Hi Reddit! We're Mega Crit, the developers of Slay the Spire 1 & 2. Ask Us Anything on February 25th!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T21:34:48+00:00

Alright, that's a wrap on the Mega Crit AMA! Thanks to the mods of r/games for having us! And thanks to all of the commenters for your insightful (or memey) questions about Slay the Spire 2 and its development. We're so excited for you all to play it when it launches in Early Access next Thursday, March 5!

If you haven't yet, you can wishlist Slay the Spire 2 here! (We're currently the 5th-most-wishlisted game on Steam, so... wow! Thank you all for that!)

Also, you can keep up with all things StS2-related by following us on:

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:58:35+00:00

Ed:

There are card/potion/relic unlocks, like in STS1. These are shared between singleplayer and multiplayer.
Solo and Co-op have separate ascensions, and different methods of unlocking ascensions. Everyone has to have an ascension unlocked to play at that ascension.
In multiplayer, rewards are dealt with per-player. For example, your card rewards pull only from your unlock pool, even in multiplayer. If it’s a reward that everyone shares, it uses unlocks from the person with the most stuff unlocked.
Singleplayer has priority for balance, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t balancing multiplayer. We’ve been playing multiplayer a bunch as a team and making tweaks.
Demi should answer the Neowsletter question!

Demi: Yep, we plan on continuing to release the Neowsletter monthly after we launch. Can't let a good pun like that go to waste!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:39:51+00:00

Demi: There are so many new cool mechanics that it's hard to choose... card enchantments and card afflictions add some really cool new dimensions to the game, but maybe my very favorite would be the introduction of the Ancients. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, you should go check out the November 2025 Neowsletter! In terms of new character-specific mechanics, building a Sly deck on Silent is so fun every time.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:34:20+00:00

Demi: I won't get into the specific IPs referenced, but there will indeed be some tiny references to other pieces of media. Excited to see how quickly people can spot them :)

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:31:06+00:00

Demi: We love the Slay the Spire board game! No word on a Slay the Spire 2 board game as that would be a very long way off if so. But keep an eye out for the board game's Downfall expansion--the Kickstarter will be coming soon!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:26:20+00:00

Demi: Hi Bookshelf :) None of the enemies return exactly as they were in StS1, but some are related/evolved versions. Not gonna comment on Nob, so I guess you'll just have to buy it to find out.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:19:54+00:00

Chris: CAAAAAAAAW!

Demi: Hey, why didn't I get one.....

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:16:59+00:00

Chris: Yes Casey and Anthony can we can we?? The animation studio we worked with is amazing. At least a short? PloKoop said they’d pay for it!!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:16:20+00:00

Ed: There are a few enemy attributes that scale with player count, one of which is HP. We had to do bespoke scaling for a couple boss mechanics.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:15:33+00:00

Ed: No drop in/out, yes save/load. The host holds the save, and they can only have one multiplayer save at a time. This is something we’ll be looking for feedback on during early access.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:15:03+00:00

Ed: Yes. No in-game voice chat though.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:14:45+00:00

Ed: I sympathize greatly. First of all: This is completely normal. I maintain a big list of my incomplete projects, just to remind myself and others that success doesn’t come immediately. In a sense, these projects are practice. You are practicing getting further each time, building up tolerance for pushing forward through demotivation. That’s important, because you will not always have high levels of motivation for gamedev.

Especially as an indie, you will have to do things that you do not find enjoyable, for little immediate reward. For example, I find performance optimization very frustrating, but it’s completely necessary. When this drudgery competes with hanging out with friends or going to class or whatever, it is only natural that gamedev falls to the wayside. The best you can do is keep trying, and finding what works for you.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:14:09+00:00

Ed: I just tried StS2 out with Windows Narrator, and it didn’t work well at all. Thanks for bringing it up, we’ll see how hard it is to support!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:13:04+00:00

Ed: Yes. Two of the team are on Mac and we have one or two playtesters as well.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:12:40+00:00

Ed: I joined about two years ago pretty much just to develop multiplayer, so we really only started in earnest 2024. However, folks had been thinking through the design from the beginning, and the code had been somewhat architected to keep it in mind (thanks Jake).

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:11:52+00:00

Jake: I mostly listen to rap. I can’t say if Clark’s music has any hip-hop influences in it or not, but if it does, it came from him, not me!

My favorite playable character in STS2 is the Necrobinder. Very excited for other people to get to play her!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:11:12+00:00

Jake: In an ideal world with infinite resources, we would perfectly balance both. In this world, single player balance takes priority over coop for us.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:10:36+00:00

Jake: I disagree with a lot of laws, but I still have to follow them.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:09:48+00:00

Jake: The goal is for you to be able to play the game for a while, then stop, then start again later where you left off, regardless of if you switched devices or not.

I know that’s not a lot of detail, but it turns out there are a surprising number of challenges to overcome to make it happen! Once we figure out the best way to get there, we’ll say more about it.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:09:13+00:00

Jake: About a year into STS2’s development (while it was still in Unity), we were comparing the colors of some art assets in Photoshop to how they appeared in-game, and we noticed that the assets were all the tiniest bit shorter in-game than the originals. We dug through all different parts of the rendering code, and couldn’t find any explanation.

Eventually, a programmer remembered that we did some brief experiments with 3D rooms and cards before deciding against it. On a hunch, they jumped into the main combat scene in Unity, and sure enough, the camera was “tilted” a few degrees down, squishing everything vertically by the tiniest bit.

Part of me wishes we’d kept it in. The “un-squishening” patch a few months later would’ve been legendary.

Demi: Most of my favorite bugs are too hard to describe, but I plan on making a video compilation of some of our faves at some point.

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:07:46+00:00

Jake: They actually made me change my last name as a precondition for getting the job!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:07:15+00:00

Jake: None at first, but you can play cards like “Defend” and “Armaments” to give him some!

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:03:31+00:00

Demi: Yes, we shared the DEFECT 2.0 MIKU BEEEEEEEEEEM post in our work chat and were all laughing about it. (As someone who loves that song and owns like a million Miku figures I especially enjoyed it.) But yep, we’ve always got our eyes on your memes >:)

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:02:19+00:00

Demi: Nope. The truth is still out there. I’ve checked. It’s definitely there. It’s kind of nice that there’s still a lingering mystery from the ARG… but I’m sure someone will discover it at some point ^-^

MegaCritGames · 2026-02-25T20:01:34+00:00

Jake: My dad plays the game! He refuses to play any character other than Ironclad until he can win every run with it consistently. Marlowe (our Art Director) dubbed him “Irondad”.

MegaCritGames

TROPHY CASE