SUPPORT US ON KO-FI!
When you buy SteamWorld Dig 2, it should come with a whole batch of warnings about the importance of your health. While playing, you should remember that it is important to eat, drink, sleep, bathe, go to the toilet, and - albeit begrudgingly - go to work during your allocated hours of labour. Remember to feed any children or animals in your care, and to go outside for some fresh air every now and then, or at least open a window for a little while. We say this because, when you first play SteamWorld Dig 2, it's very unlikely that anything else will seem quite as important as it used to; this is, after all, an insanely engrossing experience. Oh, and remember to put your Switch on charge every so often, because you can't mine for precious stones on a flat battery.
SteamWorld Dig 2 is the latest brainchild of Image & Form, the Swedish masterminds behind previous SteamWorld titles including Dig, Heist, and the underappreciated SteamWorld Tower Defense, a Nintendo DSiWare title and the series' first entry. It takes place sometime after the end of SteamWorld Dig, as Tumbleton resident - and new protagonist - Dorothy leaves the deserted town to search for Rusty, who has gone missing following the events of the first game. Things are never quite as simple as they seem, though, and the search for Rusty throws up plenty of questions before it eventually answers them - it makes for an engrossing story that never lets up.
The majority of gameplay takes place underground, as you'll need to use your pickaxe to travel to the depths of the planet in your search. You'll use the pickaxe to break though clumps of earth, mine for precious gems, and take on some of the creatures that lurk below. Your progression in the game is based around this as much as the story, since you'll gain new items that let you delve further into the depths, and you're also able to upgrade each of your items by purchasing enhancements for them. Funds for this are collected by selling the gems and jewels you obtain on your travels to a merchant in El Machino, a quiet town at the head of the mines. In addition, defeating enemies will nab you experience points, and levelling up will increase the monetary bonuses you get for selling stuff - each level you gain also gives you an additional 5% of money on anything you sell.
While you can upgrade each of your items with this money, you can also attach and detach mods to them, which is handled through a simple cog system - you collect cogs throughout your journey, and by accessing a workbench in town, you can see which mods are available for your items and how many cogs you need to attach to activate them. One example is a mod for your satchel that enables you to hold onto more of your collected gems when you die - or are 'scrapped' - since you would normally lose quite a lot of it. The beauty about this system is that cogs aren't a permanent addition, and you can detach and attach them to different mods as often as you like.
In fact, the whole item system is a fantastic piece of work, and the way in which you collect, upgrade, and modify items is simple and intuitive. The use of mods encourages you to experiment and find the best setup for you, and having it alongside a more traditional, linear upgrade system makes for a perfect pairing. In addition, some mods focus on making the experience that little bit tougher, which is a smart way of upping the difficulty; these are primarily available as blueprints, which can be collected throughout the game, and these normally provide greater benefits while putting you in more danger. While the game doesn't have a hard mode as such - you can select between Easy and Normal difficulties when starting a new game - utilising mods to increase difficulty is a pretty clever move.
If you played the first SteamWorld Dig more than once, you'll probably have noticed that the world was randomised, or procedurally generated, every time you started a new file. That isn't the case this time around, but it makes for a far greater experience, because it's allowed for even more collectibles and a greater focus on each area as part of the overarching storyline. It's also clear that doing away with the randomised aspect has allowed for some incredible design work. There are quite a few large areas, from a swamp-like chasm to a ritualistic temple of fire, and each is home to numerous secret areas, collectibles, and puzzle-themes caves. These are really interesting, because each cave is different, and shouldn't be ignored as long as you're in a position to do some more exploring. Caves almost always have one or two interesting secrets, such as a cog or a collectible artifact, and some also have some very rare gems hidden away, which can be sold in El Machino for a pretty penny.
There's a lot to find and collect, but thankfully you have a particularly useful map at your disposal, which shows you how to easily get around the different areas. You can use tubes to quickly travel around every area, and there's even a very handy button shortcut: enter a tube and press the X button to move the cursor directly to El Machino, or to your last location. The map also shows you the location of each cave you've found, and will mark the icon with a tick once you've found everything in there; similarly, while you're in an area, you can see what percentage of secrets you've discovered, which is great if you're going for 100% completion. The ease of access around the map also means that you'll never feel as though you're backtracking, thanks to the seamless way in which it's handled, and it makes moving around during the story incredibly easy as well.
SteamWorld Dig 2 is likely to take you around five hours to beat the first time around, and between ten and fifteen hours if your aim is to collect and complete everything the game has to offer. The impressive variety that it provides within that timespan is key to the fact that this is also an insanely replayable experience, and one that can be even better on a follow-up playthrough, because once you have a better idea of the ways in which you can collect items and progress through the game, you can take a more methodical approach. It helps that the story is just as immersive and affecting no matter how often you finish it, and that's thanks to some sublime writing, pacing, and a very satisfying end sequence. Add to this one of the best and most memorable game soundtracks of recent years - particularly the main theme and the ballad of El Machino - and there's really very little to complain about here.
The tagline of SteamWorld Dig 2 is "Together we're not alone", and the game epitomises this through the characters you meet and stories they share with you throughout your adventure. It's a story brimming with hope, and Image & Form have found a perfect balance between the story and the gameplay, allowing you to immerse yourself in both without either becoming overpowering. It's an experience that can be enjoyed by everyone, even if you never played the first SteamWorld Dig, to which there are just a few little references scattered throughout.
SteamWorld Dig 2 takes everything that made its predecessor so loved, gives us even more of it, puts it hand in hand with plenty of new stuff, and fine-tunes the entire experience in such a way that it just feels as though it was meant to be. It doesn't stray too far from the formula, but does what it does best, and does it with such sheer perfection that it's hard to see how it can be topped. We expect that the team at Image & Form will somehow find a way to do just that, but until that day arrives, we can all enjoy their latest masterpiece - an easy contender for Nintendo eShop's game of the year, and a vital part of any Nintendo Switch library.
