Steamworld Heist II

We really have to treasure the folk over at Thunderful Development for the work they do on the SteamWorld franchise. This smaller scale series has more depth and variety than many AAA tent poles, and that's on top of delivering tight and engaging experiences too. SteamWorld Heist II, as I alluded to in my recent preview, is another continuation of this form.

Picking up after the events of the first game, Heist II follows Captain Leeway and his crew of Steambots as they explore the Great Sea and attempt to figure out why the freshwater that is necessary for survival has suddenly become toxic and a leading cause of rusting. This voyage takes the crew in their mobile submarine to various different biomes to face dangerous pirates, evade the navy, and steadily improve and become more powerful through various upgrading systems.

As is the case in the original game, the gameplay mostly revolves around turn-based strategy combat where you command your Steambot crew in battles against different enemy types. This is a very straightforward combat suite where every character has at least two actions per turn (it can be more with certain ability combinations) to move and shoot, or throw a grenade and use an ability, or move and reload a weapon, for example. The core design is very easy to understand but it suddenly becomes more challenging to master when you add environmental hazards, additional challenges and objectives, varying enemy types, unique character class types and abilities, and so forth to the equation. Essentially, while you only need a rudimentary knowledge of strategy to get your foot into the door of Heist II, to overcome some of the latter levels and more demanding activities, you will need to take your time, strategically move and strike, and do everything in your power to avoid your Steambots being scrapped in battle.

Granted, there's not a huge concern about losing a bot in action, as they will simply be available to select again after a rest period after one of the game's day cycles, but as each level has a slate of stars to collect, you won't want to lose a star for failing to protect one of your bots in battle. It may seem simple enough, but if you're also on the clock, or required to pick up some epic loot, or tick off an additional challenge while completing the core objective too, it all of a sudden becomes much more stressful. And you'll need stars as new parts of the world map and the story is often locked behind how many stars you've acquired in each region.

As per the exploration outside of combat, this is the main area where Thunderful has seemingly taken a big step forward compared to the first game. Now you can freely travel around an overworld map using your submarine vehicle to discover secrets, battle enemy ships that patrol the waves in real-time combat, and simply to move to and from levels. It's a great idea that I feel has slightly dropped the ball, as the lack of a minimap does mean that you can easily get lost and have to manually open the world map to determine your next course of action. A rudimentary minimap would do wonders here.

Looking at the customisation and progression suite, Thunderful has once again done a pretty good job. The way that you can level up a character's expertise with a class through experience earned through combat and then switch that character to any different class by changing their equipped primary weapon to increase their expertises elsewhere, and then combine the abilities of both classes so that you can get a best-of-both worlds approach is absolutely excellent. You can mix the clear strengths of the high-mobility Flanker with the frontlining Brawler, or could make something stranger such as a Sniper equipped with buildable Engineer elements instead. The options here mean that there's no serious rails limiting the team you make or the characters that you want to recruit, something that is enhanced by the fact that any character can use any weapon and equip any items/consumables. The buildcrafting in this game is so straightforward but broad it's truly commendable.

Then there's the aesthetic. Thunderful has had years to consistently refine the SteamWorld theme, and in Heist II we get just another example of how far that's come. Despite no spoken dialogue (which is a little disappointing considering how many SteamWorld games there have been), every character still has so much charm and a deep personality. The world is similar, with tons of detail and an ambience that feels incredibly lively, especially when you visit hub locations and the latest soundtrack from Steam Powered Giraffe begins to play, delivering shanty and nautical tones that add that extra level of authenticity. You can't help but fall in love with the aesthetic.

There are a few other growing pains however, but these are mostly smaller elements that could make the game that little bit more refined if tackled. The option to rescind the movement action of a character before they look to cause any damage or end their turn when in battle would make the control system less of a frustration to deal with at times. The aiming mechanic in combat could also do with a bit of work, especially when using sniper rifles which allow you to land some crazy ricochet shots - or at least it would if the aiming reticle didn't frequently reset if you slightly move out of frame... But again, these are minor inconveniences that only lead to smaller frustrations, as for the most part it seems that Thunderful has delivered a well-balanced, varied, and entertaining sequel in Heist II.

It's probably not a huge surprise to many to hear that SteamWorld Heist II is a pretty excellent strategy game considering the first game was also fantastic. Thunderful has delivered a sequel that feels like an evolution of the format that made the first game so special, with a rich aesthetic, great buildcrafting and progression systems, tight combat, better exploration, and that typical SteamWorld charm creeping out of every crack too. Whether you're a SteamWorld fan or not, you should take a chance with Heist II.