UnderMine 2 is an action-adventure roguelike where players delve deep underneath the castle, and try to go from zero to hero! Read our review of its early-access build to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Everything We Know About UnderMine 2
UnderMine 2 Story Plot
At the beginning, players take on the role of a lowly peasant who was summoned to the Undermine to help the Third Disciplinarian Camilla with her dilemma—find three of her staff members and convince them to come back to work, lest her whole gold mine operation gets shut down and she is forced to live out the rest of her life in the dungeon for failing.
However, as you go forth and try to complete your mission, there seems to be something else brewing behind the scenes, something bigger than you ever thought possible for a lowly peasant like you. This may very well be your chance to go from zero to hero!
UnderMine 2 Gameplay
In this action-adventure roguelike sequel, players are tasked to venture into the depths of the Undermine to find essential employees of the Third Disciplinarian who have scurried away to the deep areas doing their own work. Crawl through the dungeon with a handy pickaxe and take on hostile foes, powering up with Blessings, Arcana Relics, and Potions that will surely help in the perilous journey ahead. Mix and match your items to create the perfect battle-ready build to delve even deeper into the mines…and to discover the secrets that are being held within.
UnderMine 2 brings new gameplay mechanics into the fray, such as cooperative play, allowing for two-player co-op to better traverse the secrets of the Undermine, and the introduction of the Arcana. The Arcana Relics add new magic abilities to characters, such as casting fireballs, summoning skeleton minions, or even conjuring an ice shield or rearranging time and space themselves. As players progress, they will also be able to unlock and play as new characters with their own unique stats and ability sets such as Black Rabbit, an ambitious treasure hunter.
UnderMine 2 Release Date
Released in Early Access on July 22, 2025, UnderMine 2 is now available to be purchased in Early Access on Steam for $19.99. Its Early Access phase is projected to last for around one to two years as the developers cited wanting to implement "one to two years of ideas" into the game before 1.0.
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| $19.99 |
UnderMine 2 Review [Early Access]
Not A Gold Mine of a Game Yet
Undermine 2 is an action-adventure roguelike with RPG elements that has you go from measly peasant to…something so much more, with all the ancient secrets waiting to be discovered underneath the Delvemore Castle.
For reference, I loved playing Moonlighter, and UnderMine 2 feels similar but also with its own flair on pixel roguelikes. Instead of taking back relics to sell like in Moonlighter, you’re off to find some missing employees for your boss, who is under the king himself. And since you’re a peasant with nothing to their name, you’re tasked with risking your life to go through a monster-filled dungeon to drag them back to work. Oh boy. I suppose that’s one way to explain the roguelike mechanic of starting over again—make a new peasant!
With all that said, UnderMine 2 is a pretty decent game to play—although, there’s evidently some things that need to be improved upon.
Charming Pixel Art
Let’s start off with the visuals, for that’s the first thing you’ll encounter in the game anyway. The pixel art style is gorgeous—I love my 8-bit style pixel games and characters but there’s something about this smoother style of pixel art that’s just really stunning and pleasing to the eyes. The graphics were made even better with how smoothly everything was running, with little to no performance issues in my playthrough.
Character and enemy designs are cute too, and none of them are particularly frightening (in appearance, at least.) You’ve got your normal wolves, bats, slimes, and you also have those…round fish-like creatures on two feet that blast you with either flammable oil or water. I suppose that the farther you go, the more unique they would be—perhaps that is one of the secrets to discover?! Nevertheless, I find myself quite endeared with those slimes, even if they only come out to steal my hard-mined gold away.
The backgrounds and the ground you move about in are also lovely and detailed, all similar in some way depending on their environment yet can still be differentiated. A minor detail, but I love how you can interact with your surroundings as well; sometimes, there are gold ores stuck inside a wall, or a glowing crack that shows a hidden room that needs to be blasted open—it’s a fun little tidbit. Also, you can smack all the torches or light sources on the wall for that extra dark and spooky effect—for funsies, of course.
Challenging, Probably Not Beginner Friendly
Not exactly a con, but more of a heads up. I had fun playing through it, but the difficulty is rather punishing even at the Goldmine levels if you’re not careful. In my experience, the early levels of roguelikes are usually more forgiving in terms of enemies and their power, but in UnderMine 2, if you’re unlucky enough to encounter the giant blue gorilla-like enemy within the first few rooms…then say goodbye to your health if they catch you off guard.
The RNG feels really RNG here, with a variety of enemies chosen at random—doesn’t matter if you have Blessings or Relics with you, the game doesn’t care and it may throw in an enemy that’s harder than your usual one-two hit fodder. The sheer number of enemies is also surprising—one room you’ll get like one or two of those fly-like creatures that shoot one singular bullet toward you, or you’ll get a crowd of them, plus wolves, bats, and those annoying bees with homing projectiles. It doesn’t matter how early in the game you are, there will always be a chance for a particularly difficult set of enemies. Good for thrillseekers, but can get frustrating if the gods of RNG aren’t on your side.
And it’s not just about the enemies either—its also the placement of the rooms and whether or not they’re locked, and also the kind of Relics and Blessings you encounter. If you’re unlucky enough to not have a key on hand for a Relic room or an Altar room with Blessings and you’ve used up all your keys or had the unfortunate dilemma of not dropping any despite annihilating all the enemies, well, you just have to move on.
Of course, you’re free to play the entire level or run with or without Relics (or Blessings), but that requires a pretty high amount of skill to do, and with the heavy controls and the usual crowd of enemies, it was hard (for me at least) to get out of most rooms unscathed.
Upgrades Don’t Feel Like Upgrades
Speaking of Arcana Relics and blessings—while there is quite a bit of variety with them according to the menu that handily has them all in one codex, a lot of them don’t feel exactly useful, even after collecting quite a few of them.
Even the Blessings that add to your stats barely feel like they’re there, and is made weaker with the fact that you’d need to take on a Curse to take a Blessing in the first place. Increased Strength? Okay, here—and take a raging stormcloud that pops up randomly while you’re at it. There was even the rather amusing combination of getting a decreasing strength Curse…while also being able to get an increased strength Blessing, effectively just cancelling them out if you were unfortunate enough to accidentally click on it. Funny, but also a waste of time—no thanks to RNG. Crafting isn’t as viable either because you’d need to use up keys, bombs, or armor plates to create these relics…which will also disappear after you die in the run. Keys and bombs already don’t drop super often either, so it feels like a waste.
There’s only a max of two levels per area (at the moment, at least), and the map itself isn’t incredibly extensive, which makes for building a proper Relic and Blessing set more difficult—and may also be the reason why you don’t feel like you actually improved much even after getting something, with your items not really adding much impact to your power.
Controls Feel A Little Heavy and Clunky
It’s a roguelike alright, but for some reason, the controls feel heavy and with a slight lag. It’s not superbly evident, but moving, dodging, and even attacking doesn’t feel as smooth as in other games in its genre like Moonlighter or Hades.
One factor that definitely feels clunky (at first, but maybe I just got used to it) is that…strange jump-dodge. Not those cool-looking dodges or even roll-dodges like in Zelda or something—the character…jumps into the air. Granted, the initial peasant character you start out with (not to be confused with the prologue character, Black Rabbit) is a cute little peasant person armed with a pickaxe—and that’s not exactly warrior-fighter material. Their dodge, instead of the normal side-dodges that gamers are used to and is available on Black Rabbit herself, is more of a huge jump to whatever direction you make them go to. They land with a weighty thud onto the floor before getting back into battle mode.
There’s something about it that threw me off for a little bit. It’s cute, yeah, but when you’re trying to fight dozens of enemies and their projectiles, it loses its shine pretty quickly. It looks and plays out like an attack too—a giant body slam should damage them a little, right? Nope, it’s purely just a dodge. As I said before, you do get used to it eventually, and like any other dodge it still has those few precious seconds of invincibility…but it can get a little jarring.
Overall Conclusion
UnderMine 2 has a good foundation already, originating from the first UnderMine and most of its mechanics revamped and upgraded. It delivers a pretty solid action-adventure roguelike experience for those who want to try something new in the genre. The graphics are stunning for a pixel game, and is made even better with some catchy background tunes for a nice dungeon-crawling day.
However, at its current state, it still has quite a bit to go with the balancing of items and abilities and its clunky controls. With the game in Early Access for the next year or so, hopefully it will continue to get better with the effort of the developers and the help of the playerbase.
Game8 Reviews
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UnderMine 2 Product Information
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| Title | UnderMine 2 |
|---|---|
| Release Date | July 22, 2025 (Early Access) |
| Developer | Thorium |
| Publisher | Thorium |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG, Early Access |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | UnderMine 2 Official Website |
