Curious Expedition 2 Review Summary

Last updated: 2026-02-16
  • Enjoyable and engaging gameplay
  • Immersive and humorous narrative
  • Rogue-like exploration mechanics
  • Limited content and replayability
  • Expensive and lacking DLC
  • Bugs and unbalanced elements
Curious Expedition 2 header

Emotions

What players like:

Common complaints:

Gameplay feedback:

Performance notes:

Recommendations:

Other player notes:

Review evidence

Why players say this

What players like

Enjoyable and engaging gameplay: Players consistently describe the gameplay as fun, engaging, and addictive. The gameplay is noted for its richness and high replay value, making it an enjoyable experience for many players.

Immersive and humorous narrative: The game features a large amount of humorous monologue text that keeps players immersed in various emergent narratives. The adventure difficulty is comfortable, and the turn-based combat focuses on character attributes and choices.

Unique treasure management concept: The game introduces a unique concept of managing and preserving treasures. Players collect and donate or sell artifacts to become stronger and more comfortable, while competing with rival explorers.

Improved graphics: The graphics are noted to be more high-definition, better, and more detailed. Players appreciate the improved and more beautiful graphics.

Variety of game modes: The game offers multiple modes to play, including role-playing and a mode suitable for playing with young children. The random generation of islands ensures a different play experience each time.

Common complaints

Limited content and replayability: The game is criticized for having thin content, repetitive tasks, and lack of variety in missions and maps. Players find the gameplay monotonous, especially in the later stages.

Expensive and lacking DLC: The DLC is criticized for being expensive and offering too little content, making players feel it is not worth the investment.

Bugs and unbalanced elements: The game is reported to have many bugs and unbalanced aspects, including non-functional elements and poor explanations, which affect the overall experience.

Lack of creative workshop: Players express disappointment over the absence of a creative workshop, which limits content creation and customization. This feature was expected but not delivered.

Difficulty and balance issues: The game has high and unbalanced difficulty, with some players finding it too easy and others too hard. This inconsistency affects the overall enjoyment.

Gameplay and performance

Rogue-like exploration mechanics: The game features extensive rogue-like elements, including procedurally generated islands, exploration mechanics, and survival strategies. Players explore various islands with unique landscapes and events, emphasizing discovery and resource management.

Resource and inventory management: Managing resources and inventory is a critical aspect of the game. Players must carefully handle artifacts, equipment, and other resources to succeed, especially under challenging conditions.

Dynamic storytelling and events: The storyline and events in the game are dynamically generated, providing a unique experience with each playthrough. Random events and mutations keep the gameplay fresh and unpredictable.

Turn-based strategy: The game employs turn-based strategy mechanics, requiring players to plan their moves carefully. This includes both combat and exploration phases.

Dice-based combat system: Combat in the game is driven by a dice-based mechanics system. Players must strategically use dice for both combat and exploration, adding a layer of complexity and chance to interactions.

Various bugs reported: The game suffers from numerous bugs, including visual bugs, minor bugs, and general instability.

Steam Deck performance mixed: Players report both positive experiences with good battery life and issues with control configuration on Steam Deck.

Scene transitions improved: The game has faster scene transitions compared to previous versions, addressing complaints about slow transitions.

Multiplayer stability issues: Multiplayer mode is reported to be unstable, with lag and desynchronized events.

Game crashes and stuttering: Players experience game crashes and stuttering, affecting the overall gameplay experience.

Recommendations

Recommended for exploration and adventure fans: This game is highly recommended for players who enjoy exploration, adventure, and rogue-lite elements. It is particularly suited for fans of turn-based combat and management games.

Gameplay tips and strategies: Players share various tips and strategies, such as using boosts for stronger attacks, managing madness consumption, treating mental states promptly, using specific weapons for hyenas, increasing load capacity with animals, and managing favor with natives.

Worth the price, especially on sale: Many players find the game worth its price, particularly when purchased on sale. It offers good value for the asking price.

Fans of the first game may enjoy: Players who enjoyed the first game in the series might find this sequel appealing, though some suggest buying it during a discount.

Suggestions for gameplay improvements: Players have suggested various improvements, such as adding more team member slots, saddles for large animals, and new mechanisms for handling dismissed characters.

Platform notes

Steam Deck: The Steam Deck experience for this game is marred by significant control configuration issues, battery life concerns, and severe performance issues such as frame rate drops. These problems collectively detract from the overall user experience, making the game less enjoyable and more frustrating to play.

Extra review signals

Monetization: The reviews indicate that the game offers additional content through DLCs, which some players find valuable and enjoyable. However, there are concerns about the cost and value for money of these DLCs. The overall sentiment suggests that while the DLCs enhance the gaming experience, their pricing may be a point of contention for some users.

Other review notes

DLC content concerns: There are comments about the DLCs, indicating that players have opinions or concerns about the additional content provided.

Longevity and replayability: Players mention playing the game for years, indicating a sense of longevity and replayability.

Criticism of development team: Players have expressed issues or concerns regarding the development team behind the game.

Game completion time: Some players feel that the game, even with all DLCs, can be completed in less than 25 hours, suggesting it might be shorter than expected.

Russian language support: There is a mention of the presence of the Russian language, which could be important for Russian-speaking players.