SteamWorld Heist 2 review: a tactical trick shot across the bow of lesser strategy games

I've yet to discover a SteamWorld game I don't like. Whether plundering the earth in SteamWorld Dig 2 or mucking about with magic in SteamWorld Quest, these are solid and approachable adventures that enthusiastically embrace whatever theme the developers have decided upon. Cowboys? Sure. Wizards? Why not. It barely matters, as long as it results in some good puns. As a studio, Thunderful have a reputation for hopping from one style of game to the next, boiling entire genres down to their essence, and reconstituting them with competence and style to exist within a now-familiar steampunk world of colourful pals and Saturday morning cartoon jokes. The studio is a perpetual notion machine. Yes, with SteamWorld Heist 2, they're revisiting the sci-fi bullet-bouncing of their 2016 tactics game SteamWorld Heist, but they're also introducing significant changes to create a compulsive XCOM-like full of sea-faring submariners that may be their best work yet, even against a back catalogue of blinders. Read more

Developer: Thunderful Publisher: Thunderful Release: Out now On: Windows From: Epic Games , Steam Price: £25/$30/€30 Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7-11700F, 16GB RAM, Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060, Windows 10 I've yet to discover a SteamWorld game I don't like. Whether plundering the earth in SteamWorld Dig 2 or mucking about with magic in SteamWorld Quest , these are solid and approachable adventures that enthusiastically embrace whatever theme the developers have decided upon. Cowboys? Sure.

Wizards? Why not. It barely matters, as long as it results in some good puns. As a studio, Thunderful have a reputation for hopping from one style of game to the next, boiling entire genres down to their essence, and reconstituting them with competence and style to exist within a now-familiar steampunk world of colourful pals and Saturday morning cartoon jokes.

The studio is a perpetual notion machine. Yes, with SteamWorld Heist 2 , they're revisiting the sci-fi bullet-bouncing of their 2016 tactics game SteamWorld Heist , but they're also introducing significant changes to create a compulsive XCOM-like full of sea-faring submariners that may be their best work yet, even against a back catalogue of blinders. As with other SteamWorld games, it's framed in a light, family-friendly story featuring dastardly dieselbots and mildly troubled heroes.

You are Captain Leeway, commander of a pirate submarine bobbing within a "sea" which is really a planet-sized bowl of water floating in space. Unfortunate.