Moonlighter 2 is a sequel I never expected but is my most anticipated for 2025

I loved Moonlighter, so I have no doubt I’ll be just as enthralled by its sequel.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault / 11 Bit Studios

When we at GLHF all decided what we were going to write about as our most anticipated games of 2025, I certainly didn’t expect any late surprise announcement to make me throw all of my plans out of the window. However, I woke up one dreary Friday morning and was suddenly slapped across the face with the delightful announcement of Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, the sequel to one of my favorite indie games of all time.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m a sucker for games where you run a shop. Thankfully this is a category indie games are all too happy to fill, with the past few years having interesting takes on the idea like Potionomics, Bear and Breakfast, and Dungeon Inn. However, there was always one game that I’ve seen as the king of this lovely little genre, Moonlighter.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault / 11 Bit Studios

In Moonlighter, not only do you run your shop, but you also need to go out into the mysterious vaults at night and gather all of the precious items that you’ll be selling the next day. The dungeon-diving gameplay is exquisite, as it has similar encounter-design philosophies as The Binding of Isaac, where it understands exactly how the many different enemy types can combo up to give you an interesting challenge.

You have dual motivations in dungeons, too, as you’re partially doing it to beat the boss and unlock new dungeons, but you also need to be gathering the most valuable loot possible to turn a profit in the morning. Your backpack has limited space, and several items have curse effects that alter what’s in your bag, making even something as simple as inventory management into its own little strategy game.

Then, once you’ve decided you’ve pushed your luck enough, you come back to your shop and wake up in the morning to sell your stock. The brilliant catch here is that you don’t actually know what a good price for anything is. You have a notebook that gives you vague boundaries and you have to combine that with your customer’s reactions to prices to work out what the ideal price is for an item.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault / 11 Bit Studios

This whole loop is endlessly compelling as you’re never stuck on one type of gameplay for too long, tapping into that formula the Persona games have always been great at to keep you playing for hours on end. Combine that with a delightful soundtrack that I still regularly listen to, as well as cute pixel-art graphics, and you have a game that I was instantly charmed by and played to completion more than once.

It’s a game I utterly adore, but I never expected it to get a sequel. I’m used to indie developers preferring to move onto new ideas rather than taking another run at the same concept, which, for the most part, is a mentality I like. Take one of my other all-time favorite indie games, FTL: Faster Than Light. It’s awesome, but I firmly believe it never needs a sequel, and various other indie games’ attempts to alter the concept over the years have proved me right. Instead, I was much happier when that team went on to make Into The Breach, a game that is just as amazing in a completely different way.

Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault / 11 Bit Studios

However, Moonlighter is a little different as the exploration of the vaults and the puzzle-solving that comes with setting prices is the core of what makes it such a joyous experience, and whereas FTL gets better the more expertise I have, Moonlighter is one that benefits heavily from that magic of the first playthrough.

The move to 3D graphics and an isometric perspective is a great way to avoid this sequel just feeling like more of the same, as well as offering more complex opportunities for dungeon designs, both in terms of themes and enemies/boss fights. As far as the valuation and selling process goes, I have no idea what new ideas will be added there, but as long as that core loop from the first game remains intact, I have no doubt I’ll be just as enthralled by it.