Heartipedia

Slay the Spire 2

Slay the Spire 2 is a roguelike deckbuilder made and self-published by Mega Crit, the sequel to Slay the Spire, in Steam Early Access on Windows, macOS and Linux since Mar 5, 2026.[^1][^2] It sold 3 million copies in its first week, and up to four players can climb its Spire together online.[^4][^16] As of Nov 7, 2026 it has no 1.0 release date, and Mega Crit's next large beta update is planned for Nov 12, 2026.[^3][^9]

The official gameplay trailer Mega Crit's first gameplay trailer, shown at The Game Awards in December 2024: card fights against the Spire's monsters with the Ironclad, the Silent and the new Necrobinder, and the Merchant's redesigned shop.

Developer and publisher
Mega Crit (self-published), co-founded by Casey Yano and Anthony Giovannetti[1][35]
Genre
Roguelike deckbuilder, single-player or online co-op for up to 4[1][16]
Engine
Godot (development began in Unity)[2][10]
Platforms
Windows, macOS and Linux on Steam; console and mobile versions likely after Early Access[2]
Early Access
Since Mar 5, 2026; no 1.0 date announced[2][3]
Price
$24.99, set to rise after Early Access[2][1]
Sales
3 million copies in the first week[4]
Steam peak
574,638 concurrent players (SteamDB)[24]
Steam reviews (English)
Very Positive, 91% of 72,065[1]

Overview

Slay the Spire 2 is a card game in which each attempt, called a run, is a climb up a changing tower, the Spire, with a deck that grows one card reward at a time.[1] Its store page describes the Spire reopening after a thousand years and offers five characters, two of them new, playable alone or with up to three others.[1] It follows Slay the Spire, which left Early Access on Jan 23, 2019.[38] At the sequel's launch on Mar 5, 2026, Mega Crit said it already had more content than the first game and called it the product of five years of work.[3] It costs $24.99, the first game's price, and Mega Crit says the price will go up when Early Access ends.[2][1] Mega Crit also lists it as compatible with the Steam Deck.[2]

The official gameplay trailer Mega Crit's first gameplay trailer, shown at The Game Awards in December 2024: card fights against the Spire's monsters with the Ironclad, the Silent and the new Necrobinder, and the Merchant's redesigned shop.

How it plays

A run crosses three acts, each a branching map on which the player picks a route through ordinary fights, tougher elites and a boss at the end.[20] Act 1 is either the Overgrowth or the Underdocks, Act 2 is the Hive and Act 3 is Glory.[20] Game Rant counts about 45 to 50 encounters before the final boss and estimates up to about 40 minutes for a typical run.[20] Fights are turn-based: cards cost Energy, enemies signal whether they mean to attack or prepare, and Block soaks up incoming damage.[19] Between fights, rest sites restore HP or upgrade cards, and the Merchant sells cards, relics and potions and will remove a card from the deck for a fee.[19] Mega Crit names enchantments, afflictions and the Ancients among the mechanics the first game did not have.[2] The Ancients are powerful beings met at the start of an act whose blessings are exclusive relics, replacing the first game's boss relics.[21]

The Ancients replace boss relics IGN's list of the biggest changes from the first game reaches the Ancients, who greet the player at the start of an act with a choice of powerful relics in place of the old boss relics.

The top of the Spire is unfinished in Early Access. After the Act 3 boss the player meets the Architect, and PCGamesN reports that he kills every player at the end of the run regardless of the damage dealt.[22] Mega Crit's store page lists a true ending among the things the full release will add, along with more content, game modes, balance work and languages.[1] Its roadmap puts a "True Victory" in the group of goals further off in the future.[5]

Characters and co-op

The game has five characters: the Ironclad, the Silent and the Defect return from the first game, and the Regent and the Necrobinder are new.[17] The Watcher, the first game's fourth character, is not among them.[17] Asked where the Watcher went, Mega Crit's FAQ jokes that it is "probably sulking" because players kept asking about the Defect instead.[2] Only the Ironclad is available at first; finishing a run with each character, whether it ends in a win or a loss, unlocks the next in the order Silent, Regent, Necrobinder and Defect.[18] Each starts with its own HP and relic, from the Necrobinder's 66 HP to the Ironclad's 80, whose Burning Blood heals 6 HP after every fight.[19]

Co-op is the largest addition. Up to four players can climb together in a dedicated mode with cards made for multiplayer and team synergies.[16] It works only with Steam friends, since the game has no matchmaking.[2] In October 2026 Casey Yano wrote that co-op had been received very positively and that many players told the studio they play only in multiplayer.[9]

Four climbers together The Early Access trailer that set the Mar 5, 2026 date reveals co-op, with up to four climbers facing the Spire side by side.

Development

Mega Crit has worked on the sequel since around May 2021.[2] It began the game in Unity, and the project became public through an engine dispute: when Unity announced its per-install Runtime Fee in September 2023, Mega Crit said it had spent more than two years on a new game in Unity, called the fee a violation of trust and said it would switch engines unless the change was fully reversed.[10] In October 2023 it released Dancing Duelists, a small deckbuilding autobattler made in three weeks in Godot, to test whether that engine could replace Unity.[11] Slay the Spire 2 is now built in Godot.[2] Mega Crit became a Gold sponsor of the open-source engine in late 2023 and in April 2026 raised its support to the Corporate Platinum level, about EUR 36,000 a year, GamingOnLinux reported.[12] The change of engine means the first game's mods do not carry over, though the sequel supports Steam Workshop.[2]

Mega Crit describes itself as a remote indie studio making design-focused games.[35] Its About page lists eight staff besides the two co-founders, among them art director Marlowe Dobbe and lead programmer Jake Card, plus composer Clark Aboud as a contributor.[35] In April 2026 Yano wrote that the studio would not grow massively to finish the game sooner, arguing that strict deadlines lead to sloppy work.[5] Some ideas came from other games: Yano said the Act 3 boss later removed from the game, the Doormaker, came from playing too much Deadlock.[36]

Mega Crit on stage at Manifest Anthony Giovannetti and Dani of Mega Crit open a question session at the Manifest conference about the studio and the making of Slay the Spire 2.

Announcement and release

Mega Crit announced Slay the Spire 2 on Apr 10, 2024 at the Triple-i Initiative showcase, with Early Access planned for 2025.[13] The first gameplay trailer followed at The Game Awards in December 2024.[14] In September 2025 Mega Crit moved the launch to March 2026, saying it had been aiming for late 2025 and needed more time.[15] The same post said the new window was chosen before Hollow Knight: Silksong's release date was announced, answering speculation that the rival game caused the delay.[15] On Feb 19, 2026 Mega Crit set the date as Mar 5, 2026 and revealed co-op.[16] Early Access opened at 10 AM Pacific time that day.[2]

The 2024 reveal trailer The animated announcement trailer of Apr 10, 2024, with no gameplay, shows the Ironclad, the Silent and the then-unrevealed Necrobinder.

Early Access updates and the balance dispute

Mega Crit tests changes first on an optional beta branch, then moves them to every player in larger Major Updates.[5] The first Major Update came in April 2026, and the second, in June 2026, added Steam Workshop support and an in-game Bestiary of monsters.[37][33] The first big beta patch after launch, v0.100.0 in March 2026, set out to make infinite combos harder to build, reworking several Ironclad and Silent cards.[29][40] Steam's store page notes that the game has had periods of off-topic review activity, which it leaves out of the review score.[1] PC Gamer later reported that a Mega Crit co-founder was not bothered by the Steam backlash to a beta balance patch, quoting him that it is difficult for players to feel heard.[39]

Mega Crit also changed course. In the next beta, v0.101.0, Anthony Giovannetti began writing his design intent into the patch notes, and the Silent's Prepared card returned in its earlier form.[30] With v0.104.0 the studio wrote that the base difficulty was quite hard and that it was making lower difficulties more accessible while keeping the highest Ascensions challenging.[31] In May 2026, v0.105.0 replaced the Act 3 boss Doormaker with a new one, Aeonglass, because Mega Crit judged him over the complexity it wanted.[32]

Reception and sales

Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million units in its first week, and players attempted more than 25 million runs in that time, Mega Crit reported.[4] On its second day GamingOnLinux called it the biggest roguelike deckbuilder ever on Steam.[23] Its all-time Steam peak, 574,638 concurrent players recorded by SteamDB on its first weekend, was about 12,500 short of Hollow Knight: Silksong's record, GosuGamers noted.[24] By May 2026 players had attempted 240 million runs and won 25% of them.[6] Steam counted 62,117 players in the game at 05:47 UTC on Nov 7, 2026.[25] The contrast with the first game is large: Slay the Spire sold about 800 copies in its first three days of Early Access in 2017 before reaching more than 1.5 million by 2019.[34]

Its English Steam reviews are Very Positive, 91% of 72,065, and 74% of the 3,313 reviews from the last 30 days were positive (Nov 7, 2026).[1] Metacritic lists nine critic reviews but no Metascore yet, since most reviewed the Early Access build without a score.[27] PCGamesN gave it 10 out of 10 and called it more about refinement than evolution.[26] Eurogamer, as Metacritic quotes it, saw a deceptively familiar sequel built on years of careful study.[27] PC Gamer's Harvey Randall, after close to 140 hours, concluded that it feels more like a sequel than a DLC.[28]

IGN's Early Access verdict IGN's Early Access review weighs how far the sequel moves beyond the first game.

Roadmap

Mega Crit's roadmap of April 2026 lists an alternate Act 2, a new character, an alternate Act 3 and more cards, events, relics and potions as content, and ports to other consoles and mobile, Steam achievements and trading cards, and the "True Victory" further off.[5] In August 2026 it said it was actively working on experimental game modes, the alternate Act 2 and the new character.[7] Asked when Steam achievements arrive, Yano answered that they come with the 1.0 release.[7] He also wrote that Ascension 10, the game's top difficulty, is close to the highest the game will have.[7] The September 2026 newsletter teased an unexplored area of the Spire and the outline of a small, floating creature living there.[8] In late October Mega Crit set the next big beta patch for Nov 12, 2026, with new content on the beta branch first and the main branch brought up to version 0.111.0.[9] On how long Early Access will last, the store page notes that the first game's took about 1.5 years against a planned one.[1]

No date for 1.0 Baalorlord's spoiler-free explainer turns to the game's Early Access status and how long Mega Crit expects it to last.

  1. Slay the Spire leaves Early Access.[38]
  2. Work on the sequel begins, around May 2021.[2]
  3. Mega Crit reveals a new game in Unity and threatens to leave the engine over its Runtime Fee.[10]
  4. Slay the Spire 2 is announced at the Triple-i Initiative showcase.[13]
  5. The first gameplay trailer premieres at The Game Awards.[14]
  6. Early Access is delayed to March 2026.[15]
  7. The Mar 5 date and 4-player co-op are announced.[16]
  8. Steam Early Access opens.[3]
  9. Mega Crit reports 3 million units sold in the first week.[4]
  10. Major Update #1 reaches every player.[37]
  11. Major Update #2 adds Steam Workshop support.[33]
  12. The next big beta patch is planned.[9]

What we think

This section is Heartipedia’s own opinion, not sourced fact. Each view is reasoned from the facts cited above and from trends we see; it may turn out wrong. A prediction’s words are never changed once made: when the facts are known we add the result under it, right or wrong. Every prediction we have made.

Nov 12 is about new modes, not the new character

We expect the Nov 12, 2026 beta to lead with Mega Crit's experimental game modes, playable alone and in co-op. We think the sixth character is not playable in that patch and reaches the beta branch only in 2027.

Why: Casey Yano answered a question about the modes with "you'll have to wait... until November 12th", the only feature he tied to that date, while the new character has stayed unnamed and unshown through three newsletters since August. A character needs its own card pool, art and long balance testing, and Mega Crit's teasers so far point to a new area of the Spire, not a new climber.

Prediction Confidence: Likely Check by: Dec 2026 Made

A sixth character built for co-op

Our prediction is that the sixth character is the first one designed around co-op: a climber whose own cards help or change allies, not only the multiplayer card set every character shares.

Why: Co-op is the sequel's largest addition, Yano says many players now play only in multiplayer and want more longevity there, and none of the five characters was made with a team in mind: all five were known before co-op was revealed in February 2026. A support character is the most direct way to give the mode depth that solo players also notice.

Prediction Confidence: Long shot Check by: Sep 2027 Made

A winnable Architect at 1.0, in 2027

We expect Slay the Spire 2 to leave Early Access in 2027, and we think its true ending turns the Architect, who now kills every climber, into a final fight that can be won.

Why: Mega Crit's own range of one to two years from Mar 5, 2026 ends in March 2028, but the first game finished in about 1.5 years and the roadmap left only two acts, a character and the ending as major content. The Architect is already staged as the end of the climb, and the roadmap's "True Victory" reads as a promise to let players beat what waits at the top.

Prediction Confidence: Possible Check by: Dec 2027 Made

Console versions announced with the 1.0 date

We expect Mega Crit to announce console versions, Nintendo Switch 2 among them, at the same time as the date of the full release, not before.

Why: Mega Crit's FAQ says console and mobile versions will likely follow Early Access, and the roadmap files ports under "further off in the future". The first game reached PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and phones after its own Early Access, and a studio that refuses to give dates is unlikely to promise a port while the PC version is still changing every few weeks.

Prediction Confidence: Possible Check by: Mar 2028 Made

Back above 100,000 players after Nov 12

We expect Steam's concurrent player count for Slay the Spire 2 to pass 100,000 at least once in the week after the Nov 12, 2026 update.

Why: Steam counted 62,117 players at a quiet hour on Nov 7, 2026, down from the launch peak of 574,638, but the game has had no new content for almost three months. The Nov 12 patch brings new modes to the beta branch and the whole of v0.111.0 to every player at once, and a free update to a game that sold 3 million copies in a week has a large pool of lapsed players to call back.

Prediction Confidence: Possible Check by: Dec 2026 Made

Co-op is the real sequel, and friends-only holds it back

We think co-op, not the two new characters, is what makes Slay the Spire 2 a sequel rather than an expansion, and we think having no matchmaking is the game's biggest mistake so far.

Why: Critics split on how new the single-player feels, from PCGamesN's "refinement than evolution" to PC Gamer's "more like a sequel than a DLC", but nobody disputes that four-player climbing is new. Yano says many players now play only in multiplayer, yet the mode works only with Steam friends, which shuts out every player whose friends do not own the game.

Opinion Made

Moments

  1. The official gameplay trailer Mega Crit's first gameplay trailer, shown at The Game Awards in December 2024: card fights against the Spire's monsters with the Ironclad, the Silent and the new Necrobinder, and the Merchant's redesigned shop.
  2. The Ancients replace boss relics IGN's list of the biggest changes from the first game reaches the Ancients, who greet the player at the start of an act with a choice of powerful relics in place of the old boss relics.
  3. Four climbers together The Early Access trailer that set the Mar 5, 2026 date reveals co-op, with up to four climbers facing the Spire side by side.
  4. Mega Crit on stage at Manifest Anthony Giovannetti and Dani of Mega Crit open a question session at the Manifest conference about the studio and the making of Slay the Spire 2.
  5. The 2024 reveal trailer The animated announcement trailer of Apr 10, 2024, with no gameplay, shows the Ironclad, the Silent and the then-unrevealed Necrobinder.
  6. IGN's Early Access verdict IGN's Early Access review weighs how far the sequel moves beyond the first game.
  7. No date for 1.0 Baalorlord's spoiler-free explainer turns to the game's Early Access status and how long Mega Crit expects it to last.

References

  1. Slay the Spire 2 on Steam, Valve, 2026-11-07primary
  2. FAQ, Mega Crit, 2026-11-07primary
  3. Slay the Spire 2 is out NOW in Early Access!!, Mega Crit, 2026-03-05primary
  4. The Neowsletter - March 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-03-13primary
  5. The Neowsletter - April 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-04-17primary
  6. The Neowsletter - May 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-05-22primary
  7. The Neowsletter - August 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-08-14primary
  8. The Neowsletter - September 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-09-25primary
  9. The Neowsletter - October 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-10-29primary
  10. Slay the Spire dev threatens to quit Unity, revealing new game, PCGamesN, 2023-09-14press
  11. The Neowsletter - February 2025, Mega Crit, 2025-02-13primary
  12. Godot gets a funding boost from Slay the Spire 2 devs Mega Crit, GamingOnLinux, 2026-04-10press
  13. Slay the Spire II Announced, Hits Early Access Next Year, Game Informer, 2024-04-10press
  14. Slay the Spire 2's First Official Gameplay Trailer Is Here!, Mega Crit, 2024-12-12primary
  15. The Neowsletter - September 2025, Mega Crit, 2025-09-11primary
  16. Slay the Spire 2 Releases in Early Access on March 5, 2026!, Mega Crit, 2026-02-19primary
  17. Slay the Spire 2 Reveals 4-Player Co-Op, March Early Access Release Date, Game Informer, 2026-02-19press
  18. Slay the Spire 2: How to unlock every character, TheGamer, 2026-03-06press
  19. Slay the Spire 2: Best tips and tricks for beginners, Game Rant, 2026-03-07press
  20. Slay the Spire 2: How many acts are there?, Game Rant, 2026-03-12press
  21. The Neowsletter - November 2025, Mega Crit, 2025-11-13primary
  22. Slay the Spire 2 Architect: can you beat him?, PCGamesN, 2026-03-11press
  23. Slay the Spire 2 becomes the biggest roguelike deck-builder on Steam ever, GamingOnLinux, 2026-03-06press
  24. Slay the Spire II hits 574,000 concurrent players, 12,000 short of Hollow Knight: Silksong's record, GosuGamerspress
  25. Current players for app 2868840 (Steam Web API), read at 05:47 UTC, Valve, 2026-11-07primary
  26. Slay the Spire 2 review, PCGamesN, 2026-03-24press
  27. Slay the Spire 2, Metacritic, 2026-11-07press
  28. After close to 140 hours with it, I think Slay the Spire 2 feels more like a sequel than a DLC, even if Mega Crit was forced to make it, PC Gamerpress
  29. Beta Patch Notes - v0.100.0, Mega Crit, 2026-03-19primary
  30. Beta Patch Notes - v0.101.0, Mega Crit, 2026-03-26primary
  31. Beta Patch Notes - v0.104.0, Mega Crit, 2026-04-23primary
  32. Beta Patch Notes - v0.105.0, Mega Crit, 2026-05-07primary
  33. Major Update #2 - v0.107.1, Mega Crit, 2026-06-18primary
  34. After a worrisome start, Slay the Spire has sold more than 1.5 million copies, Game Developer, 2019-03-20press
  35. About, Mega Crit, 2026-11-07primary
  36. The Neowsletter - June 2026, Mega Crit, 2026-06-19primary
  37. Major Update #1 - v0.103.2, Mega Crit, 2026-04-16primary
  38. Slay the Spire on Steam, Valve, 2026-11-07primary
  39. Mega Crit co-founder says he wasn't bothered by the Steam backlash to Slay the Spire 2's beta balance patch, PC Gamerpress
  40. Slay the Spire 2 patch notes: infinites nerfed, PCGamesN, 2026-03-20press

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About this page

Drafted by
claude-opus-5-5 on 2026-11-07T07:00:00Z
Checked by
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Reviewed by
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Status
Published and revised continuously; this version is the one described here.
Published
7 November 2026
Last updated
7 November 2026, see what changed
Sources
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License
Text CC BY-SA 4.0; embedded videos and thumbnails remain their uploaders’ property, shown under YouTube’s Terms of Service; quotations excluded. Details

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