Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault Preview

I’m going to preface this with the obligatory statement that I’ve never played Moonlighter… albeit that will most likely change once I’ve finished  Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault! In these games, you play as a young merchant, Will, where he and several others are now living in a village called Tresna. Formerly, they had lived in Rynoka, but they were essentially forced out and are now basically refugees.

Will — who had already made a name for himself in the first game — has made a new shop. For those unfamiliar, in this universe, merchants often traverse the dungeons and battle monsters in an effort to find relics to sell. All of these have different rarities and effects. Depending on where you place them in your backpack, you could end up destroying  or even providing armour for them. For example, let’s say you put one item in the corner, it may have arrows that point to other artefacts that will trigger them to burn. Of course, burning isn’t the only way to destroy items, but it’s also not always a bad thing.

Some relics, when burned or otherwise destroyed, may either increase in value or could end up cloning themselves. They could even summon a random item into your backpack, which isn’t an issue if you happen to do this to a Common item. Each run, you can only bring back a certain number of objects, and you need to carefully strategise over which ones you want to bring back. After all, earning gold is important.

One could argue that money will always be important to merchants, but in this case, the funds you earn will lead to you getting even more areas. You see, Will has found a cube known as the Endless Vault. The Vault supplies rewards to Will for achieving targets, such as earning 50,000 gold as one such example (don’t worry, that won’t be your first target… It will, however, be your second), and so you’ll need to earn some good money to unlock more.

Depending on the day you look, some items from an area will earn you more than others. You can also find Recipes that will give you more perks, or even armour or weapons. Some of your fellow villagers will hand you a quest, and these typically involve solving where a hidden treasure is or defeating the boss at the end of each area. Interestingly, defeating the boss at the end of an area is only a side quest, but if you’re like me? Well, you’ll be having fun trying to unlock everything you can. Plus, it’s a great way to grind through to get some more cash.

The dungeons themselves are a lot of fun. Upon arriving at the area you choose, you’ll get to decide which way to go by looking at three different routes. Some routes will intertwine, while others? They will lead you down one way, and so if you’re after recipes or specific perks, you’ll need to think about where to go. As it’s a roguelike, you’ll get numerous chances to get a perk that will help you gather artefacts or help in combat. So, it’s pretty useful to take a look through the map each time.

The combat is enjoyable, and while not fully optimised for Steam Deck, I’ve found it still works really well. In battle, you can use typical hack-and-slash techniques with the weapon of your choice, shoot enemies from a distance, and hurl them away from you with your backpack. To regain more ammo when shooting, you’ll still need to use melee techniques, and your backpack is especially useful when your enemies are turning to some kind of black-purple foam. You’ll need to learn the different methods each monster will use, and they’ll each have a red target that will show where they can go. The good news is, you can roll away to move faster.

Albeit, the only flaw I had during this was when, for some reason, the Left Trigger stopped working for rolling, and it was fine when I next played. Another thing to enjoy is the actual selling of objects. You can only open your shop during daylight hours (however, you aren’t limited to going into dungeons only during the day), and you need to figure out what the best price is for each item. There are four results to this: super cheap, affordable, a bit expensive, and daylight robbery — I named these results myself — and it’s a bit of a guessing game. You don’t want to rob your customers, but damn, I really want more money.

Some of your gold can be spent to improve your health, buy/upgrade weapons (the types of which are sword, greatsword, spear, or gauntlets), and, of course, buy furniture for your shop. Furniture can provide its own benefits, and you can get some simple decorations by bringing tokens you earn through each area. I should also note that when selling items, you can also get perks while the shop is open that can increase the value of any relic on sale, or even improve your Tip. Some characters will even show up with a specific item in mind, and so you’ll need to pay attention.

Truthfully, I’ve been really enjoying my time with Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault. Newcomers and fans of the previous game will both enjoy it. While it’s still in Early Access, I’m excited to see what more will come. You can jump in and out of the game with ease, and I never thought I’d find the merchant aspect so fun. As I mentioned before, I’ve not played the first game, but damn, now I really want to, if only to get a better idea of why the villagers of Rynoka were banished from their home.