by
Evan Norris
, posted 20 hours ago / 695 Views
All these years later, developer Shiny Shoe still doesn’t know what a train looks like. You see, in Monster Train 2, just as in the premier Monster Train, the train cars don’t stretch out in a horizontal row, but rather stack on each other vertically, like a demented double-decker bus. It’s part of the game’s charm, of course, and clearly a running joke within Shiny Shoe, an indie studio operating out of San Francisco. I was lucky to spend some time with the studio’s CEO, Mark Cooke, at PAX East in Boston last week. He walked me through the ins and outs of the anticipated deck-building rogue-like, including what’s new in terms of narrative, mechanics, and quality-of-life features.
Monster Train 2 once again asks players to control the monsters of Hell. Only this time, the enemy isn’t Heaven, but rather a group of Titans who seek to corrupt the heavenly sphere. As a result, demonic and angelic armies have joined forces to push back the common enemy, and restore the delicate balance between themselves.
With a sequel like Monster Train 2, it’s challenging to accommodate new players and also reward long-time fans for their investment and expertise. But Cooke was optimistic the studio had found that fertile middle ground. “It’s a tough challenge because, on the game design side, we want to appeal to the existing players, some of which have played thousands of hours of Monster Train, but also not be so overwhelmingly complex that it puts off new players,” he said. “And that’s where it’s a hard thing to thread because we can’t just retread what we already did in Monster Train because that would be boring for the existing fans.”
Cooke continued, “So we have to do new things, but at the same time those things can’t be overly complicated. It’s always easy to do new stuff in the game design realm, but it can sometimes feel like piling on more and more complexity. So we’re trying to thread the needle of, yes, everything is new, but also it’s relatively easy to understand.”
One of the reasons Monster Train 2 is so easy to understand, even for neophytes, is its gentle onboarding process, which includes several helpful tutorials. For my PAX East demo, Cooke was, in his words, my “human tutorial”. He walked me through the process of picking primary and allied clans, from five brand new monster clans (one of the unique features of the sequel is that you can mix and match elemental clans together). I elected to go with fire- and undead-type clans, each of which provided certain strategic advantages in battle. One of my undead units, for instance, had a graft mechanic, which, upon death, gave me a piece of equipment I could attach onto other units, making them stronger.
Next, I chose my Pyre Heart. According to Cooke, this is another new addition to the game. You can now unlock and swap Hearts, which allow players to customize each run to their preferred play style. Bogwurm’s Growth, for example, is ideal for players that want to deploy as many fighters as possible, since each victory increases the floor space on your train.
With my clans and Pyre Hearts locked in, I moved to my train, where I deployed my units on three vertical floors, based on how much Ember (think mana) I had in stock. Interestingly, each unit in the train takes up capacity on each floor. If there is less spare capacity than a particular card costs, then I couldn’t play it. “It’s a way for us to balance units against each other in terms of how powerful they are,” explained Cooke.
One of the things I enjoyed most about the combat phase was how visually informative it was. Each showdown included a damage preview, which let me know how much damage friendly and enemy units will take, or if they’ll expire altogether. And, naturally, the preview updates as you deploy and rearrange your units. Not only that, but the game offers, for the very first time, an undo turn button. “It gives you room to undo mistakes if you accidentally do something,” said Cooke, “but it also allows you to experiment with a different order of casting your cards.” These two features combined take a lot of the guesswork out of the genre.
Speaking of the genre, it appears to be in good hands with Shiny Shoe. The studio has retained the general flow of the original game, which resonated with players back in 2020, and added new clans, Pyre Hearts, and amenities to keep those same players on their toes. At the same time, Cooke and company have designed the game with accessibility in mind, in order not to alienate first-time players. Will it work out for both demographics in equal measure? We don’t have to wait long to find out. Monster Train 2 launches on PC, PS5, Xbox Series, and Switch on May 21.
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