We first played HELLCARD’s Early Access in February 2023 and came away happy that developer Thing Trunk was, at the very least, creating a co-op roguelite deckbuilding game. As popular as roguelite deckbuilders have become, there aren’t a lot of great co-op ones. Our favorite has been Across the Obelisk, but HELLCARD puts its own unique take on the formula for a satisfying experience. While we haven’t had the chance to revisit the game after it exited Early Access in February 2024, we’re excited to hear that the team is working on a sequel.
HELLCARD II is currently slated to launch in Q3 2026, according to its Steam listing, and will once again be a co-op deckbuilding roguelite. This time around, the team is focusing on making the experience more of an RPG, with the storybook becoming a living, breathing thing. The goal is for every run to be a story that impacts future playthroughs as players experience the pop-up book adventure. In the sequel, players will no longer just clear rooms. They will have to traverse the pages of a story filled with choices they’ll have to make as a team.
Some of HELLCARD II’s key features shared in today’s announcement include gear unlocks that can be equipped in future runs, tied to achievements; the return of HELLCARD’s unique spatial positioning system for combat; and support for solo play that allows control of all characters, or you can join up to three friends for four-player co-op. Thing Trunk confirmed HELLCARD II is in development for PC and consoles.
“The original HELLCARD was defined by its tactical positioning and emergent tactics, and HELLCARD II takes this even further,” said Konstanty Kalicki at Thing Trunk. “It leans into the pen-n-paper aspect of dungeon crawling: building your own stories with each run, customizing your characters, deciding on side quests together while trying to figure out the story. It’s the book of adventures we always wanted to make.”
