TL;DR: An ambitious early-access sequel that expands Moonlighter in every direction—bigger worlds, deeper systems, more charm—and even with some rough edges, it already feels like a worthy follow-up with tons of potential.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault
I have always had a soft spot for games that let me pretend I’m running a tiny business while simultaneously committing light interdimensional burglary. Maybe it’s some latent desire to be both a responsible adult and a rascal at the same time. Maybe it’s because I have spent too many nights thinking about whether Stardew Valley would be even better with more laser-wielding monsters. Either way, the original Moonlighter scratched an itch I didn’t realize I had, and it scratched it with the oddly satisfying energy of someone vigorously polishing a dusty cash register. So when Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault arrived, seven years after the first game waltzed into my life like a charming door-to-door merchant, I felt a familiar pulse of anticipation.
Booting up the sequel felt like stepping into a parallel universe where everything was familiar yet newly rearranged, like someone took my old, pixelated favorite and ran it through the world’s most ambitious diorama machine. The shift from 2D pixel art to fully realized 3D spaces immediately gives Moonlighter 2 a sense of dimensional expansion that mirrors its lore quite literally. The world doesn’t just look bigger. It feels bigger in a way that almost tricks the brain into believing that Rynoka and its neighboring realms were merely a warm-up. But underneath the glow, there’s the insecurity and scrappiness of a series attempting to reinvent itself while trying not to drop the basket of goodies that made the original beloved.
The story kicks off with a surprisingly dramatic eviction notice, delivered not by a bureaucrat but by an interdimensional collector named Moloch. Suddenly, Will and the familiar townsfolk find themselves uprooted and hauled into a place called Tresna. The tone is whimsical, absurd, occasionally nonsensical—and I mean that in the best possible way. The writing feels like catching up with a friend who moved away and returned with inexplicable stories involving sky pirates, treaties, and at least one cosmic mistake. There’s a mystical cube, the Endless Vault itself, that plops down in the town square like a cosmic Amazon package and tells Will that if he wants his life back, he better get grinding. The sequel still wraps its narrative chaos in a big, goofy grin, and even though the story is incomplete in its early access state, the energy is unmistakably Moonlighter: heartfelt, bizarre, and delightfully self-aware.
Moonlighter 2 continues to lean heavily on its day-night rhythm, the quiet pulse that drives every decision you make. The nights are where the chaos resides, and stepping through a portal once again feels like clocking in for a shift at the universe’s most dangerous warehouse job. But everything has evolved. Combat feels more tactical thanks to the new isometric perspective, and your gun isn’t just a gun; it’s a way of swatting foes out of the air like cosmic insects. Meanwhile, your backpack has leveled up from mere storage vessel to fully functional weapon, capable of launching ruptured enemies into the abyss. I found myself laughing the first time I yeeted a malfunctioning robot into the void using my bag, because in what other game do you weaponize your luggage with unironic enthusiasm?
The worlds themselves deliver on the promise of dimensional adventure. One minute you’re creeping through an antique museum curated by something with a questionable appreciation for security drones. The next, you’re sprinting across storm-soaked floating islands buzzing with witchcraft and swirling winds. The shift to 3D introduces a sense of spatial wonder that the original game, for all its charm, could never quite reach. Tresna, for its part, feels alive in a distinctly new way, bustling with the awkward harmony of displaced villagers and alien wanderers, all trying to figure out this surreal shared life together.
But the structure isn’t just bigger—it’s deeper. Runs now offer branching paths reminiscent of roguelike card crawlers, giving each excursion a choose-your-own-chaos flavor. Perks change your approach mid-run, sometimes dramatically, and the game delights in surprising you with synergies that make you reconsider your strategy on the fly. The backpack puzzle returns with newfound complexity, pushing your brain into an anxious multitasking dance as relics and curses pile up like cosmic yard sale finds. Every time I felt like I’d grasped the system, it pulled another trick from its sleeve.
And then there’s the shopkeeping, which remains the quiet beating heart of the Moonlighter experience. Managing the Moonlighter in Tresna feels more grounded, more involved, and more rewarding. Decorations and shop perks offer real, tangible boosts rather than the illusion of progress. Every sale isn’t just a transaction; it’s a small, satisfying affirmation that your nocturnal life choices are, in fact, economically viable. If only real retail worked that way. If only you could actually increase your profit margins by sticking a more stylish carpet near the cash register.
The sequel, however, doesn’t escape blemishes, and in its early access form, some are hard to ignore. The universe has showered us with more relics and loot than ever, yet somehow our backpack and storage space feel like they’ve shrunk in the wash. Inventory management becomes less of a challenge and more of a begrudging chore, like trying to fit an entire IKEA haul into the trunk of a compact car. It’s not game-breaking, but it does feel needlessly restrictive in a game that wants you to grab everything that sparkles.
The boss encounters, too, fall into a predictable pattern. The classic rule of three looms over every major fight like a design ghost that refuses to be exorcised. Three phases, three shield breaks, three forced uses of your backpack attack. It’s not that the fights are poorly crafted—some of them are genuinely exhilarating—but the repetition weighs them down, stretching battles longer than they need to be. I found myself wanting variety rather than ritual, spontaneity instead of structure.
Moonlighter 2, in its current form, feels like a foundation carefully being poured. The promise of expansiveness is everywhere, glinting through cracks, vibrating with potential. My initial playthrough clocked in at around ten hours before hitting the current content ceiling, yet the in-game progress meter cheerfully informed me that I had completed only about a quarter of what the final game intends to offer. That alone speaks volumes about the ambition behind Digital Sun’s second outing.
What impressed me most, unexpectedly, was the developer’s responsiveness. Early access is a chaotic ecosystem, often filled with bugs that linger for months while players howl into the void. Yet here, issues are acknowledged, addressed, and patched with rare speed. One performance hiccup I noticed at launch evaporated days later like it had never existed. That kind of engagement is worth praising in an industry where early access has often been used as a shield rather than a collaborative tool.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault is not finished, and you can feel it. Systems are still settling, story threads are still waiting to be stitched together, and the overall structure is still under construction. But it’s also unmistakably alive. The soul of Moonlighter is not only present—it’s thriving, experimenting, growing, and occasionally tripping over its own shoelaces in the process. That’s the charm. That’s the magic. That’s the reason I’ll keep returning, because even flawed, this is a world I want to inhabit.
And when Moonlighter 2 eventually lands its full launch, I genuinely believe it can evolve into the perfect dungeon-to-shop simulator it’s aiming to be.
For now, it’s a messy, ambitious, wonderfully chaotic adventure—and I’m absolutely along for the ride.
