I knew people loved Slay the Spire but I don’t think I knew just how many people loved it this much. Slay the Spire 2’s Early Access takeover of Steam is even more dramatic than I was expecting, though it’s not underserved. I played an hour last night and while that’s just one grain of sand on a vast beach of playtime when it comes to judging the overall quality of the deckbuilding RPG sequel, I can at least report that yes, the hype is real. Slay the Spire 2 is a very good sequel so far.
You do not need to take my word for it because indie team Mega Crit’s latest release has completely dominated in the less than 24 hours since it went live. It’s peaked at 399,273 concurrent players on Steam so far, and that number seems poised to explode even more over the weekend. It’s currently sitting at number four on Steam’s top 100 most-played games, just behind multiplayer juggernauts like Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, and PUBG.
Those are Silksong-like numbers. Not bad for an unfinished Early Access version. One partial reason for that is likely the fact that Slay the Spire 2 is currently only available on PC. There’s no console version yet. God help us (me) when it comes to Switch 2.
Slay the Spire 2’s concurrent Steam players just hit 179,456, the highest ever for any roguelike.
When StS1 first launched back in 2017, it had 193 concurrent players.
That’s a 92,982% increase, meaning StS3 is on track to hit 166,861,777 concurrent players by 2035. 💪 pic.twitter.com/1Et6PccMiN
— Mega Crit ⚔️ Slay the Spire 2 Out Now! (@MegaCrit) March 6, 2026
The pitch for the game is very simple: a more, better version of the original. You’re still going from one battle to the next in a roguelike dungeon format, acquiring and upgrading cards along the way, with lots of different strategies to build around depending on what an individual run’s RNG has planned for you.
But this time around the visuals are better, the world has a lot more story around it, and the range of discoveries and scenarios you’ll encounter just feels more vast and complex. Also there’s co-op multiplayer now, with its own synergies and mechanics to play around. That’s a huge addition, but also one players can completely ignore if they want.
One thing Slay the Spire 2 very definitely doesn’t do is try to introduce a big twist to the underlying structure of the game to shake things up. Like Silksong, the sequel is very much in service of what existing fans loved about the original, rather than trying to recombobulate those ideas into a more “novel” formula.
This is likely a big part of why the initial reception on Steam has been so glowing. Slay the Spire 2 is currently sitting at a 97 percent positive rating on Valve’s storefront with over 4,387 English-language reviews. As one Steam user wrote, “A lot is the same, but StS is already good. I don’t want them to reinvent the wheel. I just want more of what makes the first one so good.”
There are apparently three acts in the Early Access build though I haven’t made it past the second yet. Overally, it feels pretty chunky for an unfinished game that Mega Crit will be toiling away on for a while to come. “Slay the Spire’s success comes from our community!” the studio explains on the store page. “It sounds corny, but the extra mile many of you went to report issues, translate content/announcements, create long video essays, make excellent (lol) tier lists, and draw goofy or gorgeous fan art is the reason we’re doing it all again.”
