SteamWorld Heist 2 revealed, bringing a ragtag crew of seafaring robots to PC this August

I briefly posted about this in The Maw, but was unsure at that point if SteamWorld Heist 2 was coming to PC day and date with the launch on Switch. That date is August 8th, by the way, and the answer is: yes it is! Though it was revealed at Nintendo’s Indie World Showcase earlier this afternoon, strategy action-adventure-with-robots sequel SteamWorld Heist 2 isn’t a timed platform exclusive, so that’s fun!

SteamWorld Heist 2 is, if you hadn’t guessed, a sequel to SteamWorld Heist, which came to PC in 2016. The first was a side-on tactics game where you, leading a team of robots, shot teams of other (bad) robots in turn-based skill-heavy tactical battles. While that all took place in space, the sequel has achieved splashdown, and you’ll be chuntering about the seas with a new lead character (Captain Leeway) and a new bunch of crewmates. It’s a robot pirate game, in other words.

The new setting comes with some other new stuff, including a job system to customise abilities and equipment, which sounds similar to the Final Fantasy XIV/some-of-the-Yakuza-games system of assigning classes. There’s also a big world map where you can sail around between missions to explore and do some real-time naval shootin’. The meat of the game is once you’ve boarded an enemy ship for a mission, though, which is when you do the turn-based strategy bit. Key to success is setting up trick shots, where you can ricochet bullets off the environment to hit your bad guy of choice.

The story, meanwhile, is about solving the mystery of “a deadly water crisis that’s causing metal limbs and mechanical hearts to corrode”. That’s a neat twist on the usual type of water crisis, which is when you don’t have enough water. It also makes you ponder the fragility of being a Steambot. You are powered by water, but also water may destroy you. Ah, what is life??

Both of the SteamWorld Heist games are part of a larger SteamWorld universe, notably including SteamWorld Dig and the more recent SteamWorld Build. I don’t really have much experience of the extended Steam universe, but I’ll get on board with robot pirates. That’s sort of the only place to be in a seafaring situation, afer all. SteamWorld Heist 2 is on Steam now, and releases on August 8th. Kat Bailey at IGN has some more details from an interview with producer Peter Magnusson.