Slay the Spire 2’s team is already cooking on 3 ideas for new game modes, each offering ‘ways to interact with Slay the Spire that don’t exist right now’

In an interview with PC Gamer, Mega Crit co-founder Casey Yano shared three mysterious plans for new modes that Slay the Spire 2 could see during the next year or two of planned early access development.

The roguelike card game is already bigger than its predecessor—the co-op mode alone is a major addition for what is primarily a singleplayer genre—but it sounds like Mega Crit will be running at least a few mad science experiments to see whether they pay off.

“There are three specific things that I have in mind, which I’ll try to explain in a vague way to not give away too much,” Yano said.

“The first one is a mode that is meant for people who want to play in a very competitive fashion. The second is for people who want to have the Slay the Spire experience, but do not have the time to do so. And the third is ‘What if there were other ways to interact with people, socially or in a multiplayer-like setting, with the current systems that exist today?'”

So what could each of these ideas be?

Slay the Spire 2, like the first game, already features a daily seeded challenge mode, with a leaderboard that logs players’ performances. Perhaps this new mode will pair players together for daily runs? Or consider this left-field theory: two players climb the same tower at once, and if their paths converge they have to duke it out.

The sped-up StS experience sounds like a challenge mode that would either condense the experience as a whole or hand you a specific build—or perhaps allow you to pre-select one from your unlocked cards and relics—and then throw you into a series of battles, with no choices to make in between.

And for the third mode concept? Maybe you could drop into someone else’s game, Dark Souls-style, just to help them defeat a boss? I’m not sure that jibes with the “current systems that exist today” constraint, but it could be pretty cool.

It’s also possible none of these modes ever end up in players’ hands. “Not many of our ideas survive the process,” said Yano, speaking generally about the studio’s open-ended ideation.

“Those are the three ways to interact with Slay the Spire that don’t exist right now,” Yano said. “Maybe we’ll find a way to do that, or maybe having those modes dilutes the core experience and might not make it at all. That’s something we need to try to find out.”

But it’s also possible Mega Crit comes up with something Yano hasn’t even mentioned, because co-founder Anthony Giovanetti has just as much input into design.

“I have thoughts, but even Anthony doesn’t know what those thoughts are,” Yano said later in the interview, specifically around new characters that could be added to Slay the Spire 2. “We’re kind of competitive when it comes to the design.”

That approach has worked out so far: Slay the Spire 2 has had the most successful launch of any deckbuilder, ever, and it’s not even close.