Stop the printing presses. I don’t care if I am woefully behind on my original schedule for February. A new demo just dropped for the sequel to one of my favourite games from 2020. That wasn’t on my 2025 bingo card, but it’s a pleasant surprise to be sure.
Pirate Yakuza? Well…yes, but no. I’m talking about Monster Train 2!
Yes – Monster Train is getting a sequel! Developer Shiny Shoe also dropped a demo alongside the announcement to help fan the flames of excitement, and showcase the avalanche of new changes. From the few runs I’ve played in the demo, I can already tell that Monster Train 2 aims to double down on what made the original game so damn compelling.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let me start by welcoming you back for another Demo Dive. Obviously we’ll be looking at Monster Train 2, the sequel to one of my favourite Deckbuilders bar none.
Before we delve into what’s changed (there’s a lot), I think it’s best to answer the question: what is Monster Train?
Monster Train is a Deckbuilding Roguelike that was released back in 2020, and was one of the few games within the subgenre to actually escape the shadow of Slay the Spire. There’s no short supply of Steam reviews, even now, for other Deckbuilders which reference Monster Train (alongside Slay the Spire) as being the game to aspire towards.
That’s quite the reputation to live up to, but I’d argue that the demo for Monster Train 2 does a great job of making a case for itself. To explain why that is, I first need to elaborate on what specifically made the original game so enjoyable.
Deckbuilders are built on synergies. That’s when you combine the effects of 2 different cards together for a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. Most games will let players find powerful combinations, but few let the player find completely broken ones. The original Monster Train (and maybe Balatro now too) was one of the few games that did. By the time I finished most runs, my deck was so inextricably broken that the final boss didn’t even stand a chance of defeating me. It was almost as if the boss’ music was playing for me instead of the other way around.
I bring all of this up because the 5 hours that I spent with Monster Train 2’s demo gave me the same vibes as the original. Obviously, the demo was just a snippet of the full game, but I was able to come up with a few really disgusting combinations such as one where I was able to generate gold indefinitely, and doing so increased the power of one of my minions to frankly meteoric heights. It was so silly, but I felt like the smartest person on planet Earth for lining up all the necessary pieces to pull it off.
Speaking of Monster Train 2’s mechanics, there are a boat-load of changes compared to the original, but the one that stood out most to me was the new Equipment cards. These are cards wherein you can apply their effect to a single minion for the duration of combat. This grants you a lot of flexibility in how you execute your strategy on a turn-by-turn basis since you’re not locked into applying these powerful effects to a single minion for the duration of your run.
There’s also Room cards, which are ostensibly Equipment cards, but for the floors of your train. These provide a passive effect to all of the minions on that floor such as awarding 10 Gold whenever something is killed on the floor where the room card is in effect.
It’s not just Equipment and Room cards – the folks at Shiny Shoe are insane and included 5 completely new factions to play as in Monster Train 2. Only 2 of them are present in the demo however. Furthermore, the 2 new factions feature complete new mechanics that were not present in the original game. For example, the Pyreborne have a mechanic called Avarice where you’re awarded gold equal to the level of Avarice any time you attack a target without Armor. This can quickly snowball out of control, and give you way more buying power while visiting shops in-between combat encounters.
Figuring out how all of the old faction mechanics synergized together was the other big component for why the original Monster Train was so much fun. The developers totally could have gotten away with recycling the existing factions, but I’m glad they decided to introduce completely new factions instead. That has me so much more excited for the sequel. The gears are already turning in my head, and I’ve only seen a small handful of what’s on offer within the demo.
Also, I feel compelled to call out that mechanics from the original game (Incant, Rage, Trample, etc.) have returned in Monster Train 2. They’re just generic mechanics that can be found on several cards across the new factions, which means there are even more opportunities for the different mechanics in the game to play off one another. And as I’ve already established, that’s exactly why Monster Train was so fun in the first place.
So yeah – Monster Train 2’s demo is awesome. I genuinely feel like I woke up on Thursday, and found a bow wrapped pile of cocaine sitting on my desk. That’s how much fun I’ve had with it thus far.
And, credit where it’s due: this is one of the boldest ways I’ve ever seen a sequel announced for a game. Y’all at Shiny Shoe didn’t just put out a press release – you let us actually play the game. That gave me a way stronger impression of what Monster Train 2 has on offer than I think I’d have gotten from a press release, or announcement trailer. Other developers take note – this is how you announce a sequel.
As for remaining house keeping items: there’s no confirmed release date for it yet, but Monster Train 2 is slated to launch sometime in 2025. If you’d like to try the demo for yourself, then you can download, and play it on Steam. Unfortunately, there is not a console demo available at the time of writing.
Additionally, if you enjoy the demo, consider wishlisting the game as that helps developers out, and it’ll send you a notification once the game releases.
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Frostilyte Writes 