Could Wolcen 2 Be What the First Should Have Been?

Six years ago, Wolcen Studio released Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem. An ambitious action RPG that was nominated for and even won some awards. Its general reception was positive, and with some bug fixes and fine-tuning, it could’ve stood alongside the big hitters like Diablo and Path of Exile. However, these never came, so when I was asked if I wanted to attend a presentation for Wolcen 2, I was shocked, and I wanted to see how it lives up to the first.

Before I get into what I saw, however, I just want to preface this by saying that this was an early Alpha look, and the performance wasn’t great, but it’s still early in development, meaning a lot can still change, and on top of that, I only had a small amount of time with the game.

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Wolcen 2 keeps it’s grimdark setting.

Setting the Scene

Starting with what made the original Wolcen so good: it retains its grimdark atmosphere and visceral combat, with dark flagstone paths among large, awe-inspiring buildings setting the tone, and a weighted combat system that lets you feel every attack.

At the start of my play test, I had a sword in one hand and a gun in the other. I could use the sword with the LMB (Left Mouse Button), swinging away and decapitating the monsters, while keeping the others at bay with my pistol — each shot sending back a wet, crunching thud as it tore into the flesh of the cultists, using the RMB (Right Mouse Button) at the same time. Every attack has weight behind it, really letting you feel each hit. It has a classless system, meaning I could learn what abilities and spells I wanted, so I could create my own build.

For gear, I could equip two weapons, a helmet, a chest piece, gauntlets, pants, and a some boots. Alongside that, I could wear four pieces of jewelry: two amulets and two rings. Aside from the regular gear, I was obtaining all different types of shards with various stat upgrades, and I could equip them in the passive tree, similar to Path of Exile and its gems.

As I made my way through the packs of monsters, I picked up various types of gear as you’d expect in an action RPG, but I couldn’t help noticing that each weapon came with an ability, as well as stat scaling. For example, one weapon had a spinning sword ability and four stats, with this particular weapon favoring strength. Once you equip the weapon, you need to learn the skill by killing enemies with it until it gets unlocked.

Another interesting mechanic was Shadowform. After building up my gauge, I could transform into a different being, increasing my damage. However, it came at a cost, and numerous shadow enemies would appear, attacking and subsequently killing me. I later learned that you can exit Shadowform, and that I should have gone in and out of it briefly, instead of staying in it until I died.

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Keep enemies at bay with your pistol. You can even have two if you want!

Reaching the Cultist’s Stronghold

There wasn’t too much to do in the demo other than complete the quest given to me, which was to open the Sanguine Gate and enter the Cultist Stronghold. There are story reasons for this, which I briefly saw, with some good voice acting across the board, but I won’t spoil what little story I got for now. Inside the Cultist Stronghold, I made my way through, defeating packs of cultists along the way, and ended up in a spider lair, where I found the boss.

The boss fight was well done and what you’d expect from ARPG’s these days, with plenty of telegraphed attacks and phases where groups of enemies would spawn periodically throughout the battle. All in all, it was a challenging battle, and I can only imagine how difficult the later bosses might be. Once the boss was taken care of, it exploded like a piñata, dropping a bunch of loot on the floor, which never gets old. Following the battle, I was met with a short cutscene before the demo ended.

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The Cultist Stronghold will lead to an underground spider lair.

Speaking with the developers, they took ownership of the failed promises of the first game and told me that they learned from their mistakes and vow not to do the same with the second.

The final thing they talked about was a tower where you could target-farm exactly what type of gear you wanted, including the stats, to finalize your builds. In theory, this allows you to complete your builds more easily by selecting what piece of gear you want, such as a helmet, for example. Then what stats you want for it, such as an ability, an attribute, or a passive.

When that’s selected, you complete the dungeon, defeat the boss, and you’ll have a higher chance to obtain that specific piece of gear. This was still an early prototype, and one of the main reasons for developing it was because the developer was still upset that he had been farming an item in Diablo for two-plus years and still never got the item to complete his build, which made me laugh.

Wolcen 2 is early days, but if the studio can deliver on their promises, then we could have another ARPG competing with the other two big-hitters. One to watch.