SteamWorld Heist II Preview

Thunderful Gothenburg wowed me nearly a decade ago with their tightly-tuned turn-based strategy tile SteamWorld Heist. Taking a 2D side-scrolling approach to strategy proved to be a stroke of genius, relying on steady aim and careful positioning of your colorful cast of Steambots rather than behind-the-scenes dice rolls. After a few hours with the long-awaited sequel, SteamWorld Heist II, I can safely say Thunderful has made a triumphant return to the tactics genre, offering up a change of scenery and expanding upon the character progression for an immensely satisfying sequel. 

Eschewing the space setting of the original, Heist II instead opts for seafaring and swashbuckling. You are plopped into the metal boots of one Captain Quincy Leeway and his ragtag crew of Steambots as they steal back their commandeered submarine from the iron clutches of the Royal Navy. A water crisis plagues the planet, with freshwater sources the bots need to power their bodies quickly becoming scarce. The Royal Navy’s diesel-powered bots hoard the remaining freshwater sources, leaving the rest of the world high and dry. Between the resource scarcity premise and Quincy’s insecurities from being in his world-famous-captain mother’s shadow, the increased focus on narrative already has me deeply invested in the world and characters compared to its predecessor. There are also more opportunities to chat with NPCs and your crewmates, enriching the world and giving the game more character and heart. Steampunk rock band Steam Powered Giraffe returns as well, and their lively vocal tracks in the bars and taverns are fun and thematically appropriate.

One of the major ways Heist II expands on the original game is through its open ocean environment. Once you have the submarine, you can explore the high seas, uncovering different points of interest like abandoned naval bases, bars for Steambot sailors, and mission locations. Progression is no longer strictly linear, and you can do missions in each area in whatever order you’d like, so long as you have the number of crew members required. This is a nice change of pace if you find a mission frustrating since you can always move on to a different one and return when your crew is stronger. 

Heist II also introduces a real-time naval combat system on the overworld. The system, at least at this early stage, is quite simple. Once you have the enemy’s attention, you line up your cannons and they will automatically fire, or you can even ram your opponent at the cost of some of your health. It’s nothing groundbreaking, but it keeps the overworld exploration segments engaging and provides another means of earning gallons to buy new items and equipment for your crew outside of completing missions. 

Another significant tweak is the new day and bounty point system. The three-star system for missions from the first Heist returns, but now there is an additional reward layer called bounty points. Completing missions awards these bounty points, but all bounty points must be spent at the end of that day and cannot carry over to the next. After missions, any crew members in the battle suffer fatigue and cannot take the field again until you’ve rested at a bar. This creates a nice risk/reward system, where you are encouraged to complete as many missions in one day as possible to maximize your bounty points, but each mission drains your resources for the next one. If you fail a mission, you will lose all accumulated bounty points for that day. Even at this early stage, the bounty system had me considering my team composition and the requirements of each mission far more carefully than I ever did in the first Heist game. 

Character progression also had a major overhaul. In the first Heist, characters were all unique, with only a handful of abilities shared between characters who occupied similar roles. In Heist II, there is a true class system à la Final Fantasy Tactics. What makes this change interesting is that characters can change classes, and after leveling up a specific class and spending cogs, they can bring abilities over from one class to another. This is a total game-changer, and although I haven’t been able to experiment much with class combinations at this early stage, it has the potential to provide mechanical depth to the character building that was missing from the original.

All in all, this little taste of high-seas Steambot strategy has left me eager to play more. I can’t wait to sink my teeth into the new class system. Even more exciting, the unique 2D combat mechanics like aiming, line of sight cover, and mission variety that made the original game so addicting all made the voyage intact. If you loved the first SteamWorld Heist or are a fan of tactics RPGs, keep an eye on SteamWorld Heist II when it releases for PC on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on August 8th.