If ever there was a surprising announcement in gaming, it has to be the announcement of Wolcen 2. After the debacle that was the release of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, of which this is neither the time nor place to unpack, I was a bit surprised to see the developer, WOLCEN Studio, recently announce both the upcoming release of Wolcen 2 and the hard stop of development of its predecessor. Opinions on the current state of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem set aside, I had the opportunity to spend some time with the pre-alpha test provided to players at gamescom 2026 and have a few thoughts.
It is worth noting that what I’ve had time to play through is a very small snapshot of what will be available at the early access release currently stated for 2027. The demo played feels much more like a playtest or proof of concept, though some of the core mechanics are in place, such as some of the progression mechanics, basic abilities and combat, and a few biomes and enemy types. With all that being said, let’s dive into my impressions of the Wolcen 2 preview.
The Wolcen 2 preview wastes no time putting players into the middle of the action. Upon firing up the game, I was given only one character creation choice: male or female. While there is no official word on what character creation will look like in Early Access, there was a decent character creator available in Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, which gives me hope that we will see a similar implementation with Wolcen 2.
Once selected and after a brief narrative context presentation, I was thrust into one of the two biomes available in the demo. The first observation is that Wolcen 2 looks great on Unreal 5, a smart technological upgrade over the original’s CryEngine 3. It simply provides a better and more adaptable framework for Wolcen 2 to develop on.
The world of Wolcen, and now Wolcen 2, is one of dark fantasy. The demo provided for testing captures this exceptionally well and immediately draws players into the seriousness and desperate state of the world of Wolcen. Level design, at least in the demo, is serviceable but nothing that would distinguish it from other ARPG’s. With the promise of ten biomes for early access, I hope to see a bit more creativity in this department.
Progression follows, at least from what little I had to test, a similar vein to that of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem. A Skill mastery system is at play, giving players total freedom over how they want to customize skills and the gameplay experience. This was a hallmark of the original, a no-class system, that I am glad to see implemented in Wolcen 2.
Currently, it feels a bit limited, but the skills available can meaningfully change up the combat experience. Being able to blend melee and ranged abilities also offers a nice depth to the experience and one I’m interested to see fully fleshed out during Early Access.
Back also is the passive skill tree, similar to what we have come to associate with Path of Exile, though instead of receiving points on level up, Wolcen 2 leverages a rune system that allows for slotting of colour-coded runes into the various passive slots within the tree. In the demo, these runes dropped like hotcakes, which I suspect was in order to give players more access to abilities in the condensed playtest.
Combat, at this point, feels a bit clumsy. Basic attacks are fluid enough, but ability usage is sometimes delayed or unresponsive, often requiring mashing the key more than once to activate an ability. Movement, which is a mix of WASD and mouse clicks, is functional, but lacks fluid animation and, as a result, presents as stiff and awkward.
While movement feels a bit stiff, I was impressed with how fluid and functional the game’s dodge mechanics are. While most APRG’s implement a cooldown penalty, Wolcen 2 simply slows movement for half a second after a roll, fully integrating dodge into the combat rhythm. This is the most notable and smooth part of combat in its current state.
While the early demo of Wolcen 2 simply provides a proof of concept, it has, at the very least, intrigued me enough to watch its development a bit more closely than I would have otherwise. The real challenge for the developer, though, will be winning back its fans. After the treatment of Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, WOLCEN Studio will need to work hard, listening carefully to feedback from players, as it works to develop and release Wolcen 2.
