Maybe you’ll stop to catch your breath at a nearby creek and be ambushed by bandits. Maybe you’ll come across an inn and be challenged to arm-wrestle with its patrons. Still, for every card you move onto, something will happen.

You’re also able to customize your character this time around, which is a smart improvement.

Over the course of the game, you’ll learn more about the empire, the northerners and the various forces, factions and figures that make up the world in which the dealer’s game takes place. Each of the game’s encounters - 22 in total - not only take the format of the Hand of Fate formula in different directions but also dabble in world-building. Another will see you recruited by the empire and asked to track down a set of cursed relics.Īgain unlike the first Hand of Fate, there’s a far-more concrete sort-of story happening here than first appears. One mission will see you dragged into the inner politics of a thieves guild after its leader receives a death-threat. Where the first game saw you crawl your way through dungeons of increasing length and difficulty, the second opts for a much more diverse set of scenarios. Each level sees the deck dealt out as a map and each turn you’ll move your character across it in pursuit of some sort of goal. Hand of Fate 2 sees players overcome a set of tabletop trials built from a deck of collectible cards and handed out by the series’ menacing and enigmatic Dealer. Credit: Defiant Development Stacking the DeckĪs the title might lead you to suspect, the setup here is pretty close to that of the first game. Something that articulates both an evolution of everything that worked about the first Hand of Fate and an eloquent response to the aspects that didn’t come together quite so cleanly. Something that’s not just a better game than the original but something that acts as “the final word” for this kind of unique, genre-bending title. With Hand of Fate 2, Brisbane-based Defiant Development are looking to make the rare sequel that outshines the original.

Hand of fate 2 interception