Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault, the sequel to the 2018 indie hit that blends dungeon crawling with shopkeeping, has arrived with greatly improved graphics and a lot more stock that needs pricing. The game retains the core premise of its predecessor: plunder dungeons, then sell the loot in your shop to rebuild your village and upgrade your gear.
A familiar premise with a new look
The most immediately noticeable change is the shift from the cute top-down pixel art of the original to a slicker 3D isometric view. Your white-haired shopkeeper, Will, still launches into roguelite runs through procedurally generated dungeons, each made up of discrete rooms with their own enemies, traps, and loot. Early on, success means scooping up a couple of relics and escaping before something kills you; if you die, you keep your loot but at a significantly reduced quality.
Back at the shop, you lay out stock and set prices. Customers react with emotes: too cheap and they’re overjoyed and buy immediately; perfectly pitched and they look satisfied; high but not excessive and they look pained but pay; too greedy and they abandon the item, leaving you to reprice before the next customer sees your mistake.
Shopkeeping and inventory puzzles
Customers leave tips if the price is right, modified by a perk that lasts until the end of that shopping day. These perks range from offering additional tips for selling certain rarities of relic to rewards for pricing things just a little too high. Once you’ve sold an item, it’s recorded, so next time you find a similar relic you can see past price points. Unlockable decorations and furniture for your store come with upgrades to sales prices, making it useful to place high-value artefacts on shelves with the biggest bonuses.
The town offers merchants to buy from and whacky characters who present side missions in return for power-ups. These opportunities unlock as you become stronger and can range further into the game’s various dimensions, each adding new elements to the dungeons and more valuable loot to sell. The final element is organising your backpack inventory, which acts as its own puzzle game: relics often have effects on neighbouring items, sometimes on entire rows or columns, and positioning things strategically dramatically increases the value of your haul.
Verdict and availability
Progress can sometimes feel slow, and certain upgrades, despite being expensive, can make little perceptible difference. The game also suffers from the usual roguelite foibles, where the difference between a disastrous run and a legendary one is often down to the random selections of power-ups rather than skill. Still, Moonlighter 2’s three gameplay loops – combat, backpack management, and shopkeeping – work well together, its cartoon style visuals suit its subject matter, and at normal difficulty there’s a decent level of challenge.
Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault scores 7/10. It’s available on PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, priced at £24.99, published by 11 bit studios and developed by Digital Sun, released on 2nd September 2026 with a 12 age rating.
