SteamWorld Heist II
The sequel to SteamWorld Heist takes a surprising turn, shifting from outer space to a nautical setting. But that’s exactly the kind of quirky change you’d expect from the SteamWorld series. There are some direct links between the silly, swashbuckling story of SteamWorld Heist ii and the original 2015 game, but those connections don’t appear right away. Instead, much of Heist 2 feels like its own adventure, putting you in control of a submarine and a crew of goofy robots navigating a colorfully cartoonish ocean. The game unfolds on a surprisingly large overworld map, filled with tough, tactically deep turn-based missions and lighter side activities. Completing everything took me about 40 hours.
The story that follows is light and entertaining, focusing on our somewhat capable one-armed captain, Quincy Leeway. He’s trying to step out of his famous mother’s shadow while assembling a crew to uncover the source of a mysterious rust spreading in the water. Although the plot twists aren’t particularly surprising and the characters might not be the most memorable (they could be more lovable if their dialogue were fully voiced), the story has a charming and genuine feel.
What really stands out is the music. The endlessly charming band Steam Powered Giraffe is back with 15 catchy original songs that play while you’re visiting taverns between missions. I often stayed in the taverns a bit longer than necessary just to hear them finish a verse about how nice it is to be a robot before heading back to my ship.
SteamWorld Heist II’s 2D turn-based tactical gameplay is much like the original, but with smoother controls (though still a bit awkward on mouse and keyboard). You guide a team of one to five bots (depending on the mission) through a side-scrolling level, positioning them to take shots and grab loot within their two-action turns. It’s a challenging test of efficiency. The added twist of escaping a growing wave of enemies while completing specific objectives, instead of just clearing the map, makes many missions end with an exciting finish.
Manual aiming adds a bit more excitement compared to many other turn-based games.
In this game, you manually aim your bots’ gun arms by adjusting their angle, similar to how it’s done in the classic Worms games. This adds more excitement compared to many other turn-based games. It’s especially fun to watch as you fine-tune the path of a sniper rifle shot, trying to line it up so it hits multiple enemies before finally letting it loose at the right moment. However, predicting complex bank shots without moving around to see where the guideline points can be quite challenging. Sometimes, these shots feel more like lucky breaks than calculated moves. Still, it feels great when you manage to land a tricky ricochet shot to hit an enemy behind cover, especially with a weapon that doesn’t have a guideline.
Each character begins with a native class that you can level up, but the game encourages you to create hybrid characters by mixing and matching abilities from six different skill trees. Once you get the hang of it, the system is smart and flexible. However, unlocking abilities can feel like a chore, as it requires a bot to complete missions with each class’s signature weapon. For example, it’s almost essential to unlock the first-tier abilities of both the Sniper and the Boomer classes for all characters. The Sniper’s Perfect Aim ability adds a prediction line to any weapon and removes sway, while the Boomer’s ability lets you carry a third inventory item. Additionally, there’s an early upgrade that unlocks the first two tiers of a class’s skills after just one mission. This made me regret spreading my experience points too thin early on.
As you progress and combine the top skills from each tree with the unique abilities of the 10 bots, you can pull off some incredibly powerful and satisfying strategies. Navigating the 2D maps becomes a breeze when Beacon can teleport to any location you’ve seen, with just a three-turn cooldown. Pairing this with a strong brawler’s hammer means there’s no enemy he can’t take down with high damage. Chimney’s Tit for Tat ability deals damage to anyone who attacks her, and when combined with the Pain Amulet item, which has the same effect, the damage stacks up nicely. Hightower’s Abs of Steel ability makes him invulnerable and forces all enemies to target him for that turn, which is perfect for giving your crew time to escape or regroup.
SteamWorld Heist II improves on the original by removing some frustrating features, like the limited inventory system and repetitive procedurally generated levels. Now, the stages are hand-crafted, focusing on their objectives, and you can carry as much loot as you want. However, early-game items can’t be upgraded, so you’ll eventually need to sell them off. The game also introduces a variety of legendary weapons with unique modifiers, like a melee hammer that boosts damage to your sidearm pistol or a sniper rifle that causes burning damage. These additions often led me to switch up my tactics to take full advantage of them.
Each mission involves many factors to consider and different threats to prioritize.
As the campaign progressed, I increased the difficulty level to keep the enemies challenging for my strong teams. The game lets you adjust difficulty on the fly with different sliders for tactical and real-time modes, among other options.
Each mission is designed with more depth than just completing the main objective. To get the highest rating, you’ll need to replay missions to ensure all your bots escape safely, collect all the loot bags (including the rare epic loot), and complete bonus objectives. These bonus objectives might include tasks like activating multiple switches in one turn, dropping objects to defeat three enemies, or taking out turrets you could otherwise avoid.
Boss fights add another layer of complexity by mixing up the game mechanics and challenging you to handle several issues at once, like disabling defenses and dealing maximum damage.
One standout feature is the variety of enemies. The Rattlers are particularly interesting because they look different from the usual junkyard androids. Unlike the Navy bots, which are made from metal, Rattlers use bone parts that don’t rust (though it’s unclear where the bones come from). At first, it might be hard to tell your own bots apart from the Navy enemies since they both use steam power, but as you become familiar with them, it gets easier. The game includes several types of enemies: melee, ranged, and special ones like the Rattler. The Rattler can drop totems that deal elemental damage every turn if you don’t destroy them. With so many different enemies and threats to manage, each mission presents a unique challenge.
GamePlay Screenshot
Don’t worry if you fail a mission – there are no consequences, so you can just try again without any penalties. You can even reload a checkpoint from two turns back, which means you can correct mistakes, though it’s not as simple as undoing a single bad move. Since you won’t always know which type of bot will work best for a mission before you start, it’s good that failing is part of the process.
In addition to the main missions, there’s a whole separate game built into SteamWorld Heist that you play while traveling between missions. Unlike the first game’s map, which was like a series of connected points similar to Super Mario World, this game has a big, open-world map. It’s quite large and mostly 2D.
As you explore this map, you can take on various side challenges, like finding treasure chests by navigating through currents or surviving obstacle courses with enemies shooting at you. This open-world part is less complex than the main turn-based tactics gameplay, but it still has its moments of tension. You can’t heal your submarine unless you dock, and if you get sunk, you lose all your loot.
One fun aspect is finding battles between enemy fleets and cleaning up the aftermath. It adds a bit of life and unpredictability to the otherwise still world.
SteamWorld Heist II System Requirements:
SteamWorld Heist II system requirements 2024 – can your PC run SteamWorld Heist II ???
To play SteamWorld Heist II, you’ll need at least an Intel Core i5-8400 processor, 8 GB of RAM, and 4 GB of free disk space. The most affordable graphics card that can handle the game is an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050. SteamWorld Heist II will run on PC system with Windows 10 64-bit and upwards.
SteamWorld Heist II Minimum Requirements
| Memory | Graphics Card | CPU | File Size | OS |
| 8 GB | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 | Intel Core i5-8400 | 4 GB | Windows, Mac |
SteamWorld Heist II Recommended Specifications
| Unknown recommended system requirements |
