It is wild to think the original Spelunky came out 12 years ago, and its remake eight. It’s seems both too long ago and too recent. Our Graham, who has never stopped playing Spelunky in the same way he’s never stopped breathing, called this “a worthy successor to a classic” in his Spelunky 2 review. Sure, it’s familiar, but it brings a fresh sense of mystery, discovery, and shame (with the aforementioned daft deaths) by adding new moving parts to the complex system of Spelunky. “Moles are the first example,” he said. “Found on World 1, these creatures burrow through the dirt between your feet, periodically popping out somewhere near you to charge back and forth before diving back underground again. They will disturb your best laid plans, by disturbing your ability to make plans. Spelunky 1 had time pressure in the form of a ghost that would come along after around three minutes in any particular level, but three minutes is a long time. Spelunky 2’s moles are basically tiny ghosts that live in the ground. They’re a new challenge which breathes new life into all the old challenges around them.” I assume we’ll not see Graham for another few months, then. Along with the traditional dungeon-diving solo mode, Spelunky 2 does have same-screen cooperative and PvP arena modes. Online play is planned but ended up delayed. Online multiplayer “had a bit of a rocky start” with the PlayStation 4 edition, the devs conceded, but they wanted to get the game out on PC rather than hold it up any longer to fix online play. So! Now Spelunky 2 is out on PC, the plan is to keep working on online multiplayer then add it in a patch - complete with cross-platform multiplayer between PC and PS4. Until then, you could half-arse it by using Steam’s Remote Play Together feature. Spelunky 2 is out now on Steam. A 10% launch week discount brings it down to £13.94/€15.11/$17.99 until the 6th of October.
