Rift Wizard 2 Steam Charts & Stats

I loved Path of Achra and on the surface this seemed to be a more complex version of that style of game in terms of options. Sadly to be perfectly blunt, there are *a lot* of trap options in this game. It pitches itself as hard as nails but realistically it's hard because certain options are not real options. That isn't good design. Play Achra instead.

Even more possibilities than the first one. This even does what every gamer wants a sequel to do, It only expands on the good stuff. Everything that made the first one awesome is here with more on top.

Absolutely fantastic game for anyone who likes old school rpgs and games you can jam your head into for hours with infinite replayability

This is a hidden gem rougelike. Wizard game of the highest caliber with tons of different build possibilities. I've only played a few hours so far, but this game is great and has plenty to offer so far.

Takes the basic mechanical systems of Rift Wizard and completely alters the flow, rhythm, and strategy of play. In particular, longer-term resource management is de-emphasized in favor of permanent build decisions. It's distinctly different from its predecessor — enough so that it certainly doesn't feel like more of the same — but there's probably a very large overlap in the sets of people who would enjoy each. Although there are some things I'd describe as objective improvements (e.g. clarity of some UI elements), there are also things I'd say the first game did better (e.g. simplicity and consistency of some rule interactions), so I'd hesitate to describe either as clearly better or worse. As such, I'd recommend it overall unless you already played and disliked Rift Wizard.

At first I felt like I kind of got scammed buying this sequel, as at face value very little changed between RW1 and RW2. On some level, it's pretty abnormal for a dev to charge a full buy-in for an update without much flash, but I liked the original and was willing to support so whatever. Cost notwithstanding, the gameplay here has definitely been reworked for the better. Runs are more dynamic with the equipment system, which helps to guide your builds in a more organic way (versus RW1, where you could force a handful of fairly linear strategies). Defensive equipment is pretty limited, but you do have ways of building up resistances that aren't dependent on a handful of utility spells, which deepens the defensive gameplay past shielding. Health and mana restoration at the end of each floor makes one of RW1's more annoying optimization constraints less tedious - you don't have to ration your spellcasts in between floors. Similarly, a free portal reroll each floor reduces the number of cases where you're just hosed by the rng enemy selection. SP rewards ramping up throughout the run is also good - in RW1 you could often bank SP for a couple of early rounds to buy something gamebreaking, but the ramping rewards encourage you to spend SP more gradually on tools to keep you going. By the end of the run, you're getting 5 SP per floor, which lets you quickly buy the top-end skills you need to extend your build into the endgame. Reworks to spell upgrades are good - only one upgrade can be selected per spell, but in return each upgrade is more interesting. I've found myself combining spells in ways that I never envisioned at the start of the run - for instance, using my moon glaive to refresh my furnace of sorcery repeatedly, then casting a large chain lighting to spawn hundreds of furnace hounds. Those hounds each have my arcane bolt spell, which they cast, spawning more hounds. Delightful. The new bosses are great, even if they can often be pushovers by the time they show up. The opportunity to get levels where you're just fighting 5 bosses is fun though. Would have liked to see some more depth to the Mordred fight, maybe something special on his final resurrection or a randomized set of spells for him. He's still pretty easy to kill most of the time, with most of the threat coming from the shifting level (which you can mitigate pretty hard with silence). Overall there's still a lot of great game design at play here and, even if it's kinda close to the original for a sequel, I'm having fun with it.

This works perfectly on the steamdeck! You just need to go properties, set resolution to 1600x900 and launch default, not windowed. Key bindings by valve are serviceable, but you have to make your own layout for this to be a smoooooth gameplay experience.

The description says it all: tough as nails traditional roguelike wizard simulator. After 188 hours, just beat it for the first time.

My traditional roguelike experience is limited to Tales of Maj'eyal (TOME), Caves of Qud, Path of Achra, and this game. Of the other three, I find Rift Wizard 2 most similar to TOME, with a much shorter gameplay loop. Like TOME, you have the ability to create the build you wish entirely independent of RNG since the (very many) available spells and skills are the same every run. Successful runs take between 2-4 hours in my experience, the large range due to build variance. You can save and exit mid-run. The variety between runs comes from the build you choose to make, which items you find to modify your build, and which enemy encounters you end up facing. Runs always feel distinct from one another. The game can be quite difficult at first. You will be overloaded with information (the many available spells, spell upgrades, and passive skills you can choose). Once you get a bit more comfortable with assessing your options (which may take a while) I found that making viable builds becomes pretty easy, even for archetypes you've never tried. There are great QoL search features which let you find synergistic spells and passives more easily. Additionally, despite having no tutorial I found the game to be easy to learn compared to TOME, Qud, or Achra. Everything is intuitive and/or explains exactly how it works. Spells, passives, and enemies, (almost) all give you perfect information when mousing over them. The last thing I want to mention is the games artwork and sound design. Of the traditional roguelikes I've played, I think Rift Wizard 2 has the best artwork. The sound is great too, on par with Caves of Qud. Overall its an easy recommend, especially if you are a fan of TOME style buildmaking. There are some minor gripes, but nothing worth mentioning. The kind of game that gets you theorycrafting builds while going to sleep.

A very strong contender for my favorite roguelike. It's kinda nuts how many builds are viable in this game, and this is one of the few games that feels like you're actually learning and mastering magic. Anyone can cast fireball, but not everyone can make fireballs strong enough to carry a run. Also consider getting Rift Wizard 1, which has more controlled, consistent threats/gifts. I prefer Rift Wizard 2 for its equipment system that rewards adapting to your choices, but plenty of people still prefer the original.