First Impressions With Project Warlock 2's Second Chapter

A Quick bit of housekeeping before we begin, the next post is gonna be the Game of the Year recap and next week’s video is the last one of the year. With that out of the way, let’s begin. Now for the regularly scheduled Chicanery.

It’s that magical time of year. It’s the beginning of December and all of the end-of-year stuff starts up. Recaps, retrospectives, and game of the year awards shows and lists (even I’m not immune to that stuff). This also means that the regular release schedule has more or less concluded for the year and that leaves me with very little to do for the next few weeks, which is where Buckshot Software came in clutch. They released the long-awaited second chapter of last year’s popular Early Access boomer shooter, Project Warlock 2, in late November. When I first covered Project Warlock 2, it was a good first draft that needed some tweaks and in the intervening months since then, there have been some great changes to Chapter 1. From its 6 labyrinthine levels being redesigned into 12 much more manageable levels, to rebalancing of combat and more, Buckshot Software has shown that they have been more than willing to listen to player feedback and take it into account when making changes. Now let’s see if they can continue that streak. Here are my first impressions of Project Warlock 2 Chapter 2. 

The setup is that you play as Urd, one of the Warlock’s three apprentices. Due to her frequent disobeying of orders, she was left for dead by the Warlock in the Demon Wastes. Now seeking vengeance for how she was treated, Urd must fight her way through demon-infested deserts, ruins and towns so she can ultimately exact her vengeance. All of this is framed in the tone of a good, old-fashioned Western Revenge story, with some Gothic Horror mashed in for good measure. You got the demon wastes’s indigenous elf population, undead cowboys, various cryptids and monsters, and of course, lots and lots of demons. It’s a decent change of pace from the Fantasy-inspired castles and such from the first chapter and goes a long way to differentiate and establish chapter 2’s tone. It’s a revenge story as I previously mentioned. Things are going to feel a tad darker this time around. And this includes the colour palette as well. There are a lot of reds and oranges this time around to simulate the feeling of perpetual twilight, which is good for giving the feeling of escalating gun duels at sunset. On the enemy front, the standouts are the Wendigos, which tower over you with their size, musculature and terrifying deer skulls for heads. They best highlight the character model trick enemies do in this game, which is using 3D models to trick your brain into thinking you're looking at 2D sprites. It’s some neat technical wizardry. 

The other main draw in the levels is how they all flow into each other. The ends of each level are the start of the next one. It’s a good way of denoting and showing your progress through the levels, even if the levels themselves feel quite a bit more linear this time around. And then there’s Urd herself. Urd is the exiled second of the OG Warlock’s three apprentices and she differs from Palmer in some significant ways. While Palmer’s Gameplay was a much faster and more iterated version of the gameplay of the original Project Warlock to showcase his fanaticism for the cause of slaying evil, Urd’s gameplay focuses more on status effects and witchcraft to get the job done. This is best showcased through her weapons and abilities; her use of a crystal-based sub-machine gun, pump action shotgun and dagger that doubles as a throwing knife all suggest a more run-and-gun approach to combat against enemies. The main parts that change this up significantly are the pistol and Urd’s spellbook. The former has five shots, is slow and feels more like a sniper rifle thanks to its scope attachment and Urd’s Spellbook has five elemental spells that change the function of her magic attacks. It starts with fire and ice, but you can gain poison, crystal, and straight up arcane power. And these can be switched up with a Cloud of Daggers that surrounds Urd and a Poison Bomb that can be chucked like a grenade. All of these disparate pieces come together to make a less refined, but more thematically interesting set of powers and weapons to mess around with compared to Palmer’s. And I think that’s the point because Urd spent years in this hostile wasteland and she had to get by with whatever she had. Makes sense she would use more unconventional means to fight. 

These weapons and abilities are also affected by a new progression system. Project Warlock 2’s second chapter adds a brand new progression system in comparison to the skill points and perk tapes from the first chapter used to upgrade Palmer’s abilities and weapons. Upon finding a floating symbol in the world, you get your choice of upgrades. These lean into smaller, more percentage-based increases or complete game changers. This initially felt a bit weird because this felt like a progression system out of a Roguelike or Roguelite. Complete with there being three choices to choose from per pick up and re-roll tokens to boot. This is something that I can see why they did (for more variety because once you found the good stuff, you stuck with it), but I can’t help but feel a bit bummed out by the choice to go in this direction. But the re-rolls aren’t an issue because those are items you can just find out in the world. All I can say is that I’m willing to hold off on fully judging it before I see what the final version of it is. 

Project Warlock 2’s second chapter, much like the first one is a decent foundation that could use some work. While the progressions systems feel a little underbaked at the moment, the level design and the minute-to-minute moving and shooting still feel fantastic. It takes the ideas that were implemented in the first episode while it was being iterated upon in Early Access and I hope Buckshot Software does the same here, they have something magical on their hands.