Slay the Spire 2 is pretty great, isn’t it? Launching into early access with co-op and just the correct amount of iteration sounds good to me when the original’s roguelite card battler formula was already a winner.
Over half a million players agree so far, and Mega Crit should be happy with the sequel’s initial performance. The road ahead is still largely undefined though. The studio’s approach to the early access period on Steam will be flexible, but one thing’s for sure: don’t expect the developers to ever give into the temptation of small DLC packages or microtransactions.
“We’re microtransaction haters,” Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano told Destructoid during a recent conversation. Of course, nobody expects a premium indie release to suddenly jump into the pool of what we understand as predatory MTX, but it could be argued small DLCs which only add a few cosmetics or bonuses are microtransactions, too. Many indies do those to get an extra bit of cash, but even that, apparently, crosses the line for the studio. Yano revealed “a lot of our players threaten to buy all and any cosmetics we may ever release” though, so there’s some degree of hunger for paid extras regardless.
The full conversation later went into game balance, and it sounds like Mega Crit’s approach to fleshing out the game’s content and systems won’t change much. Yano suggested there’s tons of work to be done on that front: “Is STS1 really that balanced though?”
Modding will also be a huge part of Slay the Spire 2 as it evolves, with Yano confirming the goal is “reducing friction” through letting players have “more resources and easier entry points to work with mods.” Will the game get a dedicated mod tool? No comments yet.
Overall, it seems that Mega Crit will take as much time as needed with the sequel in order to get everything right before it hits 1.0: “At the moment, I’m not entirely sure what we’ll update often throughout early access. Hopefully pure content… If we update too often or make too many aggressive balance changes, progress and accomplishments may feel less impactful.”
