14 DAY TRIAL // Orcs Must Die 1 came out of nowhere last year and managed to introduce a fun blend of action and strategy, tasking players with defending Rifts against the rampaging Orcs by setting up traps and using different weapons against them.
With Orcs Must Die 2, developer Robot Entertainment has overhauled the whole experience and added all sorts of new things, from fresh traps, to new enemies and the oft-request cooperative mode, which teams up the War Mage from the first game with the now reformed Sorceress.
The demo for the game has just been released, so let’s have a quick look and see if Orcs Must Die 2 manages to defend itself against the enemies or die in the process.
Orcs Must Die 2 picks up a short time after the first game ended, with the Sorceress discovering a new series of Rifts after the War Mage closed them in the original. She quickly jumps through it, in order to escape the Orcs bent on revenge, and once again encounters the War Mage, who’s now a simple miner.
The Orcs have also encountered the rifts, so it’s up to the unlikely heroes to keep them from invading the real world.
In order to do this, they can wield actual weapons, in the form of a Blunderbuss for the War Mage and a Scepter for the Sorceress, as well as employ certain traps, ranging from classic ones seen in the original like the spike trap or arrow wall, to new ones like an ice vent or an acid sprayer.
Based on their performance, players receive a Skull rating, which can then be spent on upgrading their weapons, traps, or powers.
The environments are now much more varied, at least judging by the two included in the demo, so placing traps on walls, for example, is a bit harder than in the temples from the first game.
The biggest new addition is, without a doubt, the cooperative mode, which allows the War Mage to team up with the Sorceress and work together in order to defeat the Orcs. This works great on maps where there are multiple spawn points, as players can divide them and easily eliminate the opposition.
Orcs Must Die 2 is out on PC, via Steam, on July 30. The demo is now available as a free download.