Spelunky 2 game review: Roguelike perfection

Enlarge / Ana (center) is the star of Spelunky 2, and she's on a search for her adventuring parents after they abandoned her to look for treasure on the Moon. (credit: Mossmouth)

My recent work at Ars Technica has mostly revolved around high-end gadgets like VR headsets, GPUs, and next-gen consoles. It's fun stuff.

But while swimming through embargoed hardware and frantic news announcements, I keep coming back to a single video game well outside the "next-generation" mold.

Spelunky 2 is likely the most "dated" game I'll slap the "Ars Approved" sticker onto in 2020. The adjective "dated" works in part because the game's success builds largely, and loudly, upon the foundation of 2012's 2D smash Spelunky HD... and that title builds upon the 16-bit genius of 2009's freeware original. (Which you can still download! For free! Right next to its source code!)

A certain class of gamer will hear that "Spelunky 2 is everything good about Spelunky HD, only better" and wish to hear nothing more. That's fair (especially for players who will hold out for the game's launch on PC in two weeks, after its timed PlayStation 4 exclusivity runs out). The charm of Spelunky 2, like its predecessor, comes from how it cleverly shakes a cup full of gameplay and level-construction elements, dumps them onto a table, and shouts "Yahtzee!" as it surprises you again and again. (To be clear, in this game's case, "Yahtzee" is a synonym for "You died!" You will die repeatedly in Spelunky 2.)

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