Dungeon crawlers and roguelikes go hand in hand; pushing your way through room upon room of enemies in Hades 2 and furiously clicking them into dust in Diablo are two sides of the same coin. Progression is tight, reactions need to be quick, and the flow state is immaculate. The newly announced Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 wants to bring these ideas together, as the roguelite dungeon crawling sequel has been revealed. The first Heroes of Hammerwatch is an underappreciated gem, so now’s the perfect time to try it ahead of the sequel.
Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 will feel incredibly familiar if you’ve been fighting through dungeons since Rogue dropped in the ’80s. You explore top-down procedurally generated structures, upgrade a town between runs for new features and skills, choose between trinkets each run for different builds, and even keep your levels and equipment between each attempt. If you’ve put as many hours into the Hades series as I have, everything about this roguelike game should already make a lot of sense.
Developed by Crackshell, the Heroes of Hammerwatch series is the roguelite spinoff of Hammerwatch, a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler not dissimilar to Vampire Survivors or Diablo. While relatively unknown, the original Heroes of Hammerwatch is some incredibly over-the-top arcadey fun, with Steam players giving it an 87% positive rating from almost 7,000 reviews. You can check out what to expect in the sequel based on a trailer for the first game below.
So while every dungeon in Diablo 4 stays the same, Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 wants you to be surprised every time you head into the dusty depths. Layouts, enemies, and rewards shift with each attempt, but just like with all the best roguelikes, you’re rewarded the more you play. I imagine each dungeon in the sequel will function like in the first Heroes of Hammerwatch, with traps having telltale signs like holes in the floor, plenty of puzzles strewn across each run, and a plethora of upgrades available for every class as you level them up.
Just like the first game, Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 also has a New Game Plus mode and online multiplayer, so you can visit your friends’ towns and help them out while upping the challenge of your world once you’ve beaten the game. I truly adore the likes of Hades and Enter the Gungeon, but their lack of online multiplayer has always felt like a massive missed opportunity.
While waiting for more news you can wishlist Heroes of Hammerwatch 2 on Steam right here, with the entire Hammerwatch series also available as well.
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