Wolcen 2 is real, it has a closed playtest you can register for right now, and it’s targeting Steam Early Access in 2027. Wolcen Studio announced the sequel to 2020’s Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem today during the Future Games Show at gamescom 2026, returning to its dark fantasy world years after the events of the first game, with reality on the brink of collapse.
Like its predecessor, Wolcen 2 is a hack-and-slash action RPG with no predefined classes. Your weapons determine your abilities, which you unlock, customize, and master, while passive talents and gear gradually shape your character into an archetype of your own making, whether that’s a melee mage, spellblade, tank caster, gunslinger, or something entirely different. The campaign is playable solo or in co-op with up to four players, and combat is built around chaining abilities through dense enemy packs before unleashing a Shadow Form to swing fights back in your favor.
The most interesting part of the announcement is how openly the studio is reckoning with the first game’s history. Wolcen 2’s multiplayer uses peer-to-peer connections, letting players host games directly instead of relying entirely on centralized servers. “We have learned a great deal from our community over the years, including how it feels when access to something you care about is taken away,” said Wolcen Studio President Bogdan Oprescu, adding that playing the campaign with friends “will not depend entirely on infrastructure controlled by us.” That history is something we’ve pointed to before: as I said in our feature on Diablo IV’s 1.1 patch, Wolcen’s launch problems basically killed that game, so a sequel engineered to survive without central servers reads like a direct answer to its own past.
Storywise, Anathea, the goddess holding shut the Rift between reality and the demonic Void, has been mortally wounded, forcing the Warlord, a bastard son of the Shadow God, out of exile and into a prophecy that promises salvation but demands sacrifice, with returning characters from Lords of Mayhem along for the ride. Beyond the campaign, the Conquest mode has factions fighting across dynamic battlefields, while the Tower of Wonders offers ascents with player-influenced difficulty and rewards, both supporting longterm item hunting and build experimentation.
The first playtest is available now through the Wolcen Studio Playtest Program, with registration open at contributors.wolcenstudio.com, and the game can be wishlisted on Steam ahead of its 2027 Early Access debut, with a full release intended for PC and current-generation consoles. For what it’s worth, Wolcen earned a soft spot around here despite its Mixed reviews: as we said in our Dying Light 2 review, our co-op crew had a better time with Wolcen than with some far bigger releases, so a sequel built around four-player co-op has our attention.
