Slay the Spire 2
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Slay the Spire 2 1.0 release: Sep 2027Not announced: our best guess from Mega Crit's 1 to 2 year Early Access plan.
Best guessMega Crit's Early Access FAQ on Steam says it will stay in Early Access "Until the game feels great! Last time we thought it would be about a year and it took about 1.5 years. So perhaps in the same 1 - 2 year range." We count 18 months from the Mar 5, 2026 Early Access launch, as the first game took, to the first Thursday of Sep 2027 (Mega Crit ships on Thursdays) at 10 AM Pacific, the hour of the Early Access launch. Steam

10Months6Days

Reception and Sales

Slay the Spire 2 sold 3 million copies in its first week, per Mega Crit, and peaked at 574,638 concurrent Steam players on Mar 8, 2026. Its English Steam reviews are Very Positive (91% of 71,512) while all languages together are 59.4% positive after off-topic review waves during balance patches, and it has no Metascore yet; PCGamesN gave it 10/10.

Slay the Spire 2 sold 3,000,000 units in its first week, Mega Crit announced on Mar 13, 2026, with more than 25 million runs played, and SteamDB measured an all-time peak of 574,638 concurrent players on Mar 8, 2026. Its Steam reviews depend on the language filter: English reviews are "Very Positive", 91% of 71,512, but all languages together are 59.4% positive of 217,676, because waves of negative reviews hit during the spring 2026 balance patches; Steam marks those periods as off-topic (all figures Oct 26, 2026). Critics reviewing the Early Access build have been warm: PCGamesN gave it 10/10, and Eurogamer wrote that "Cruelty has never been so enjoyable." There is no Metascore yet, because most of the critic reviews Metacritic lists are unscored Early Access reviews.

Quick facts

Sales 3,000,000 units in the first week (Mega Crit, Mar 13, 2026)
Runs 240 million by May 23, 2026, 25% won
Peak players 574,638 on Mar 8, 2026 (SteamDB)
Players now 67,605 at 12:29 UTC on Oct 26, 2026 (Steam)
Steam reviews, English Very Positive, 91% of 71,512 (Oct 26, 2026)
Steam reviews, all languages 59.4% of 217,676 (Oct 26, 2026)
Recent reviews Mostly Positive, 73% of 3,650 in the last 30 days (Oct 26, 2026)
Metacritic No Metascore ("tbd"), 9 critic reviews listed (Oct 26, 2026)
PCGamesN 10/10 (Mar 24, 2026)
Top seller No. 1 on Steam for its first two weeks

Sales

Mega Crit's only sales figure is the first week. Its March 2026 Neowsletter, written by community manager Demi Montes, reported "3,000,000 units sold with more than 25,000,000 runs attempted," adding that a few million early runs had not been counted. Casey Yano's reaction in the same issue: "HOLY MACKEREL!" Mega Crit has published no later sales number (Oct 26, 2026), and outside estimates are not counted here.

For comparison, the first game sold only about 800 copies in its first three days of Early Access in 2017 and passed 1.5 million by March 2019, Game Developer reported.

It topped Steam's sales charts. On SteamDB's weekly global top sellers (free-to-play excluded), Slay the Spire 2 was No. 1 for the weeks of Mar 3 to 10 and Mar 10 to 17, 2026, No. 2 behind Crimson Desert for the four weeks from Mar 17 to Apr 14, and No. 6 for Apr 14 to 21.

Players and runs

The launch set a Steam record for the genre, as GamingOnLinux and PC Gamer described it. On Mar 6, 2026 GamingOnLinux logged a running peak of 330,891 and called it "the biggest roguelike deck-builder on Steam ever"; two days later SteamDB measured the all-time peak of 574,638 players on Mar 8, 2026. GosuGamers noted that this was about 12,500 short of Hollow Knight: Silksong's 587,150, and fourth on Steam at the time behind PUBG, Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2.

It held up through March. On Mar 20, 2026 PCGamesN said the game was "still surpassing half-a-million player peaks every day." On Oct 26, 2026, more than seven months after launch and two months after the last patch, Steam counted 67,605 players online at 12:29 UTC.

Mega Crit publishes run counts. Players had attempted about 145 million runs by Apr 17, 2026 and 240,000,000 by May 23, 2026: 60.5 million wins and 179.5 million losses, a 25% win rate. The same issue gave the win rate at Ascension 0 as 16% (9% in the first game) and at Ascension 10 as about 17% (3% at Ascension 20 in the first game), and said runs were split almost evenly across the five characters, leaning slightly toward the Ironclad and the Silent. See Ascension and Characters.

Mega Crit also shares event choices. In its April 2026 Neowsletter, 56% of players returned the Lantern Key to the Mysterious Knight, 88% freed War Historian Repy and 63% ate in the Room Full of Cheese. More are on Events.

Steam reviews

The launch week was overwhelmingly positive. Steam's review histogram shows 36,993 positive and 1,480 negative reviews in the week of Mar 5, 2026.

Balance patches then drew waves of negative reviews. The same histogram shows 15,907 negative reviews in the week of Mar 19 (the v0.100.0 beta that set out "to make infinites harder to achieve"), 22,345 in the week of Apr 16 (Major Update #1), 7,947 in the week of Apr 23 and 14,921 in the week of May 7, when the v0.105.0 beta removed the Doormaker boss. The patches themselves are on Patches and Updates.

Steam treats those waves as a review bomb. The store page says "This product has experienced one or more periods of off-topic review activity," and those reviews are left out of the shown score by default. That is why the English score (Very Positive, 91% of 71,512) and the all-language total (59.4% of 217,676, which includes the off-topic periods) differ so much. No source Vi.ki relies on has said where the negative reviews came from.

Reviews have been positive again since mid-June 2026. In the week of Oct 15, 2026 the histogram shows 620 positive and 195 negative, and the last 30 days stood at Mostly Positive, 73% of 3,650 on Oct 26, 2026.

Mega Crit's response

Mega Crit kept patching through the backlash. PC Gamer reported that a Mega Crit co-founder "wasn't bothered by the Steam backlash to Slay the Spire 2's beta balance patch," quoting him: "It's difficult for players to feel like they're heard."

It explained its changes more. From v0.101.0 on Mar 27, 2026, Anthony Giovannetti added designer's notes to the patch notes, and that patch reverted three of the first anti-infinite reworks (Prepared, Capture Spirit and Borrowed Time) to their launch versions. In v0.104.0 Mega Crit wrote that "the base difficulty is quite hard right now" and began making low Ascensions easier.

What critics said

There is no Metascore. On Oct 26, 2026 Metacritic listed 9 critic reviews of the PC version, most marked as Early Access and unscored, so the Metascore reads "tbd"; OpenCritic had no page for the game.

PCGamesN gave it 10/10. Christian Vaz's review (Mar 24, 2026) says "Slay the Spire 2 is more about refinement than evolution"; its cons were a steep learning curve for the new characters, placeholder Epoch art, "Easier than the original at high Ascension levels," and two-player co-op needing balance.

Other outlets, as Metacritic quotes them:

Outlet Date What it said
Gamersky Mar 9, 2026 Scored 90 (Early Access); it "can easily feel like a massive DLC expansion"
Metro GameCentral Mar 9, 2026 "enjoyably addictive in the way only the very best video games are"
Ars Technica Mar 13, 2026 It "builds on the essential skeleton of its predecessor"
The A.V. Club Mar 16, 2026 Co-op is "a great way to hang out"
Eurogamer Apr 3, 2026 "Cruelty has never been so enjoyable."

Source: Metacritic, critic reviews, read Oct 26, 2026.

Co-op won over some writers who found the single-player familiar. PCGamesN's Nat Smith wrote that "Slay the Spire 2 is worth it just for the co-op" (Mar 21, 2026), finding the single-player very close to the first game. See Co-op Multiplayer and Differences from Slay the Spire.

Writers differ on how new it feels. PC Gamer's Harvey Randall, after close to 140 hours, wrote that it "feels more like a sequel than a DLC" (May 15, 2026), pointing to the Ancients and enchantments, while Gamersky's line above compared it to a DLC.

Frequently asked questions

Is Slay the Spire 2 good? Slay the Spire 2's English Steam reviews are Very Positive, 91% of 71,512 (Oct 26, 2026), and PCGamesN gave it 10/10. Its all-language Steam score is lower, 59.4%, after off-topic review waves during balance patches.

How many copies has Slay the Spire 2 sold? Slay the Spire 2 sold 3,000,000 units in its first week, Mega Crit said on Mar 13, 2026. It has published no later figure.

What is Slay the Spire 2's peak player count? Slay the Spire 2's all-time Steam peak is 574,638 concurrent players on Mar 8, 2026, as SteamDB measured it. Steam counted 67,605 players online on Oct 26, 2026.

Why are Slay the Spire 2's Steam reviews mixed? Slay the Spire 2 got waves of negative reviews during its spring 2026 balance patches, such as 15,907 in the week of Mar 19. Steam marks them as off-topic activity, so the English score shows Very Positive while the all-language total is 59.4% positive.

Was Slay the Spire 2 review bombed? Steam's store page says Slay the Spire 2 "has experienced one or more periods of off-topic review activity", Steam's label for review bombing, and excludes those reviews from its score. The waves came in the weeks of balance patches in March, April and May 2026.

What is Slay the Spire 2's Metacritic score? Slay the Spire 2 has no Metascore: Metacritic shows "tbd" because most of its 9 listed critic reviews are unscored Early Access reviews (Oct 26, 2026).

What is the win rate in Slay the Spire 2? Mega Crit reported a 25% win rate across 240 million Slay the Spire 2 runs by May 23, 2026: 16% at Ascension 0 and about 17% at Ascension 10.

Sources

Moments

Explaining Slay the Spire 2 (No Spoilers)

Baalorlord

  1. Slay the Spire 2 sold 3,000,000 units in its first week, Mega Crit announced on Mar 13, 2026, with more than 25…

Slay the Spire 2: Q&A with Anthony & Dani of Mega Crit

Manifest Conference

  1. Mega Crit publishes run counts. Players had attempted about 145 million runs by Apr 17, 2026 and 240,000,000 by May…
  2. It explained its changes more. From v0.101.0 on Mar 27, 2026, Anthony Giovannetti added designer's notes to the patch…

Slay The Spire 2's Next-Level Co-Op Makes It An Early GOTY Contender

GameSpot

  1. Co-op won over some writers who found the single-player familiar. PCGamesN's Nat Smith wrote that "Slay the Spire 2 is…

Slay the Spire 2 Early Access Review

IGN

  1. Writers differ on how new it feels. PC Gamer's Harvey Randall, after close to 140 hours, wrote that it "feels more…

Every page

See also

Last updated Oct 26, 2026 by the Vi.ki team. Page text CC BY-SA 4.0.

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