Karsten Scholz, editor of MeinMMO, stumbled upon Monster Train 2 a few days ago on Xbox Game Pass (also available on Steam, PS5, and Switch). The whimsical genre mix consumes hours of your life like a hungry hell demon and provides the most entertaining train rides since the privatization of Deutsche Bahn.
What kind of game is Monster Train 2? The name reveals it: There is already a first Monster Train from May 2020. Then, as now, developer Shiny Shoe is responsible for the series. Big Fan Games, or Devolver Digital, serves as the publisher. Monster Train 2 was released on May 21, 2025, and the game is available on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox Game Pass.
In Monster Train 2, you can expect a genre mix of deckbuilder, auto-battler, and roguelike, where your task is to travel through heaven, hell, and the depths with a train and confront powerful titans there. During your journey through the cloudy demon world, battles are always interspersed with phases where you can prepare for the upcoming challenges.
Protect the Hellfire
The titular train consists of 4 floors, with your enemies having to fight their way up from the very bottom to the very top. There awaits your so-called Hellfire, which must remain intact for you to continue your journey. If the Hellfire’s hit points drop to zero, the game is over. You will receive the points earned in the most recent round and any achievements and must start over.
So far, so roguelike.
You defend the three floors below the Hellfire with your cards in hand and your chosen hero. You cast spells, summon creatures, activate abilities, equip your fighters, or manipulate floors. You have various options to influence your card deck both before each match and during your journey.
This starts with the choice of the two factions that define your starting cards. Between battles, there are more options to acquire new cards, sort out unsuitable spells or creatures, or enhance strong options.
So you can work on refining a strategy or synergy of your deck round by round and upgrade by upgrade. Some factions, for example, heavily rely on magic and love making opponents vulnerable to spells. Others stack cute mushroom creatures into a single super-strong entity. And yet others manipulate the positions of units to strengthen or weaken them.
It’s a deckbuilder, after all.
Once all cards are played or you have no resources left to play cards, the actual battle begins. It runs automatically, like in an auto-battler. You can only adjust the speed of the action and must wait until all units on all floors have executed their possible attacks.
After that, there are more cards, another exchange of blows, and so on… until your Hellheart is destroyed or you have managed to defeat the boss of the current fight.
A time sink that is hellishly good
How well this mix works in Monster Train 2, I notice especially by how quickly time flies during a match. In just a few days, I clocked 25 to 30 hours on the Xbox Game Pass. I usually don’t even like roguelikes. It has to be quality like Hades for me to have the desire to start over and over again.
However, Monster Train 2 manages wonderfully to entice me for the next match. Through the countless factions, cards, and synergies. But also through the feeling of reward from constant unlocks and upgrades. And by the ability to customize the player experience.
Be it through the special challenges of the dimension portal, daily challenges, or the option to influence the difficulty of a journey through the pack rank or mutators.
It doesn’t surprise me at all that Monster Train 2 has a rating of 95 percent positive reviews on Steam and an average rating of 88 on Metacritic. By the way, part 1 also has 96 percent positive on Steam, and both parts of the series are currently on sale there for 7.35 euros (Monster Train) and 22.49 euros (Monster Train 2).
Or you can do it like me and treat yourself to the Xbox Game Pass. You get part 2 at no additional cost, plus many other great games that have been released in recent months. Here are a few noteworthy examples: Microsoft’s billions are finally paying off; Xbox Game Pass is more valuable than ever
