can draw on the map, and those drawings persist as you make your way across a given act. It's fun to emerge from the shop to see what kind of monstrosities your team has created, and those drawings can evolve as you spend time making it across the map.
Periodically, you'll come across a chest containing relics. Rather than simply choosing one, you again see a physical representation of each player's hand as they hover over them and contemplate their preference. You can coordinate and each choose a different one, or multiple players can select one, which initiates an automated rock-paper-scissors match between the players to see who gets the relic. The silliness of seeing these hands duel it out helps to take any of the sting out of the losing out on an item you hoped to get.
Likewise, you get to see these hands move across the map, and each person can vote for the path they wish to take. Once the votes are in, a quick roulette-style randomization wheel is initiated to see which path the team goes down. This ensures everyone has a voice (whether or not you're voice chatting), but more importantly, by not relegating these interactions to more basic menu-style choices, the representation of each player as a hand lends the proceedings a much more personal, intimate feel. For a game you're playing online, with no real customizable avatar to uniquely represent each player, I was struck by how Slay the Spire 2's handling of these choices made it feel like I was actually in a room, hanging out with my teammates and playing a board game.
And, in a welcome move, multiplayer saves are preserved by the host, letting you cut things off mid-run and resume them later with the same players, while still allowing those people to go off and do other runs separately. Given how difficult it can be to align my gaming schedule with that of other adults, that's a much-appreciated quality-of-life feature.
Slay the Spire 2 might carry the early-access label, and in playing additional runs, perhaps players will uncover balance concerns or other areas that need attention. But even at this current stage, I'm shocked by how Mega Crit has simultaneously maintained such a similar-feeling framework while introducing this entirely new way to play--one that's so good that I'm already convinced Slay the Spire 2 will end up as one of the year's best games.
See on Steam
Source
Co-op in Slay the Spire allows 2-4 players to take on the game's typical roguelike runs. If you jump straight into it with other players before taking on any solo content, the mechanics are a bit confusing: You're all playing the same character, with the same basic deck, the same relics available to you, and so on. Are we sharing a deck? Are potions or gold shared?
It takes a little time to figure out that, while you're all simultaneously participating in the same combat and events, the choices you make and everything you gain belongs to each player individually. The only thing shared, really, is that you're following the same path across the map and benefiting (or being hurt by) the same buffs and debuffs on the enemies you're facing.
Combat happens simultaneously, which encourages communication between players. At a basic level, that means trying to ensure one player inflicts Vulnerable before others use their attacks, to ensure they deal more damage, but the possibilities are vast, particularly as you unlock more cards and relics. One player might play a card that causes the next attack from someone else to be more effective, so you'll want to ensure that follow-up attack is the most powerful one in anyone's hand. Someone else might gain Block based on stacks of poison the team is collectively inflicting on enemies.
There are even cards that are explicitly focused on multiplayer teamwork: A friend of mine focused his deckbuilding on boosting his defense as much as possible and playing a card that diverts all enemy attacks from a teammate to him. That meant our teammate could spend that turn going all-out on offense, without any regard for the damage that might open them up to.
Within a few hours of playing, we found numerous exciting combos that went well beyond my expectation of what a co-op Slay the Spire could be. How your relics interact with other players' builds, and the ability to cast potions on teammates, add additional considerations. This all makes for an experience that pushes players to think beyond themselves and emphasizes teamwork in a deep way. There is so much more nuance to Slay the Spire 2's co-op than simply taking your standard solo approach, just alongside other players who are also attacking a shared enemy.
That's tremendous in its own right, and genuinely reason enough to buy the game if you have other people to play with. It's transformative to the basic gameplay in a way that I don't expect to be mirrored when I eventually move onto solo play, which I've yet to touch given how well co-op works. At this point, with the early characters and cards being carried over from the first game, I couldn't even tell you what's different outside of co-op and the co-op-specific cards, but by playing cooperatively, it feels totally fresh. Any mild concerns I had about still enjoying Slay the Spire's core gameplay after years spent with games like Monster Train, which added wonderful wrinkles to the deckbuilder roguelike formula, dissipated within an hour.
What I might appreciate most about Slay the Spire 2's co-op, though, are all of the smaller touches. For starters, you aren't forced to play solo first. I'm often frustrated when a game forces you to engage in some amount of solo play before being able to play with friends. There's a suggestion here to do so, but you can bypass that and still get some helpful tips/reminders on the basics while playing co-op.
Once you're in a run, you start to see even more thoughtful details you might not expect, especially from an early-access game. There's a semi-translucent hand on screen for each of your teammates that reflects the position of their cursor, allowing you to see what they're doing and the actions they're contemplating. You can click on a teammate to view their cards and other resources to understand their build. Voice communication still seems to be borderline essential, but these basic informational building blocks are communicated automatically.
This thoughtful design extends far beyond combat. A roguelike of this sort lends itself to taking a lot of time to contemplate a purchase at a store or an upgrade to a card--sometimes. Other times, you might be ready to zip right ahead. That tees up a potential stress point, where one player is eager to move on to the next stage while someone else needs time to strategize. Mega Crit came up with a great solution by giving you something to do on the overview map: Players killing time can draw on the map, and those drawings persist as you make your way across a given act. It's fun to emerge from the shop to see what kind of monstrosities your team has created, and those drawings can evolve as you spend time making it across the map.
Periodically, you'll come across a chest containing relics. Rather than simply choosing one, you again see a physical representation of each player's hand as they hover over them and contemplate their preference. You can coordinate and each choose a different one, or multiple players can select one, which initiates an automated rock-paper-scissors match between the players to see who gets the relic. The silliness of seeing these hands duel it out helps to take any of the sting out of the losing out on an item you hoped to get.
Likewise, you get to see these hands move across the map, and each person can vote for the path they wish to take. Once the votes are in, a quick roulette-style randomization wheel is initiated to see which path the team goes down. This ensures everyone has a voice (whether or not you're voice chatting), but more importantly, by not relegating these interactions to more basic menu-style choices, the representation of each player as a hand lends the proceedings a much more personal, intimate feel. For a game you're playing online, with no real customizable avatar to uniquely represent each player, I was struck by how Slay the Spire 2's handling of these choices made it feel like I was actually in a room, hanging out with my teammates and playing a board game.
And, in a welcome move, multiplayer saves are preserved by the host, letting you cut things off mid-run and resume them later with the same players, while still allowing those people to go off and do other runs separately. Given how difficult it can be to align my gaming schedule with that of other adults, that's a much-appreciated quality-of-life feature.
Slay the Spire 2 might carry the early-access label, and in playing additional runs, perhaps players will uncover balance concerns or other areas that need attention. But even at this current stage, I'm shocked by how Mega Crit has simultaneously maintained such a similar-feeling framework while introducing this entirely new way to play--one that's so good that I'm already convinced Slay the Spire 2 will end up as one of the year's best games.
See on Steam
Source