Steam free download for long-awaited sequel is dividing fans

Fans of 2018’s Moonlighter will be thrilled to discover that its long-awaited sequel, Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, is finally set to launch later this year.

While developer Digital Sun and publisher 11 bit studios are yet to confirm the game’s release date, it has been revealed that the title is due to land this summer, so we’re talking some time in the next two months or so.

“Live the double life of a fearless adventurer and a crafty merchant,” the sequel’s synopsis reads.

“Dive into vibrant dimensions brimming with shiny loot and pesky enemies. Grow your shop, tinker with weapons and gadgets, as well as make your mark among a ragtag community of castaways.”

You don’t need to wait until launch day to get a feel for what Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault has to offer though.

A demo recently dropped, introducing players to the game’s story where we’ll reunite with familiar merchant Will.

A chunk of the game’s first biome, Kalina, is available to explore, and you’ll get to test out two weapons.

There are several dungeons to scour for resources, two challenging boss fights to have a go at, plus you can get to grips with the title’s inventory management system.

Yippee, nothing says fun quite like inventory management.

There is some bad news, however.

While the game is due to launch on PC, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, the demo is only available via Steam.

Oh, but there’s really bad news.

The demo has garnered a pretty scathing ‘mixed’ response, which isn’t at all what we were hoping to hear.

“After playing an hour of the demo, I can say this has the potential to be better than the first game, but still needs polish. The main problem I have with the demo is the combat. It feels a bit slow and unresponsive,” wrote one reviewer.

“Could definitely be optimised, it was very laggy for me,” added another.

“The design of the game seems decent, and it's relatively fun, however during the demo I encountered three separate significant and major bugs, two of which were game breaking,” said one player.

The good news is that all of these issues do sound fixable - and we are still a few months away from launch.

So if you do check out the demo, just keep all of this in mind. Hopefully, the full release lives up to expectation.