Despite spanning multiple genres, the SteamWorld games, from Swedish video game developer Image & Form, have remained remarkably consistent in tone and overall quality. So it isn’t much of a surprise that SteamWorld Heist II doesn’t deviate far from the formula that made the original SteamWorld Heist, from 2015, such sharp fun. This is still a side-on turn-based tactical shooter that relies on aimlines and skill shots (rather than percentage to hit numbers), with projectiles that ricochet off walls unpredictably.
The game’s story is also pretty standard for a SteamWorld entry. It follows Captain Leeway—a steambot who’s concerned that he doesn’t live up to the heroism of his more-famous mother—and his crew as they seek to solve a looming ecological catastrophe. In contrast to the first SteamWorld Heist’s space frontier setting, this all takes place in a slightly more grounded seafaring world. And despite the subject matter, the tone remains light and unobtrusive—just a bit of popcorn for the game’s central combat encounters.
These battles are long, intricate, varied affairs, and while the “heist” framing isn’t as literal here—after all, the main character is an aspiring hero rather than a space pirate—there’s still a sense of urgency to the proceedings. The game builds this feeling with an escalating series of alarms and timers pushing you to move quickly and efficiently. The goal is almost never to “win this fight,” but to accomplish a task—from picking up a piece of loot to unlocking a series of doors—before you are overwhelmed by enemies that will continue to arrive in greater numbers.
There are also elements of RPG progression in SteamWorld Heist II, which are meaningful and punchy without ever requiring anything that resembles a grind to unlock. You will hire new crewmembers who can learn new, fight-altering abilities, such as an instant teleport or temporary invulnerability. These characters can equip new and more powerful weapons that often have unique and interesting modifiers. This is standard fare for the genre, but it’s also clearly well-crafted stuff from a team that obviously knows what it’s doing.
The biggest change that SteamWorld Heist II brings to the formula established in the 2015 original is its approach to character classes. In SteamWorld Heist, characters had innate classes that granted them different stats and abilities as they leveled up, and in a pretty standard fashion. Here, characters can change class between missions by simply equipping a different type of main weapon, though they do have to level up each class independently. But instead of losing access to everything they gained from their previous class’s skill tree, they can carry over a limited number of skills based on the level they reached in their previous class.
This means that switching a class, while still a setback for a character in the short term, doesn’t reset them to square one, making it less of a sacrifice to your overall strength as a party, and therefore an easier choice to make. It also means that experimentation, rather than being sub-optimal (a concern that’s highly relevant in a game that often requires efficient play), in fact gives them more power and versatility in the long term. This gives your party construction an incredibly free-form and personalized feel, as well as gives you more attachment to these characters than you would have if they were locked on a singular, preset progression path.
SteamWorld Heist II also adds a far more involved overworld component to its campaign. As opposed to the 2015 game, where you traveled down a branching path by selecting from a few available missions, here you sail around in your ship in real time, exploring, finding resources, and getting into fights with enemy vessels. You can also upgrade your ship in various ways by adding things like a speed boost or new weapons, which fire automatically when enemies are near, Vampire Survivors-style. This part of the game is a pleasant balance to the more involved combat encounters of the tactics portion, and rather than feeling tacked on, it’s an effective way of making the world feel less disparate and more like a unified whole.
Like SteamWorld Heist, only more so, this is an eminently playable game—fun, well-paced, and finely tuned. It may be somewhat safe and at times predictable, but it avoids anything resembling a major misstep, making it an easy recommendation for fans of this genre of game.
This game was reviewed with code provided by fortyseven communications.
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