Last few years I’ve been excitedly waiting for sequels from several small-to-medium sized studios that made highly acclaimed original games—I’m talking about Cities: Skylines, Kerbal Space Program, Planet Coaster, Frostpunk, etc.—yet each sequel was very poorly received to the point I wasn’t willing to risk my money buying it. Why do you think this happens when these developers already had a winning formula?
In order:
I would sub in like maybe Darkest Dungeon 2 over Frostpunk? Less well received but still better than any of the other three. Both were distinct changes of pace, darkest dungeon just sold its soul to the epic games store and lost the bond you formed with characters over a long campaign in exchange for the roguelite shorter runs.
Frostpunk 2 is great. I think it’s way harder than 1 but maybe that’s just because I haven’t sunk nearly the same hours in
I had a decent time with it and probably would’ve played a 2nd run had the game not failed me because every faction (including the rebelling one) was too happy to pass the final law or whatever. They probably fixed that by now, but it was pretty souring.