SteamWorld Heist II Review - An Underwhelming Haul o' Loot

It's hard not to appreciate what Thunderful is doing with their ever-expanding SteamWorld franchise. Spanning across multiple genres are titles that take risks and try something new, all featuring a unique world full of robots running on steam. SteamWorld Heist II, then, is just as charming and polished as the rest, but it didn't click with me as well as it should.

Don't get me wrong, SteamWorld Heist II is a game made with people like me in mind -- I'm a turn-based tactics fiend, but this genre thrives on variation, and that is something SteamWorld Heist II doesn't do well. The experience is well-crafted, no doubt, but its gameplay does little to evolve over the course of its 25+ hour adventure.

Players take the role of Captain Leeway, a one-armed Steambot living in the shadow of his much more famous mother. He's trying to carve a legend for himself and solidify his place in this world of steam. Trading the sci-fi aesthetic of the first SteamWorld Heist for a pirate adventure, you'll sail the high seas and fight against other factions of bots along the way.

SteamWorld Heist II -- A Unique Take on Strategy Games

As they say, variety is the spice of life. Up front, SteamWorld Heist II certainly appears to have a great deal of customization and depth, even more so than its predecessor. There are several classes with unique abilities, plenty of gear, different crew members, and more.

Of course, the core gameplay is itself still as fun as the original. The side-scrolling nature of SteamWorld Heist II helps it stand out among other turn-based tactics games. Crew members are, for the most part, armed with guns and the gimmick of making bullets ricochet all around is entertaining. You can pull some seriously cool shots here, but that's also no different than the original game.

At first glance, it does come off as a bit of a palate swap, and I can't lie, I do miss the sci-fi, spaceship theme of the original. Even still, SteamWorld Heist II tries to mix things up by adding a variety of different sea-based environments and forts to capture. But again, try as Thunderful might to innovate, after several hours of gameplay, I felt like I saw everything the game had to offer.

A Certain Lack of Depth in SteamWorld Heist II

Classes have linear skill trees and you can even combine two or more classes together. Characters level up as they complete missions and advance the skill tree. You can allocate a resource called cogs to activate certain talents on the tree.

You theoretically have the ability to create a very diverse character, but I never felt like I was able to achieve that. XP gain was pretty slow, so at best I combined two classes together. Now, classes are dictated by weapon type, but even with mix-and-matched talents and weapons, characters didn't feel all that different.

For a loose comparison, other tactics games like Fire Emblem have dozens of classes, but in SteamWorld Heist II, you're only dealing with a handful. You can only have so much variation and, though I admire the game's attempt to create a flexible class system, it just didn't resonate with me. Perhaps the best way to put it is an overall lack of depth in a game that would benefit from more.

While you can equip weapons that behave slightly different from one another, it's still not enough. Abilities specific to certain crew members, like this powerful beam called Eldritch Blast on one particular bot, is all well and good, but have longer cooldowns so you're using the same class-based abilities much more often.

There are several factions in the game, each a bit different from the other, but they are used in so many missions it all feels quite samey after a while. Level objectives, too, try to add unique criteria so you can get a better score and earn extra loot, but again, they don't vary all that much.

RNG and Alarms, Oh Boy

Most of the time, you're tasked with collecting a set amount of loot before a time limit expires, or eliminate an enemy in a super specific way. SteamWorld Heist II does get tiring with these time limits, especially with alarms. After a bit, reinforcements are called by these alarms and, like the first game, they do not end.

Wave after wave of enemy is thrown at you during these alarms, and it can get chaotic very fast. Getting overwhelmed is a real possibility, and this exacerbates the feeling of repetition. There's no real nuance to throwing droves of endless enemies at you, especially when they all behave the same.

More to that point, these spawns from alarms are also completely RNG-based. You're able to go back two turns in a given level at any time. This is often used to rectify mistakes you make. What ends up happening is these spawns from alarms are totally different when you go back two turns. You can end up with way less enemies and even less powerful ones, or vice versa.

The problems I had with SteamWorld Heist II's depth are more a matter of taste, but RNG is a real issue here. It's really quite baffling to go from a turn spawning several beefy, powerful enemies, only to use the reload option (that you're encouraged to use, by the way) and end up fighting one puny enemy instead.

A Choice of Controls

Other than that, the other glaring issue here is using mouse and keyboard versus controller. SteamWorld Heist II's weird keybinding for actions and abilities on mouse and keyboard are rectified when using a controller. But, as you have to manually aim characters' guns, it is much more efficient and precise to use mouse.

As a result, I ended up incorporating this hybrid type of play, using my controller for most abilities except when I needed to aim. Missing a shot can be a big deal, so it behooves you to be as precise as possible to land those headshots and ricochet bullets.

I touched on this in my preview from Summer Game Fest, but there's also an overworld component through which you control and navigate your own ship. It's secondary to actual tactical combat with your bots, but it adds a bit more variety to break up the monotony. You can position your ship and it shoots weapons automatically, so it's not the most "active" form of gameplay.

It's decently fun to use the ship and later on, it becomes a submarine, though it hardly changes the gameplay much. It's the means by which you travel mission to mission, but by the end of SteamWorld Heist II, I would have much preferred fast travel or something to make it less of a bother to explore.

SteamWorld Heist II Review | Final Thoughts

My thoughts on the story are brief because I couldn't get hooked by the narrative. I didn't care for any of the characters or their motivations, which is a shame. It's not that it isn't well-written -- it is perfectly fine as is -- but it's not particularly interesting, either. There's humor here and there, but it didn't click. Though, if you are a fan of SteamWorld lore, I'm sure it'll tickle you fancy.

It actually hurts to be critical towards SteamWorld Heist II, as this is a clear labor of love. And it's not a bad game either -- not by a long shot -- it just has noticeable flaws that hindered it from being great. Though it feels far too long for its own good and lacks much nuance in its gameplay, SteamWorld Heist II might just tickle your fancy.

SteamWorld Heist II was reviewed on a PC with a code provided by the publisher over the course of 25 hours of gameplay. All screenshots were taken during the process of the review.