Curious Expedition 2's wild adventures are out now in early access
Curious indeed, my dear explorer
The sequel to the British gentleman explore 'em up is now out in early access. According to the developer commentary during their date announcement, Curious Expedition 2 sounds to be a much bigger conquest to tackle than the original. New art, new combat, more storytelling, and new exploration clubs are just some of the big changes that Maschinen-Mensch are making in the sequel.
"Curious Expedition 2 is a turn-based expedition roguelike that requires players to manage their resources and party members to keep insanity at bay and find glory," say the developers. You'll embark on expeditions on behalf of several secret society exploration clubs, each of which have their own items and characters to unlock as you support them.
Maschinen-Mensch also say that they realized the original Curious Expedition accidentally became a bit of a procedural story generator. They've decided to double-down on that quality, adding relationships between characters like friendships and rivalries, more character animations, and other bits to reinforce personalities.
The original game went through a period in Steam's Early Access as well. When it eventually released in 2016, Adam Smith (RPS in pieces) quite enjoyed balancing risk, reward, and sanity. "This is a fantastic game for generating anecdotes...but it’s also an enjoyable challenge," says his Curious Expedition review.
"The dynamic changes to terrain are impressive and highlight how exquisitely detailed the world is, and even when I reach the sixth expedition and end up cursing the impossible list of tasks I need to complete in order to unlock the pyramid, I find it hard not to start all over again as soon as I’m done," says Adam.
You can find Curious Expedition 2 on Steam, for £15/€17/$17. It's planning to adventure through early access until Autumn of 2020.