Near the end of last year I decided to check out Steamworld Heist, the second installment in the Steamworld franchise and major title by indie studio Image & Form. It was a 2D tactics game I had low expectations for. My experience with the Steamworld franchise up until that point was the Steamworld Dig duo, which were pretty good. However, tactics games aren’t my cup of tea as they usually run into the problems most turn based RPGs avoid. Having to waste turns just to get your units on the other side of a battlefield. All the management you have to do in between each mission. Having to worry about both what you’ll do each turn and position of your units. It is more than what I can usually handle, but in recent memory I found myself enjoying tactical RPGs more. Into The Breach is still one of my go to examples for how to do one of these games. Having battles take place on micro fields that are easy to navigate, and making sure no singular battle takes place for more than five minutes. CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3 to some capacity have tactical combat. Another tactics game I tried in recent memory was Tactical Breach Wizards, and it as well follows the measures I quite enjoyed with Into The Breach. So yeah, I like tactics now!
Steamworld Heist could’ve been another standard Steamworld game, but it was more than that. What it actually was is a stellar design tactics game with innovative design choices for combat, and a moment to moment gameplay loop that never got tiresome for the eight or so hours it took me to finish it. Sure there were a few flaws, but nothing that held it back from being another one of the genre’s top entries. Steamworld Heist has become my favorite Steamworld title, and I was extremely excited to check out Steamworld Heist 2 which released months earlier. I did keep my expectations low for it too, because reception-wise Steamworld Heist 2 seemed like more of the same. This time around longer, flooded with more content, and in a literal and figurative sense. The Steamworld franchise changed developers at that point as Image & Form went on to make The Gunk, and Steamworld Heist 2 was instead developed by Thunderful Development. That’s a piece of information I learned just now while writing this review. Most critics gave this game an 8/10 with some even scoring the sequel lower than the first. Expressing disappointment in how much the sequel hasn’t changed since the first. A few arguments can be made by this. One is that it’s been nearly ten years since the first Steamworld Heist came out. It was innovative during the time of its release, and expecting the same levels of wowing again 9 years later is unrealistic in my opinion. Secondly, a majority of video game sequels offer more of the same. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and that's what they did.
There were a couple shoes to fill in with Steamworld Heist 2 though, so how does it all hold up? Steamworld Heist was my favorite Steamworld game, and you’ll be glad to hear that the sequel for me has surpassed it in every single way. In fact, Steamworld Heist 2 has become my favorite tactics game of all time and sits amongst my small pantheon of indie greats. It fixed just about every problem I had with the original and the new stuff it added that I wasn’t really excited for was better than I could hope. It’s another ideal example of how to do a video game sequel and I think it’s a shame the game isn’t getting the love it deserves. I think this is a golden nugget of a tactics game with better combat, enemy variety, class system, world design, and a Steamworld story I can actually care about now. This game should’ve been nominated for a few RPG awards last year, because the amount of love and thought put into each system and the progression is real astonishing. Steamworld Heist 2 has for me become a modern tactics classic, and today we’ll be talking about why I think it’s a masterpiece in design and the best Steamworld game to date. So grab the gang and set course. Faring in the ocean, far away from what I call home.
Story
If you played Steamworld Heist and Steamworld Dig 2 you would know the earth exploded after a catastrophic event. Robot civilization has been sailing the stars in the hopes of finding a planet safe enough to inhabit. Turns out the search for a new home wouldn’t be such a struggle as some bits of the exploded earth have become inhabitable. Clusters, these floating chunks of earth now circling around the earth and contain the resources they need to survive. Robot civilization made way back to their destroyed home planet to form new towns and societies. Harvesting fresh water to keep their systems running, well at the Steambots. The Dieselbots don’t require water to work, and have formed an organized navy to patrol the waters and keep everything under their eye. The Navy has become somewhat of a tyrannical force, and it doesn’t help that they’re constantly in fights with the Rattlers. A religious group of robots that have replaced their components with the bones they can scavenge from humanity’s past and believe a dark god will let them ascend when the time comes. Things are pretty bad, but unfortunately it gets worse. The water the Steambots need to thrive has slowly been contaminated by a mysterious disease called Rust. Chewing away at their systems until they’re no longer functional. It means clean freshwater is in higher demand and of course the Navy is going to exploit this situation.
Meanwhile, Rattlers have been raiding Navy vessels for freshwater. Hoarding it on their vessels and contaminating it with the Rust. Constant war and struggle is seen across the sea and it seems like all hope for better times is thrown out the window. However, all of this isn’t your problem as of right now. You are Captain Quincy Leeway, son of the legendary Krakenbane. A brave hero who brought peace to the waters ages ago and slayed a fiend simply named, the Kraken. Retiring years after her heroic deeds and passing her inheritance to Quincy. Being the son of a legendary hero everyone expects you to do great deeds like her, but sadly things haven’t been going well for Leeway. He’s struggling to make ends meet in the world, can’t find a great duty to take on, and recently got his mother’s ship taken by the Navy after failing to pay their taxes. He could’ve become another bum, but his crew members slash friends Daisy Clutch and Wesley Hotchkiss get him back onto his feet. Infiltrating a Navy stronghold, battling their way through their forces, and retrieving the taken ship. Sailing on the waters again, Leeway makes a new goal for himself. Battle the Navy, help struggling Steamboats, and become a legend just like his mother. Seeing his reputation grow by the day and attract the attention of those needing help. One of whom wants to look further into the freshwater crisis, an offer Leeway cannot refuse.
Gameplay
Steamworld Heist 2 plays similarly to that of the first Steamworld Heist. With the same combat loop and systems. You’ll enter a mission and choose which crew members you want to send in. This time around each crew member has a distinct class. Each class has unique traits and type of weapon they’ll use. A sniper is good for long range and their shots can reflect off walls, but need to take time to reload in between shots. Flankers can traverse long stretches of terrain easily and get close up and personal with a shotgun. An engineer carries around a light pistol which isn’t all that strong, but their lack of strength makes up for their ability to assist allies. What’s different this time around is being able to switch the class of your characters. By swapping a character's weapon you change their class type. Switching up how they function, but you don’t get to ditch the perks and abilities they had before. Depending on their experience with a different class they can spend cogs to carry over specific perks. It’s sorta like the skill inheritance system Metaphor Refantazio had. New perks and skills are unlocked the more experience a character gets with their class. Combat functions just the same. Characters get two action points each turn and you gotta spend them wisely. Spend the first action point to move or use an ability, and spend the second action point to either move up further or fire off your gun.
Run around and slay the variety of enemies on the field. Steamworld Heist will eventually throw in the alarm system where the more time you spend on a mission the higher the alarm number goes up. When it reaches a certain threshold the alarm stage rises. Causing enemies to spawn in each turn with the higher alarm stages spawning stronger ones or enemies in larger numbers. It’s a system that forces you to think carefully, but also always be on the move. Push your units up and work diligently, because the longer it takes for you on a mission the harder things become. However, you don’t want to rush things as there is loot lying around. Loot that gives you more water and crystals to purchase the tools you need, or the epic loot crate which gives you a piece of gear you can equip your allies with. You also want to try and get all your crew members out when it’s time to go. Steamworld Heist follows a mission based structure with stars being given at the end of each mission. Getting all crew members out at the end of a heist as well as grabbing the epic loot nabs you all stars. If a crew member gets scrapped, otherwise dying, you will lose one of the stars you could earn. Stars are needed to unlock different shops at bars and progress further in the story. You need stars for reputation and that needs to be up to earn trust.
What’s new to Steamworld Heist 2 is the overworld. No longer do you go from level to level like in the original. Now you navigate a world teeming with all sorts of secrets and dangers. You have to be careful going from point to point, because sometimes Navy or Rattler ships can attack. You have to use the speed and weapons of your sub to fight back. Line them up carefully and work around their reload times. If your ship gets destroyed while exploring you’re taken back to the bar you were at last. Something you don’t want happening when you’re trying to find a new level to take on. I mentioned resting at bars. Why are they resting now? Well turns out after you finish a mission using your chosen crew members they get tired. You can’t send them on another fierce mission afterwards and they need to rest up. This is why it’s important to recruit new allies at the bars you go to as long as you have the space. More crew members means being able to go on two or more missions each day. Oh yeah, there’s a day system now along with bounty points. Those are obtained by completing missions and can be spent at the end of each day to obtain either more currency or exclusive gear. However, getting scrapped before reaching a bar to end a day means you lose all of them. That’s why it’s important to navigate the waters carefully and know when you’ve had enough. Outside of that there’s not much else for me to say. The game has a lot of systems at play to keep you on your toes, and an epic combat loop.
Thoughts
Steamworld Heist 2 is better than the first game in almost every single way. It feels more like the RPG the original wished it could be, and is one of few occasions where becoming bigger created a more mechanically rich game. It’s a deep well designed tactical RPG, but still dodges some of the problems I have with these kinds of games. I still very much love combat, and while there are a few battles that can drag on a bit I won’t say the game is frustrating. Far from it. Mistakes in Steamworld Heist feel like they’re entirely your fault. That you didn’t play safe enough or land the shot needed to stop an enemy from blasting you in the face. Skills have cooldowns, but you are encouraged to use them as they may be your saving grace from death. You can reload earlier checkpoints to undo mistakes, but you can only do so for two turns. Meaning you can’t just save scum the heck out of the game like in XCOM. The aiming system is still genius as it means you either get the shot or don’t rather than let it be determined by chance based systems. It allows for clever play and wise strategies especially when some guns have bullets that ricochet off walls. Allowing for environmental usage and expansion of strategies. In fact, I found the sequel to have more scenarios where I used the environment to my advantage. Possibly due to each region and enemy vessel type having unique gimmicks and downsides you have to work around.
The enemy variety is more vast than the original Steamworld Heist and the game is not afraid to just throw two different enemy categories together. You have the basic ground troops, generals with shields and large health pools, drones, drones that can shield ground troops, chargers with riot shield, shamans who spawn totems to spawn little skeletons that charge at you, teleporting blokes, explosive bugs, and the list goes on. Good enemy variety in an RPG makes you consider who you should kill first. One enemy may be more troubling than the other, so prioritizing them is important. Steamworld Heist had characters with classes, but your engagement with these different classes is going to vary. Reason number one being you’re more worried for the gun they’re using and half their abilities don’t matter, and two there wasn’t much reason to invest in these classes. Mainly because there were none. Steamworld Heist 2 having classes that unlock new skills and perks the more they level up adds reason to use certain characters or care for who you bring on a mission. Your characters feel stronger and function differently at the end of the game compared to the beginning, and that’s the kind of progression you want. I can see some people being divisive over the whole day and exhaust system, but this fixes a problem I had with the first.
Every character levels up individually, and why try out new units and grind them up to where all the other characters are when you can use the ones that are carrying you through the game. The sequel fixes this by having characters get exhausted after missions, so if you want to do a new mission you have to use one of your other squad members. I maxed out all my team members by the end of the game. This is also made easier with the game up character levels whenever you recruit them in bars further into your journey. Cutting down any grinding you could’ve needed to do. I will say that early in Steamworld Heist 2 you’ll most likely be doing one mission per day. You start off with two crew members, you only have room for one more, and the max members per mission are usually three to four. I’m fine with this though, because you progress and invest more upgrades into your sub your crew becomes larger and more deadlier. Every new piece of gear, upgrade, perk, submarine upgrade, and so on are worthy investments. Nothing felt wasted in my fifthteen hour journey and I was always making careful decisions about what to obtain next. The only thing I don’t fully like is the bounty system. It’s nice and makes you consider when to haul back to get maximum reward. However, the most useful items from bounty lists are currency or gear. Gear that most likely gets outclassed from what you loot.
I like the overworld. Terrible comparison, but Steamworld Heist to Steamworld Heist 2 is similar to comparing Dark Souls to Nioh. It feels natural to explore a world you’re placed in rather than just load from level to level. I feel more connected to my surroundings by having an explorable world rather than what is video gamey. Submarine combat took some time to get used to, and while not a huge highlight of the game does force the player to tread carefully and consider how they should equip their submarine. The upgrades you obtain for it over time are cool and give this game a sorta metroidvania feeling. Expanding your ways of traversal and exploration. That’s most of my gameplay appreciation, so let’s move onto the other aspects. The art direction is the best Steamworld has been. Compare this to the originals and it’s night and day. The original had the pencil look to them, but around Steamworld Dig 2 is when they went for a less outlined and glossy look. An art style I quite enjoy looking at and here in Steamworld Heist 2 it’s prettier than ever. The game is also a lot more colorful, which I feel previous Steamworld games somewhat lacked. This one is bright and joyous, and it’s matched with a soundtrack that celebrates the thrill of adventure experienced on the high seas. Music from a band that the devs somehow bring back for almost all their games, and they continue to keep delivering lovely little melodies.
Last compliments go towards the story. The Steamworld games, despite having charming casts and universes, never had what I’d call great stories. They’re good, but they never really stood out as eye-catching. So you think I failed to mention near the beginning of this review that I did play another Steamworld game before this. That was Steamworld Quest and it was pretty good. Solid deck building RPG that suffers from a few flaws, but one aspect I appreciate is them trying to tell a deeper narrative. It wasn’t a good narrative, but I appreciated their attempt. Steamworld Heist 2 finally has a good narrative, or at least in my opinion. A main character you grow attached to, get to witness the growth of as the journey goes on, relate to his personal struggles, and the dreams he wishes to live up to. Not only to live up to the legacy of his mother, but prove to himself that he achieved great things. I like the themes here as it’s a topic I can deeply connect to. Having parents who spent their whole lives working towards the positions they are in now, and the many expectations they have for their child. Sure the plot twists are a bit predictable, but the story I’d say is paced out well with a sweet ending to wrap the journey up. Steamworld Heist 2 is a masterpiece. It does what it does really well and for the most part every design choice matches up correctly. I have very few criticisms to make and it gets a strong recommend from me. It cemented itself as one of the goats. I give Steamworld Heist 2 a 10/10 for being incredible.
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