The Verdict
“A masterclass roguelike deckbuilder sequel with brilliant co-op — marred by a controversial April patch that spiked difficulty and sparked a review war.”
Very Positive
This puts the game in the top 30% of all reviewed games on Steam.
Analysis by Ivan Z. Ganza · Methodology →
Quick Stats
58,925en
163,298 total (all languages)
1,999 analyzed
Current as of May 4, 2026
Mar 5, 2026
$24.99
Apr 23, 2026
287.1/day
Slowing
Metadata current as of May 4, 2026 · Source: Steam
Market Reach
≈3.6M
≈$320.0M
Based on 163,298 reviews (all languages)
Based on review count × genre/age/price-adjusted Boxleiter ratio. Gross revenue before Steam’s 30% cut, refunds, and regional pricing.
Design Strengths
- Co-op multiplayer for up to 4 players adds cross-character synergies and is widely cited as the single biggest upgrade over STS1
- Addictive 'one more run' loop sustained through hundreds of hours by roguelike randomness and deep deck-building variety
- New characters (Necrobinder, Regent) and reworked returning characters each bring distinct, well-realized mechanics
- Ancients system replacing boss relics and card enchantment/socketing mechanics expand strategic depth meaningfully
- Visual and audio presentation — improved card art, animations, enemy designs, and soundtrack — is a substantial step up from STS1
- Five-character roster with unique playstyles, secrets, and multiplayer-specific cards provides strong build variety
- Already exceeds STS1 launch content in Early Access with new acts, bosses, events, relics, and potions
Gameplay Friction
- April 2026 patch (v0.103.x) nerfed infinite combos, moved key cards to higher rarity tiers, and buffed bosses/elites — players with 100–300 hours report win rates collapsing and previously viable builds becoming unplayable, especially at Ascension 5+
- Doormaker boss is severely overtuned: stacked mechanics (card exhaustion, draw prevention, energy drain, high burst damage) invalidate most deck archetypes and force players to build specifically around it or abandon runs
- Post-patch viable deck archetypes have narrowed significantly — thin/small deck strategies punished by Doormaker, infinite combos removed, many rare cards described as worthless, reducing creative freedom
- Post-patch RNG dependency increased at higher ascensions — players report runs feel luck-dependent on early card draws with insufficient agency to compensate for bad starts
- Multiplayer enemy health pools over-inflated with inconsistent player-count scaling (3-player reportedly harder than 4-player); some character archetypes noticeably weaker in co-op
Audience Profile
Ideal Player
A strategy-minded player who loves iterative deck optimization, tolerates brutal roguelike difficulty, and can stomach Early Access balance swings from a dev team with a strong track record.
Casual Friendliness
low
Player Archetypes
Not For
Sentiment Trend
stable
Insufficient recent review volume to determine trend.
Genre Context
Roguelike deckbuilders are a mature, competitive genre where the bar for replayability, build variety, and run-to-run freshness is set by STS1 itself; STS2 clears that bar in content volume, character design, and co-op innovation. The post-patch difficulty spike is a meaningful genre-norm deviation — top roguelike deckbuilders typically tune difficulty to preserve player agency rather than constraint-stack encounters that narrow viable strategies.
Promise Gap
Audience Match
The store page pitches broad appeal — 'alone or with allies,' new and returning characters, evolving strategies — but the actual player base skews heavily toward genre veterans with 50–300+ hours in STS1 who can navigate high-difficulty, balance-volatile Early Access. Casual players drawn in by the co-op promise or accessible framing are hitting a difficulty wall and churning.
Player Wishlist
- Steam Workshop mod support
- Local multiplayer option
- Multiplayer leaderboards
- Endless/infinite mode beyond current ascension ceiling
- Additional characters (particularly the Watcher from STS1)
- Upgrade preview shown on card pickup before committing
Churn Triggers
- Casual and co-op players who were progressing to Act 2 pre-patch hit a hard wall in Act 1 floors 2–3 after the April update and stop launching the game
- Veterans at Ascension 9–10 who previously cleared the spire find they can no longer reach Act 3 post-patch, causing runs to feel hopeless and sessions to end before starting
- New players encountering the Doormaker boss for the first time without a Doormaker-specific build leave the run — and often the game — feeling the encounter is unfair by design
- Players who open the game post-patch, attempt one run, feel the difficulty spike is arbitrary rather than skill-based, and uninstall rather than adapting to the new meta
Developer Priorities
Rebalance the April 2026 patch: restore agency at higher ascensions by reverting the most punishing nerfs to core synergy cards and adjusting boss/elite difficulty scaling, particularly for Ascensions 5–10
The April patch is the single most-cited negative signal (198 mentions, high confidence) and directly caused the review bombing event that threatened the game's rating. Veteran players with 100–300 hours are churning. This is the highest-frequency, highest-impact issue in the dataset.
Rework Doormaker boss mechanics to reduce the number of simultaneously stacked punishment layers — specifically the combination of card exhaustion, draw denial, and energy drain in a single encounter
142 mentions (high confidence); described as invalidating most deck archetypes and destroying the 'less is more' design philosophy that defined STS1. The boss is the most specific and named design complaint in the dataset after the patch itself.
Introduce a difficulty accessibility option or separate difficulty tier below default Ascension 0 for new and casual players
18 dropout-moment mentions show casual players hitting a hard wall in Act 1 floors 2–3 post-patch and abandoning the game entirely. The game's low casual_friendliness rating means this segment is already at-risk; the patch made it critical.
Fix Steam Deck crashes (mid-run instability) and the post-patch launch crash — provide an official workaround or patch; do not rely on community-discovered --rendering-driver opengl3 flag
Steam Deck Verified status is a marketing asset. Crashes that prevent run completion directly contradict the Verified badge and damage discoverability. Low effort relative to reputational cost.
Audit and rebalance multiplayer enemy health scaling across 2/3/4-player configurations, prioritizing the anomaly where 3-player is harder than 4-player
Co-op is the most praised new feature (178 mentions); multiplayer balance issues (42 mentions) are the primary thing limiting enjoyment of the game's biggest selling point. Fixing scaling protects the feature most likely to drive word-of-mouth.
Competitive Context
The dominant reference; veterans with 1000–3800+ hours in STS1 overwhelmingly affirm STS2 as a worthy and often superior sequel. A minority of negative reviewers prefer STS1's tighter, more stable balance philosophy.
Referenced as a cautionary example of developer-driven nerfs destroying player enjoyment — reviewers explicitly compare MegaCrit's April patch approach to Helldivers 2's controversial balance philosophy.
Cited alongside STS2 as one of only two games worth having installed, indicating STS2 sits at the top of the roguelike genre in player perception.
Mentioned as a comparable deckbuilding roguelike for players interested in the genre; no direct quality comparison made.
Referenced as a comparable deck-builder; STS2's card modifier/enchantment system noted as potentially inspired by Monster Train's mechanics.
Cited as a superior roguelike where skill more reliably mitigates bad RNG — contrasted with STS2's post-patch increased RNG dependency at higher ascensions.
Sentiment History
Sentiment over time
Playtime Sentiment
Sentiment by time invested
· 25,548 post-launch reviewsSentiment is consistent across all playtime ranges — players feel the same way whether they've played 2 hours or 200.
Competitive Benchmark
Compared to 156 similar games in the Strategy genre released in 2026.
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