Though I’m not awfully picky when it comes to games, I do have some strong preferences. Card battlers, for example, are a guilty pleasure, and I’ve played most of them. That’s why I’m excited aboutMonster Train 2, the sequel to one of the best card battlers on the market.
Don’t get me wrong: there’s a huge number of excellent card battler games available right now. In fact, the original card battler,Slay the Spire, is about to get afull-featured sequel sometime soon-ish, which is a huge deal in its own right. Yet, the originalMonster Trainhad me hooked from the get-go, and I kept coming back to the game over and over again. The developer Shiny Shoe has announcedMonster Train 2with a snazzy new trailerandan equally snazzy free demo.
Monster Train 2is built on the very same schtick as its predecessor: you’re a demon lord with a demonic train and a demonic crew, and you’re duking it out with the forces of Heaven wherever you go. The game’s unique twist is that it pits you against several different cars’ worth of angels and demons all at once, which means you need to think vertically rather than just horizontally. It’s great fun, really.
Best of all, though, is that you don’t even need to take my word for it: head on over to Steam anddownload theMonster Train 2demo yourself! The full game is supposed to launch sometime later in 2025, but there’s no hard release window announced just yet.
If you’re into game demos but aren’t interested in card battlers at all,might I recommendDeadzone: Rogueinstead? This remarkably chunky and satisfying roguelite FPS should keep you busy for a good long while, even in its free-to-play demo form, and it might even get you interested in the real deal. I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely thrilled with the fact that we’ve got so many good demos available via Steam nowadays. It wasn’t that long ago that we were seriously concerned thatgame demos were a dying art form, but they’re on the up-and-up once again, which is good news for us all.
