Streets of Rogue (opens in new tab), 2019’s many-layered roguelite/immersive sim hybrid that we rather enjoyed, is getting a sequel. Streets of Rogue 2 has a Steam page (opens in new tab), an early access release window of 2023, and a prominently displayed gif of someone ploughing a truck through a farmyard. Looks good to me: put it out now, I say.
Developer Matt Dabrowski packs a lot of new features into the sequel’s announcement post (opens in new tab), but chief among them is probably the move to a “huge, persistent and seamless open world”. The original game saw you take elevators from level to procedurally-generated level, but flattening all those out into one big, contiguous land mass makes sense. Streets of Rogue is one of those games that’s at its best when the AI and systems are given room to careen off one another. There’s no better way to do that than shoving them all into one map.
Apart from the open-world switch, Streets of Rogue 2 will also see the addition of building, farming, and animals. Stardew stuff, in other words, but with the bewitching possibility that someone might steamroll your crops in a freight vehicle while you sleep.
You’ll probably see it coming, at least: the final significant addition—at least as far as I’m concerned—is the inclusion of a faction and reputation system. Streets of Rogue 2’s open world will be dotted with cities, outposts, and other communities that you can woo with good deeds (or terrorise mercilessly). You’ve got to assume that, if you annoy a community sufficiently, they’ll eventually turn up at your doorstep like the angry mob in Frankenstein.
We’ll find out in 2023. I’m pretty excited for this one: the original Streets of Rogue’s design philosophy was very much my jam. It’s a game that truly didn’t care what you got up to, and was content to let you amass limitless power or die in the gutter depending on your skill, creativity, and the procedural whims of its artificial denizens. Plus you could play as a gorilla. That was great too.
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