A surprise gameplay trailer for Unexplored 2 showed off a vastly better looking game than the already-great Unexplored. Read on to find out what’s changed and how you can play sooner than you may think.
We got our first look at Unexplored 2 today at E3, likely much to the surprise of many viewers. The original Unexplored was an excellent but overlooked roguelike, and its sequel looks like a huge step up for both its graphics and gameplay.
Unexplored 2 replaces the limited animations and simplistic graphics of the original with a gorgeous cel-shades style and much more realistic movements. It may have actually been the lighting that impressed us most visually in the trailer. The footage we saw started out in a dark cave with first just a torch lighting the way, then a magic ball of light showing more of the environment. After the player ventures out into the world, we see fantastic real-time shadows and gorgeous lighting effects abound.
Combat looks much improved over the first as well, with faster, more varied, and overall better-looking action. The combat in the original Unexplored looked and felt a little bit stiff, and often boiled down to just running into enemies with your spear. The enemies we saw in the trailer looked much more lifelike and reactive, and their attacks had a lot more impact.
It also looks like Unexplored 2 will take players to a much more varied set of locations. The original Unexplored took place in dungeons that did have some aesthetic variety to them, but mostly looked like similar environments with a few cosmetic differences. Even just from looking at scenes from today’s trailer, you can see that Unexplored 2 has a huge number of extremely different environments. The brief glimpse we got today showed deserts with giant hands sticking out of the sand, lush forests, and rocky paths filled with ruins.
If you want to judge Unexplored 2 for yourself, you can actually do that now. It’s available under Fig’s new Open Access program starting today.
