$92 million in two weeks. An indie studio, charging $25, in Early Access.

Slay the Spire 2 hasn’t just launched — it’s detonated. Mega Crit’s sequel to the 2019 roguelike deckbuilder that practically invented its genre has spent the past seven weeks rewriting every record in the category, and the gap between it and the competition isn’t closing.

On launch day, March 5, the game hit 282,000 concurrent players on Steam. By the next morning, that number had surged to 430,000 — fourth on Steam’s most-played list, behind only CS2, Dota 2, and PUBG, as reported by Forbes. The previous deckbuilder concurrent-player record was Mewgenics at 115,000. Slay the Spire 2 quadrupled it.

Analytics firm Alinea estimates the game sold 4.6 million copies in its first two weeks, generating over $92 million — already surpassing the lifetime Steam revenue of both Hades II ($82 million) and Silksong ($83 million). As of April 21, Steam shows 174,016 concurrent players, up 23.7% from the previous measurement period, with 51,801 reviews sitting at 94% positive. It ranks seventh on Steam’s Top Sellers chart.

The Co-op Catalyst

The original Slay the Spire was a solitary affair — you, a deck, and a spire full of monsters. The sequel’s marquee addition is four-player cooperative play, and by every available metric, it’s the feature driving this launch into the stratosphere. Mechanics like Mending, which lets players heal teammates at campfires, and multiplayer-exclusive card synergies have turned a solo roguelike into what Alinea describes as “a genuine team RPG.”

The virality is measurable: 39% of Slay the Spire 2’s Steam player base never played the original on the platform, per Alinea. Two new characters join three returning ones. The core loop — select a character, build a deck through encounters, discover relics, climb the spire — is intact. The bones that made the original a genre-defining hit haven’t been broken.

A Patient Studio in a Hurry-Up Market

Mega Crit has published a 17-point roadmap for the path to 1.0 — Steam Workshop support, a new character, alternate versions of Acts 2 and 3, more cards, relics, and potions, plus eventual console and mobile ports — without attaching a single release date to any of it.

Co-founder Casey Yano explained the reasoning in the studio’s Neowsletter: “We evaluate our tasks each week and work on what feels most impactful. It’s not the most organized method, but this allows spontaneous experimentation like the dialogues you have with the Ancients or the existence of a Room Full of Cheese.”

The candor cuts deeper. When pressed on timelines, Yano kept it blunt: “I don’t want Sloppy Spire 2, I want Slay the Spire 2.”

That philosophy was tested almost immediately. A recent balance patch triggered a wave of review-bombing that dropped the game’s recent review rating from “Mostly Positive” to “Mixed,” according to IGN. Mega Crit had warned in patch notes that changes weren’t “set in stone,” and the studio’s response — more transparency, no defensive posture — appears to have steadied the ship. The overall rating holds at 94%.

Players Are Devouring Content

The engagement data is staggering. Alinea reports that of the 4.6 million Steam players, over half have already crossed the 20-hour mark. Fourteen percent have played more than 50 hours. One percent have logged 100 hours or more — and that was within the first two weeks of launch alone.

The top Steam reviews are characteristically terse: “fun time waster. tight fast gameplay loop.” “VERY GOOD game.” When players have sunk 60 or 80 hours into an Early Access title and can only manage a sentence, it usually means they’d rather be playing than writing about it.

Chinese players account for over a third of the audience, mirroring the original game’s trajectory — Mega Crit co-founder Anthony Giovannetti has previously credited a Chinese streamer with the first game’s breakout. Chinese-language reviews sit at 87% positive, below the overall average, with players typically citing localization, value, and bugs as areas for improvement.

The Crown Holds

The roguelike genre generated approximately $400 million in Steam revenue in 2025, up 80% from 2024, per Alinea. Slay the Spire 2 claimed a massive chunk of 2026’s total in a fortnight.

Mega Crit expects the Early Access window to run one to two years. When 1.0 arrives — and later, console and mobile ports — the secondary wave will be enormous. For now, the genre’s king isn’t just holding court. It’s expanding the kingdom, one card at a time.

Sources