REVIEW: ‘SteamWorld Heist II’ Is Steamy Hot Goodness (PC)

The SteamWorld series, developed and published by Thunderful, has made a name for itself in the indie scene by offering a tight suite of intermingling systems and mechanics. In the SteamWorld Dig titles, this takes the form of an incredibly tight gameplay loop that sees the player digging into the ground in search of materials to spend on the surface on upgrades so that they can dig deeper to get better materials for better upgrades and so on. SteamWorld Heist 2 attempts a similar magic trick with the typically complicated turn-based strategy genre.

SteamWorld Heist 2 puts players in charge of a crew of steam-powered robotic pirates led by the charismatic Captain Quincy Leeway. Burdened by the legacy of his famous mother that he has to somehow live up to, Quincy leads his crew to fight back against an oppressive force of oil-based robots looking to eradicate their steam-fueled brethren. To make matters worse, the world’s water has started corroding steambots, leaving clean water a highly valuable but ever-dwindling resource.

The story has a lot of charm and is filled to the brim with puns, humor, and unique characters that are simply fun to spend time with. Some potential does feel left on the table with how little time players get to spend on their ship just talking with their crew, but players do get to interact with them here and there as they are recruited.

With their crew, players explore the sea in full ship-to-ship combat, tackle turn-based missions with their crew members, and travel to taverns to purchase upgrades and interact with fun characters. Explore by controlling your ship in large areas of the map. New areas progressively unlock as throughout the story. There isn’t too much to find while exploring, though.

While sailing, players can find loose cargo to pick up, chests with resources to grab, and new missions. It’s easy to fully explore every section of the map, which is nice for completionists, but the sequences never carry a sense of discovery. Instead, they feel more like utilitarian dressing to facilitate the new ship combat mechanics.

While exploring, players will face countless enemy seacraft in real-time combat. Ship combat in SteamWorld Heist 2 is pretty simple, but it gives players enough customization to keep it interesting. The player’s ship can be upgraded with passive buffs and weapons that face one of four directions: seaboard, port, aft, and bow. Each weapon behaves differently while firing and comes with a commensurate cooldown timer between shots.

Ship combat tasks players with focusing on positioning and movement to continuously move around opponents Weapons must fire as frequently as possible while dodging enemy attacks simultaneously. The controls are a tad on the unwieldy side at first, but they don’t take long to get used to. Then, it becomes a simple but satisfying combative dance.

The missions that players find while exploring are SteamWorld Heist 2’s real meat. Each mission is a side-scrolling maze of multi-level chambers filled with destructible cover, exploding hazards, and tons and tons of enemies to face. To make it through, players have to assemble teams of various sizes to carefully proceed through the levels, completing objectives, picking up optional loot, and killing as many oilbots as possible.

Combat is where Heist really shines. It is incredibly well-tuned. Each crew member can be assigned a different class by equipping them with a different weapon, like a shotgun, submachine gun, or sniper rifle. As the characters level that class up, they unlock a suite of abilities to help them better fulfill their role on the battlefield. Once they level up high enough, they can even start accruing a currency that allows them to permanently unlock those abilities, allowing them to be used regardless of which gun is equipped, really opening up their tactical options.

Increasing tactical options is very welcome as well. Combat in SteamWorld Heist 2 can be very punishing on higher difficulties. Positioning is paramount during missions to ensure characters have enough cover to survive until their next turn. Meanwhile, the smart use of abilities is important for effectively cutting through enemies before they can do too much harm. Thankfully, every mission can be replayed, so players are given plenty of space to experiment with their options and figure out how they best like to play.

SteamWorld Heist 2 also features a free-aim mechanic, allowing players to aim shots themselves. This enables shooting the hats off enemies to collect and customize your own bots. Free-aim helps to just barely get a bullet over a piece of cover and to ricocheting bullets around cover for extremely satisfying kills. With the free-aim system and the importance of positioning, combat encounters tend to feel almost like puzzles. It makes for extremely satisfying combat that is as rewarding as it is challenging.

There is something extremely cozy about SteamWorld games. The tight-knit nature of their mechanics and casual fun tone come together to make them an easy blast to play. SteamWorld Heist 2 is no different. Its turn-based combat is as deep as it is thrilling. While its story isn’t anything that will stick with a player after the credits roll, it is enough to garner some chuckles and keep things moving. It is set to be a great new entry for dedicated SteamWorld fans and a great jumping-on-point for newcomers and strategy fans alike.

SteamWorld Heist II releases on August 8th for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.