Hammerwatch II Review: A Follow-Up Worth Your Time?

There’s always room in my gaming diet for a fun dungeon crawler, so I was excited to check out Hammerwatch II. Despite never playing the original, I’d heard enough positive things about it that I was looking forward to a good time. I found one, at least at times, but I also found a game that too easily gets buried under its systems and requires fighting through far too many parts that just aren’t enjoyable to find its best moments.

Hammerwatch II starts in the direct aftermath of the first game. You killed the evil dragon and saved the day. Except not really, because there are more evil dragons and enemies to slay if you want to return King Roland to his throne. Admittedly, I’ve never been a big fan of stories that try to make the previous story, that people enjoyed, feel small, but it’s not a major problem here. The issue is that this is largely the case because the story simply isn’t a significant draw. It’s very by-the-numbers stuff with little in the way of interesting side quests or characters to grab you. I know most players are going to just be here for the loot, but it would have been nice if something in this story grabbed me.

Killing Hordes From Afar

Ultimately, though, people come to dungeon crawlers for the action and the loot, and Hammerwatch II can be a lot of fun if you approach it from that perspective, at least at times. It features exciting bosses, surprisingly large dungeons filled with foes to kill, character classes that let you absolutely devastate your opponents, and a balance that will work great for those looking to slay evil with friends. Blasting away a group of undead with the right spell or taking out pirate after pirate with my bow was a ton of fun at times, and it’s during these moments when Hammerwatch II is at its best.

There’s a lot to do as you journey around these islands and get back to working with the resistance. Side quests are all over the place; villages are filled with shops to visit and things to do. I found the choice to separate items into so many different shops in each town to be odd, but I appreciate a game trying something new, even if I’m not sure this gambit ultimately paid off. Don’t even think about doing any of this with a controller either or trying to play on a Steam Deck. The default control scheme doesn’t even map your items to a button, instead trying to get you to use a radial menu that’s so poorly set up that I can’t imagine players trying to access it in the heat of battle. You can remap things, but I couldn’t figure out a good scheme within the game’s design that allowed me to fit everything I needed onto a standard controller. Those with a controller featuring back paddles or extra buttons will fare a bit better.

Lost In The Loop

Even among what works though, Hammerwatch II has too many issues. Different classes feel horribly unbalanced, especially for solo play. Melee classes, in particular, simply don’t work well if you’re playing alone. Enemies do too much damage too quickly, and they’ll almost immediately surround you upon seeing you. The only solution I could find to make such classes work consistently was to grind and over-level. Ranged classes work far better, with magic and bows allowing you to use the space around you to pick enemies off from afar, but players should have more freedom to play the game as they choose. Some of the game’s bosses, which I mostly like, make this even more difficult as they’re clearly designed for a group to fight.

Navigating the vast dungeons here is an issue as well. Breakable walls are difficult to see, and required switches often don’t stand out against the art design. Poor maps compound the issue. Perhaps my biggest frustration, though, became evident quite early on when I realized how restrictive the game’s day-night cycle is. Hammerwatch II runs on a clock, with most characters going to bed at a certain time. That means shops aren’t available, you can’t complete quests, and people are mostly off-duty. You can still work through dungeons and kill enemies, but if you’ve completed the next major quest and want to keep moving, you’re out of luck.

Time here moves slowly, so it takes quite a long time for the next day to begin. You can fill that time with more wandering or visiting dungeons, but progression is out the window. I’ve only found two ways to progress to morning. You can stay at an inn, but that costs money you may not have or want to spend. Or you can die. Dying allows you to choose to respawn at several nearby locations, with time progressing different amounts depending on what you choose. You’ll lose some money as a punishment for this. Any system that incentivizes players to go kill themselves so they don’t have to sit around for twenty minutes doing nothing is a bad one. If they wanted to implement this cycle, the developers needed to offer some sort of free option to progress time. Perhaps allow you to create a campfire in specific locations—something to enable players to keep moving forward.

Conclusion

There are times Hammerwatch II can be a lot of fun. Exploring massive dungeons and taking down hordes of enemies is usually a good time, and Hammerwatch II captures that, at least if you pick one of the right classes. I can see a group of friends with a well-balanced party having an excellent time with it, and that’s really who these games are for, first and foremost. Ultimately though, Hammerwatch II makes too many poor design choices for me to recommend it to most players. There’s a good game in here somewhere, but it’s buried under too many flaws.

Final Verdict: 2.5/5

Available on: PC (Reviewed), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch; Publisher: Modus Games; Developer: Crackshell; Players: 4; Released: August 15th, 2023; ESRB: T for Teen; MSRP: $24.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Hammerwatch II provided by the publisher.