It’s been a whopping eight years since the original SteamWorld Heist. The world has changed so much in that time, new consoles have released, new genres have emerged. The sequel is a breath of fresh sea air, and is a return to form as if no time has passed. SteamWorld Heist II is the very definition of sequel, improving and expanding on things to enhance over the previous in fantastic ways. This is a follow-up I never expected, but definitely wanted and SteamWorld Heist II delivers.
As the story goes, Earth has exploded and the water has gone bad. As resources are scarce, with the salty water that can’t be drank, piracy of the seas returns. You play the son of SteamWorld Heist‘s protagonist, Captain Leeway. You have some big boots to fill of your mother, but even with a missing arm, you aren’t going to let that stop you from doing the right thing. There are five difficulties to choose from, allowing anyone with any familiarity with this genre to find something for them. There’s story, moderate, experienced, veteran, and elite. there’s even a custom difficulty to where you determine naval combat difficulty to enemy damage to bounty requirements – all done in sliders to actually dial in what you want. You’ll hire veterans and rookies alike to outfit your crew and maximize effectiveness.
This is a turn-based combat game, existing on a 2D plane. There’s a tutorial that will teach you all the basics if you’re unfamiliar. This is a skill-based game, where your shots from pistols, shotguns, rifles, and the like require precision. You can aim your shots with a trajectory of its path, and can be used to bounce hard to hit shots to absolute perfection. As you embark on each mission, there’s an overarching goal to maximize the looting opportunities. Doing so will allow you to upgrade and expand easier. There’s loot that will go away if not reach in time, hats to shoot off of enemies and take for yourself before you extract. Over time there will be more challenging enemies and more complex ships, but this is a game that goes deeper than the ocean it rests on.
SteamWorld Heist II is up to 58 missions over the 45 or so missions over the last game. This means you’ll easily be spending thirty or so hours in the game, up from the twenty or so hours it took to complete the first game. Captain Lee doesn’t have an arm due to an accident, so the crew has to carry the weight and embark on these missions without him. Spending more time with all of the new systems and mechanics is exactly what you’d want, because everything works in concert with one another.
Completing missions will earn you a star rating based on how you performed. If you lost a “steammate”, then you’ll lose out on a star. It’s very likely you won’t get all loot or all stars the first time you do a mission, and that’s okay. You can replay the mission to get all the missing rewards. If you fail a mission out right, there’s no penalties for it. You can just reconfigure the crew you roll with, and go again. It’s very forgiving and not unnecessarily difficult like other games. You’ll notice that mission XP rewards are low, or at least giving you numbers in single digits. While that’s a bit jarring, you do level up at a decent pace.
If a crew member partakes in a mission, they will either be tired or injured afterwards, and cannot be used on future missions that same day. Often you’ll have to rest at bays or inns to replenish your crew’s energy, and start a new day. There’s no penalties for just ending your day, and starting anew. It does seem like a system to ensure you’re going to places to remind you to purchase upgrades and enhancements.
You’ll be given the basics on how to upgrade your sub, but it becomes a necessary component for survivability and offensive capabilities on the open seas. In each slot, you can only equip one kind of piece of equipment like gun, armor, and more. You can sail around and take on patrols that will drop cargo in the form of water or the upgrade currency of gem fragments. Collect enough of these and you can purchase new equipment slots, crew slots, or weapons for missions.
New to the game is the job system, where characters will come with a class like reaper, sniper, flanker, engineer, boomer (no not that kind), and brawler assigned. These classes will level up as they participate in missions, and can even be swapped out for new ones. The best part is that they can combine old and new classes for unique and powerful opportunities, like someone who can shoot a rocket launcher that doesn’t miss.
In order to get to any missions, you must traverse the open-world – er, open-seas to get there. What’s apparent in SteamWorld Heist II is that there’s no linear path this time around. While the prior game had branching pathways, you were always moving in the same direction. There are barriers that prevent you from progressing sooner than you should or could. The map is smartly separated, which serves as demarcation of skill and readiness. There’s a fog of war that’s incredibly satisfying to clear out. Along the way you’ll combat patrolling ships, and are able to acquire rare and exotic loot, seemingly at random. You’ll traverse warm waters to chilly waters, all the while this is backed by some slow jazz exploring music.
Use of color is more vibrant this time around, with the lighting being dynamic. Watching characters get illuminated by the lighting above them, and then going into shadow as they pass through just looks so good. The artwork is meticulous and gorgeous. While the game offers more fidelity, there’s no real graphics options to speak of. There’s an interface scale option, full screen, vsync, brightness, and high resolution textures – and the game is still under 4GB. This game should run great on just about any system.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)
SteamWorld Heist II can be as relaxing or as challenging as you want it to be thanks to its wide array of difficulty modes, it’s pure fun the whole way through. The shift from the first game taking place in space to this game shipping out to sea might seem like a step back, but it’s such a fantastic setting, filled with sea shanties and naval combat. Having direct control of your shots, being able to ricochet them, or perform a trick shot is still an incredible feeling each and every time. SteamWorld Heist II everything great about the first game, only more and better that you have to sea to believe.
A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
