Well, Hammerwatch II just came out last week and it’s pretty good so far. I was an enormous fan of the 2013 original as well as the 2020 Heroes of Hammerwatch. But this game is way more ambitious.
So the biggest changes is well, everything. Classes have far more skills than previous titles, to the point that one review I saw complained it was like trying to play FFXIV on controller.
Now we have HP/MP/Stamina. Stamina has been introduced and seems to for physical special abilities.
I’ve only dabbled in Paladin but here is an example of the new move sets.
Shields are now actively handled by hitting L2 (used to be your dash button) and can not only block projectiles like previous games, but also melee hits which drain stamina. The strength of your block is based on the shield you have equipped.
Unlike other games tho, when you run out of stamina you neither drop your guard nor become unable to attack. It just means you can’t use your physical special attacks till it fills up. This means you can just tank & spank if your shield is good enough.
Paladin’s Dash ability from previous games now costs stamina as mentioned above, but also now is guaranteed to stun the enemies you hit with it. It doesn’t do any damage at first, but you can upgrade it via your talent points to do so.
And the last ability you get at start is a Hammer throw that uses MP.
Speaking of Shields, you now get a full complement of equipment. Head/Hands/Body/Legs as well as main hand and offhand. And if you’re familiar with HoH, these are tiered. Pretty sure they are also randomized.
And character builds are now a thing with both a Talent tree like HoH as well as gaining skill points to allot to stats. Character creation also lets you choose from a pretty big variety of individual face features as well as the colour of your armour.
There’s a huge overworld and a bunch of hidden caves and shit to do as well. Lots of quests to take from NPCs, but don’t expect anything super compelling beyond a fetch quest. Or whatever. They’re still fun, but it’ll remind you of early MMO quests overall.
Of course I’m barely 5 hours in so who knows. I could be very wrong. One thing that I’m ambivalent about is that some quests apparently have a time limit. Oh and yeah. There’s a day/night cycle which tracks an in-universe calendar.
There’s also crafting and fishing and all sorts of shit like cooking and I have not even started to figure out how that all works yet.
But really, this game is absolutely gorgeous. I stepped out from the first cave into the overworld and took this screenshot from my 1440p ultrawide monitor:
Just breathtaking. And the detailed backgrounds animate, too. Trees and grasses blow in the wind. And the music has been great too so far. I’m just not huge on the mandatory voices you get to choose from for your character. I really wish the old “default” nondescript grunt had remained as an option like in HoH.
And yeah it’s still multiplayer. But single player and multiplayer characters are separate, as well as multiplayer characters are locked to a specific “game” with other characters. I think. I haven’t tried multiplayer yet and to be honest, I play these games solo 99% of the time.
So the biggest changes is well, everything. Classes have far more skills than previous titles, to the point that one review I saw complained it was like trying to play FFXIV on controller.
Now we have HP/MP/Stamina. Stamina has been introduced and seems to for physical special abilities.
I’ve only dabbled in Paladin but here is an example of the new move sets.
Shields are now actively handled by hitting L2 (used to be your dash button) and can not only block projectiles like previous games, but also melee hits which drain stamina. The strength of your block is based on the shield you have equipped.
Unlike other games tho, when you run out of stamina you neither drop your guard nor become unable to attack. It just means you can’t use your physical special attacks till it fills up. This means you can just tank & spank if your shield is good enough.
Paladin’s Dash ability from previous games now costs stamina as mentioned above, but also now is guaranteed to stun the enemies you hit with it. It doesn’t do any damage at first, but you can upgrade it via your talent points to do so.
And the last ability you get at start is a Hammer throw that uses MP.
Speaking of Shields, you now get a full complement of equipment. Head/Hands/Body/Legs as well as main hand and offhand. And if you’re familiar with HoH, these are tiered. Pretty sure they are also randomized.
And character builds are now a thing with both a Talent tree like HoH as well as gaining skill points to allot to stats. Character creation also lets you choose from a pretty big variety of individual face features as well as the colour of your armour.
There’s a huge overworld and a bunch of hidden caves and shit to do as well. Lots of quests to take from NPCs, but don’t expect anything super compelling beyond a fetch quest. Or whatever. They’re still fun, but it’ll remind you of early MMO quests overall.
Of course I’m barely 5 hours in so who knows. I could be very wrong. One thing that I’m ambivalent about is that some quests apparently have a time limit. Oh and yeah. There’s a day/night cycle which tracks an in-universe calendar.
There’s also crafting and fishing and all sorts of shit like cooking and I have not even started to figure out how that all works yet.
But really, this game is absolutely gorgeous. I stepped out from the first cave into the overworld and took this screenshot from my 1440p ultrawide monitor:
Just breathtaking. And the detailed backgrounds animate, too. Trees and grasses blow in the wind. And the music has been great too so far. I’m just not huge on the mandatory voices you get to choose from for your character. I really wish the old “default” nondescript grunt had remained as an option like in HoH.
And yeah it’s still multiplayer. But single player and multiplayer characters are separate, as well as multiplayer characters are locked to a specific “game” with other characters. I think. I haven’t tried multiplayer yet and to be honest, I play these games solo 99% of the time.
