In key ways, Devolver Digital), and over one million sales with its thoughtful elaboration on card-based combat.
A big part of the Monster Train hook is the speed with which decks and strategies transform during play. In Slay and many comparable deckbuilders, obtaining new cards and upgrades is methodical and rigidly metered out. Sure, an occasional windfall or larger treasure can be impactful, but it’s typically just one treat trickled out per round, making for a slowly evolving deck awaiting the right cards to give it life.
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The Monster Train games somewhat eschew this tradition. Everything in it is larger, be it the play area, the size of the sprites, or the number of upgrades received. Each successful battle leads off to a little nook packed with rewards, be they new cards, card upgrades, relics, healing stations, or random decision-based encounters that can potentially steer a run to ruin. As such, Monster Train feels faster, more dynamic, and less incremental and methodically paced than its peers, and Monster Train 2 takes virtually every beloved element of the original and overflows it with more content.
Trainspotting Through Hell (And Back?)
Familiar Monster Train Fundamentals, With Much More Narrative in The Sequel
Hard to imagine that Monster Train 2 players are looking for narrative, but the sequel spotlights the story and even ramps up character development. You’re free to click through all of it fairly quickly whenever it appears, but I enjoyed how this added more color to the proceedings, creating a cast of scrappy heroes lifted from the game's card art and visual-novel-styled dialogue.
The cast, partially comprised of friends and foes found in the original Monster Train, is probably more intriguing than the story alone. Everyone has had a glow-up since then, but bosses like Fel the Wings of Light and Talos the Architect now comprise the new Banished faction, and there are numerous other returning characters on both sides of the conflict who appear in combat, in conversation, and on the cards themselves.
The journey now takes the train from the south to the north side of the map, which, along with the continuing mythos, should already hint at some aspects of the plot in Monster Train 2. From the start, though, everything feels immediately fresh, with all-new factions and a fresh range of cards to unlock, upgrade, and burn through each train battle.
Monster Train Basics - How This Deckbuilder Works
The Essential Structure of Monster Train 2 Is Virtually Unchanged
For the uninitiated, a game of Monster Train sees characters enter into a handful of fights, each of which comprises multiple phases, with a hand dealt for each. Defenders are positioned on the three tiers of the train using ember-powered cards, and you usually cannot anticipate exactly which enemies will show up at which time. Spells comprise instant actions, unit cards summon creatures, and brand-new equipment and room card types can upgrade stats and abilities. Bosses always appear on schedule, whether you've cleared out their mobs or not.
Alternate pyre hearts are another new feature in Monster Train 2, unlockable via covenant progress. You're now able to swap these around before each run, which adds new buffs, reactions, and even one-off abilities.
Opponents enter the train from the bottom tier and travel upwards at the end of each combat round. Above the third tier is the train's precious pyre engine, a limited-health final attack font which is the intended target for enemy units. Intriguingly, this setup means that the enemy has the upper hand in almost all cases; a player’s goal is to defeat enemies as quickly as possible to halt their progress up the train, but the enemy must simply survive for a chance to destroy the pyre.
Typically, a run is over when the pyre dies, and a final score readout shows how far you got this time and showcases any new unlocked cards and relics. With the added character and narrative of Monster Train 2, you’re returned at this point to the Covenant Outpost, where you can access a logbook, depart on your next run, and eventually unlock a few other features.
Quality of Life Improvements Abound in Monster Train 2
Undo Mode, Battle Reset, Better Tooltips, and Other Helpful New Add-Ons
Shiny Shoe has been keenly observant of player tendencies, and Monster Train 2 has many new features which present added polish and quality of life improvements to the standard game. For instance, I’m grateful for the new undo trigger, a simple hold-to-activate button in the bottom right corner of the screen, which reverts an entire player turn. You can’t go back any farther than that in one go, but it’s an amazing learning resource for when you flub a single card or experience an unexpected synergy or reaction and want to reorder specific plays.
There’s also a restart mode, which mulligans an entire battle and starts players off at the new deployment phase. Technically speaking, this “feature” was available in the first game, activated by simply quitting out of a run and returning to it, but being able to cleanly restart is nice to have all the same. Interestingly, every decision of a battle and every map option is now saved to memory, which means that reloading a run returns you back to the precise point you left it (with all your mistakes intact).
Other than that, tooltips have been expanded for clarity and utility, card text and units are larger and more detailed, and most other components of the original’s classy UI are retained or upgraded. The game looks sharper, cleaner, and more coherent overall, an all-in-all visual facelift which makes Monster Train 2 an even better candidate for Steam Deck play.
Equipment and Abilities in Monster Train 2
On-The-Fly Actions and Unit Upgrades Potentiate Each Battle
Equipment cards, like the new champion abilities, are certainly powerful in Monster Train 2. Equipment can be attached to units and can create powerful synergies, and a new random shop stocks these cards alongside others which grant room buffs. Adding equipment burns the card for that run, but it can add an attack multiplier, healing function, or even active abilities, the latter of which utilize cooldowns that specific cards and status effects can modify.
Character movement is emphasized in the sequel, so you can expect to ascend creatures upward to a tier that needs help or downward to the main event at the bottom. This increases opportunities for greater strategic play, affording some ease to the common circumstance of “wasting” a great defense setup on a higher floor due to space limitations or a bad hand.
Moreover, mechanics like these increase the game’s domino-like potential. For instance, there’s a unit that adds valor (a new status effect that increases attack and sometimes armor each turn) whenever an ally equips any item. The Fel champion can potentially gain a permanent stack of valor whenever a unit gains valor. That translates to: gear equip, valor buff, then permanent valor buff, and that's on every turn. Units can only hold one equipment piece at a time, but the new Lazarus League faction features special summons who relinquish temporary equipment cards on death, leaving you a lot of toys to play with.
You get the picture, but that’s just one way the new factions engage in synergistic potential in Monster Train 2. Since every run requires a player to select two factions – one primary which prompts a specific champion hero, one secondary which prompts starter spells – the game intends for you to sus out which card types play nice with each other, and which card types play especially nice with each other.
Monster Train 2 Is An Augmented Version Of the Original
It's Even A Good Entry Point
There’s a substantive and enjoyable content injection at some point in your Monster Train 2 progress, the details of which we’re hesitant to share (and which will surely be instantly spoiled on release). Outside of that, an excellent set of Dimensional Challenges (reminiscent of the Providence Trials in Risk of Rain Returns) and unlocking the special new endgame presents a robust gameplay loop.
I spent roughly 75 hours in Monster Train 2, obtained 22 of 50 achievements, and still feel like there's plenty more to do here. This is a massive deckbuilder, which outsizes the original, and it's especially content-rich for those of us grinding to reach higher covenant ranks or solve every Dimensional Challenge.
There are some predictable methods to boost difficulty, like higher covenant ranks, which act as ascension mechanics in other deckbuilders and introduce a slate of run-crushing challenge conditions. However, you’re also free to keep things standardized at the lower covenants, and can experience the breadth of the game that way if preferred.
In some ways, Monster Train 2 feels like a standard sequel, but the original was such an exquisite construction that it’s hard to expect the new one to outright toss that solid foundation out the window. Instead, Shiny Shoe has spit-shined what little it could find that didn’t already gleam, then piled a stack of new content on top, all of which feels as vigorously battle-tested as the bulk of the original.
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If you loved Monster Train, you’ll really love Monster Train 2. And, if you don't, Monster Train 2 won't successfully change your mind. However, you should consider these games as load-bearing pillars of modern deckbuilders, somehow both accessible and complex, welcoming and daunting, easy and reactive to play but hard and satisfying to master. Monster Train 2 is massive, monstrous, sharp as all hell, and smoother than ever. All aboard!
Monster Train 2
- Released
- May 21, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Shiny Shoe
- Publisher(s)
- Big Fan Games
- Franchise
- Monster Train
- PC Release Date
- May 21, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- May 21, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- May 21, 2025
- Not just more Monster Train, but *much* more Monster Train
- A robust assortment of carefully considered new gameplay mechanics that seamlessly melt into those of the original
- A more satisfying gameplay loop and endgame design than the first Monster Train, with an especially strong final encounter
- Takes what was a solid UI/UX and improves upon it to the point of perfection
- Immaculate performance on Steam Deck
Screen Rant was provided with a digital PC code for the purpose of this review.
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