Slay the Spire 2 updates have been quiet lately, due to developer Mega Crit taking its annual break throughout September. Having returned at the end of that month, however, it’s now shaping up to get back into the regular cadence, and there are some big new features on the horizon. In its October ‘Neowsletter,’ the studio offers a glimpse at the first creature revealed for the next alternate Act, and some details on future plans for co-op and custom runs.
Mega Crit says it held off until the end of September to put out its latest Slay the Spire 2 Neowsletter so it had “more solid info” on the next update, which it says is currently planned for release in beta on Thursday, November 12. It won’t reveal exactly what’s on the table for the roguelike deckbuilder, explaining that “the new content will have more of an impact the less we say about it,” but the team does tease it’s been developing “some big pieces of content that we’ve alluded to in past Neowsletters.”
Back in August, when Mega Crit first started working on its next major update, it reported that the active projects were “experimental game modes, an alternate Act Two, and a new character.” Whether or not all of those will make the cut remains to be seen, although we’ve already been given one glimpse of that branching second chapter. The developer adds, “These are big things that require a lot of design, UX work, art, animation, balancing, etc. before they’re even ready for the experimental beta branch.” Speaking via X, it reassures players that the size of this patch will be “proportional to the wait.”
That meant it had to get the core game to a place it was happy with before it was able to fully concentrate on these additions, with that work beginning in earnest in August. “Of course, this new experimental content will be beta-exclusive at first,” Mega Crit points out, “but the main branch will be brought up to date with all of the content, balance, and fixes that are live on the current and relatively stable beta-branch version (v0.111.0).”
Studio Co-founder Casey Yano also takes some time to answer a few community questions. He says the “really positive” response to co-op means the team is eager to “add more longevity” to the mode, although he writes off the idea of implementing a way to share resources such as gold. “If players can pool their resources to a single player it’s sometimes too easy to have one player snowball.”
Responding to a query about custom runs, Yano says he’d like “to add all the features and ways to explore the nooks and crannies of the game,” but that this will likely have to come in a pass close to the 1.0 launch. “Controller support and minimum text size requirements make it difficult for us,” he explains, which also “likely means desktop players and mods will get the most flexibility.” Fellow Co-founder Anthony Giovannetti then chimes in with extra good news: there are plans to include a way to revisit the old beta art for cards and the Timeline.
Before it wraps up, Mega Crit has one more teaser to reveal – the creature it asked players to guess on the design of last month. This was described as an inhabitant of “another area of the Spire still shrouded in darkness,” likely the alternative Act Two we’re expecting to see more of soon.
While there were plenty of good community suggestions, the official version can be seen just above. “One couldn’t possibly fight such a thing, surely…” Mega Crit remarks. “It seems as though this aquatic creature got lost in this shadowy realm. Perhaps we should return it to the Underdocks? We won’t name it, of course, lest we get attached.”
The next Slay the Spire 2 beta update is currently planned for Thursday, November 12. You’ll need to move to the preview branch to try it out when it arrives, which you can do via the ‘game versions and betas’ menu in the game’s properties menu, accessed via the Steam Library. Make sure to back up your save before switching over.