tl;dr An improvement on the original in almost every perceivable respect, with the "almost" there only being that the execution of the game involves a lateral move in mechanics. It is not simply an improved Curious Expedition 1, but a different take altogether, which uses many lessons from the first game to create a much better product. Whether you like this different take is up to personal preference, but from a design and quality of play perspective, it is an objective improvement. 8.5 / 10

Curious Expedition 2 follows the adventures of a team led by a lead explorer, who is under the loose employ of one Victoria Malin, a woman obsessed with a mysterious and powerful technology she stumbled upon on one of her own expeditions. The game is not devoted to this storyline, though, as you complete many expeditions in between 'story missions' that are more similar to the first Curious Expedition.

Maybe that is a good place to go next...Curious Expedition 1 involved a pure rogue-like experience, with each 'run' standing alone, comprising of six expeditions of procedurally generated regions of a handful of types. By finishing (and, importantly, not necessarily *winning*) runs you would unlock new expedition leaders, who came with a unique perk, unique starting party and unique starting equipment. My pursuit in the game was always to try to complete runs with a variety of these teams, though I very seldom succeeded (feel free to throw your obligatory 'git guds' in here...). The only real reward for doing so, though, was that in the character selection screen, expedition leaders portraits would have more fancy frames (silver or gold, I think, instead of plain wood) ... so really just your own private bragging rights. Still, I was drawn into the original by its nice-if-trendy pixel graphics, awesome music, and infinite variety of gameplay experiences. While you would frequently encounter similar situations, how you handled them was always modulated by your circumstances, and no run (even with the same party) was even the same, even if many of the parts were the same.

Now, how does #2 compare? It improves in almost every way, while deciding to build the game differently. Instead of a true rogue-like experience, with each run being fresh from one another, CE2 starts you out in a Story Campaign that takes place over a much longer play session. Your characters can have items equipped directly to them now (one 'hand' item, and one 'body' item), which opens up worlds of possibilities. The experience system is more gradual and long-term, with smaller points adding to pools of larger needed amounts to gain levels, where the original had this somewhat awkward "star" system that capped out fairly quickly, and could not be used to level animal companions in CE1, where the new exp system lets you level animals to great effect similar (or greater, even) than humanoid allies. Between expeditions, your performance earns you rank progress with one of three expedition sponsor guilds, who each have their own special abilities and unique available items based on your progress with them. Further, you gain "Expo tickets" which can be used to purchase a variety of beneficial items, upgrades and services between expeditions.

I could go on in terms of the 'weeds' of their improvements but instead I'll focus on one last *huge* improvement / change in my opinion...combat. They completely overhauled how health, injuries and combat work in CE2 versus CE1. CE1 had a rather unique dice-based combat system that had its charm...but it was very RNG heavy and incredibly mercurial - two of the same combat encounters could go wildly differently depending on the dice, from winning without injury, to a full run wipe. CE2 is far more forgiving, giving the player many more tools to deal with combat creatively, and reducing the brutal power of enemies, animals and monsters overall. The amount of times I wiped due to a single combat in CE1 during a run that had been going swimmingly until then...I can't count. In CE2, playing on normal difficulty (as I always did in CE1), I completed the entire campaign with only *one* lost companion, who wasn't even lost in combat but rather a random world event that I didn't anticipate. In CE1, you often end up going through travelling companions like water in the desert. I was so much happier, relaxed and satisfied playing CE2 because of this change alone, and all the others just added up to a much more pleasant experience.

So, was CE1 bad? No. It was a starting point, and a unique experiment, and honestly I still think its a good, fun game in a lot of ways. It just suffered from taking away control or options, or making you feel like you were being punished for playing, where CE2 very rarely does so - if something bad happens, you usually *could* have avoided it by taking a different path, preparing differently, or just taking less risky choices. In CE1, sometimes your hands were tied and you were led to a place of destruction by pure randomness and bad luck. Giving players agency, options and respecting their time and effort by giving them second or even third chances is something I have grown to value more and more in games, and CE2's developers clearly seem to have learned a similar lesson between their games.

It has a demo, so if you are unsure if its your cup of tea, just try it out! Its a unique (and, for me at least, pretty chill) experience and I definitely recommend it.

CE 2 is that starting phase in any Civilization game, when you actively opening the map and discovering huts and ruins and other things. Always loved that phase in the game and wanted it to go longer and be deeper. Here is a whole game just about it.

I played the Alpha of Curious Expedition 1 on the dev's website, and bought it from them before it was even listed on Steam. The game I bought was buggy, janky, broke all the time, and was PACKED with charm and potential, and unlike any other game I had played before.

I played the beta of CE2 on Discord, and I bought it the same hour I got an email telling me it was available to buy on Steam. The game currently has lots of things that aren't finished. That's fine. It has tons of improvements over the original game: different types of expeditions, factions to support, custom explorers, a merger between the combat environment and the exploration environment, just to name some of the biggies.

This game is fantastic fun, and as more and more effort continues to be poured into it, this game will both grow and gain polish. Buy now, or buy later, but it's a winner for sure, and don't be concerned by the fact that it's still under construction.

I loved curious expedition 1 but CE 2 just does away with all the good things and is not fun for me at all.

The story feels forced and tedious and what I really want to play is a fun rogue lite which this is just not. It's so strange to me how one can come from something with so much potential as CE1 and do away with all of the fun things. This feels more like a mobile / facebook game to me now.

The main problem is that you can't start a series of expeditions like in CE1 anymore. You HAVE to play through this campaign which is kinda killing the whole idea of a rogue lite game. Other problems: getting items or fame is irrelevant because they are being converted or thrown out at the end of each mission. Seriously, I cannot overstate how disappointed I am with this game.

On the plus side, the graphics are nice.

I loved the first one. I instantly bought the second as soon as it was available because the first one was done so well. The change in graphics at first wasn't bothersome to me, but the longer I played I realized that the sequel is lacking the charm of the first game and I think the art style is partly to blame. I know we are just out of release, so the version I played is not 100% complete.
The combat is worse than the first one, especially the combat animations, which in the version I played could not be sped up and looked mostly terrible. When it was pixel graphics, the developers could get away with bad animations as it just added to the charm. Now it would literally be better with no combat animations.
The character selection is minimal and nothing compared to the first one. The first game had a seemingly endless supply of explorers to play and unlock. Each character seemed to make the game different to play and were unique, and also were named after real explorers which was really cool.
They added these house mechanics, events at home, and hats which were pretty cool at first, but were entirely unneeded. Instead of devoting the time and resources to the base game to make it better, they added mechanics and events that feel like they were added just to make it different than the first one.
If you do not have the first one and like strategy rougelike games that are wacky and immersive, buy the first one. Do not buy this game thinking you are going to get a better experience than the first one. This game feels like a step back. I will come back to in the future and maybe it will be better.

TLDR; Buy the first one. Second one doesn't exist.
Second one Combat Bad, Random Events Bad, Art Style Okay, Character Selection Horrible

In its current condition CE2 is an inferior game to CE1.

With early access games, that is to be expected: they usually have a strong foundation, but limited content. Unfortunately, CE2 has major issues at its core, since almost all of its main mechanics are sluggish and simply less fun when compared to its predecessor.

The only upside is the art, which is gorgeous for the locations you visit. At the same time, art direction on the world map is in conflict with the rest of the game at the moment. Map tiles look messy and hard to read compared to CE1, but this will hopefully be updated in the upcoming releases.

All in all, CE1 also came a long way since its launch and Maschinen-Mensch worked hard on improving it to become the fantastic game it is today. With the same commitment CE2 could potentially become a fun game later down the road as well.

Edit 1: As of September 2020, the combat has improved and is definitely not a deal-breaker anymore. The world map is still less intuitive, and the game still feels sluggish though. I ran a small test: resting at a waterfall in CE1 took me around 15 seconds (with some events happening), while in CE2 it took almost 30 seconds due to extra fade to black transitions. This makes the whole experience less enjoyable compared to CE1. At the end of the day, if you play these games for the atmosphere and storytelling then CE2 is fine, but if you prefer a roguelike with snappy mechanics then CE1 is still the superior game.

If you like games like 80 Days, Organ Trail, NEO Scavenger or any game where you're trekking across distances and managing resources with a map style view of the world you'll like this game. The whole age of exploration style of the game makes it very visually appealing really making you feel like you're in an old adventure story as you loot ancient ruins, hunt big game and meet new people.

It's about a thumbs neutral game. The first game had an openness and balance to it that this one doesn't. This game is more incremental progress; sort of a game on rails. the first one had more of an explore the unknown feel to it and a balance that is lost in this one.

After playing through the "campaign" it feels over. It feels like, well, just over.

If you are new to the franchise, buy the first one not this one. The first one understands it's a light game with some rogue-like elements- this one tries to feel more weighty and fails as a result. Combat can get too long and slogging when you have tons of dice- the underlying combat system isn't that fun that I wanted more of it. And losing your supplies you bought after the expedition? Urgh.... I get it was for balance but the previous game balanced keeping your stuff very well.

TLDR: When taken on its own, a decent little game. When compared with its predecessor, utter rubbish.

General Thoughts/Overview:

CE2, along with CE1, is a tile exploring game where you control a party of adventurers in a strange land with a mission of some kind, usually find the doodad.
Rather than a sequel, CE2 feels like the same game rebuilt, either in a reimagining or to be closer to the original vision of the game. As a whole it contains a huge number of improvements and QoL upgrades which make the game much smoother, more transparent, and entertaining to play.
However, it also completely overhauls the base mechanics. This alters the core gameplay loop, robbing the game of almost all of the charm, charisma, and fun. For all the improvements, everything that made CE1 great has been either stripped out and thrown away, or changed for the worse. For example, there is now a long lasting campaign and story, removing the quick game feeling and slowing the feeling of progression significantly. The inventory and provision changes also significantly alter the game for the worse, making the entire campaign feel locked in with equipment. And the addition of a story with some kind of mentor and rivalry is just uninteresting and feels antithetical to what made CE compelling and fun.
There is also a change in art style, which wasn’t to my taste but is in no way bad.
Anyhow let’s take a look at a few of the main ups and downs.

Pros:

• Equipment that is worn and takes up no trek space. This improves the game massively, by giving customisation and perks, which are much needed in the rebalanced game.
  
• The ability to use resources in a town hub to buy/improve equipment, trek members, and allow some control over the equipment presented for provisions is a strong QoL improvement.
  
• CE2 feels like there was a greater focus on party dynamics and the companions feel more meaty, with more events and the like to affect them over time.

Cons:

• Lack of spells gives the game a less fantastical feeling. The unique encounters from CE1 did get samey after a while, but to strip them out entirely seems excessive.
  
• As mentioned in the general thoughts, the move away from a fast past paced quick and multiple game experience to the more protracted directed one was detrimental to the game. Although it would probably be trivial to add in a quick dive mechanic, it wouldn’t mesh well with the aim of the game.
  
• I really disliked the way resting now functions. In CE1 there was a threshold to remove negative events. No longer. You can be stopping in a spring to heal up at 120/150 sanity and someone will still walk out, develop a negative quirk, or straight up die. Given the new focus on long lasting teams, this is a really bad addition to the game.

Suggested improvements:

• A quick and dirty mode for fast paced short campaign action.
  
• Bring back more shaman huts and items to affect characters loyalty, or allow us to gift fame resources to effect loyalty.
  
• More transparency in terms of environmental effects.

Overall Recommendation:

I do recommend this as a game of its own. I do not recommend this as a sequel to CE1.
If you loved the first, then I suspect you’ll find this a simplistic and boring, but prettier and smoother, downgrade.

If you found the first game too ‘unfair/unforgiving’ or too short and lacking depth, then you’ll really enjoy this.

I don’t really want this to have a downward thumb, but Steam has no neutral option, and while decent, it isn’t the sequel I was hoping it would be.

I was a fan of the first Curious Expedition. Although the first iteration was by default much more brutal so I definitely appreciate the difficulty choice and scaling this time around.

I will start by saying this. If you are a fan of rogue-likes then you should purchase this game. You basically explore island regions for various landmarks, treasure, ruins, villages/natives, and exploit your environment and findings all the while trying to complete various story driven quests and quests provided by village chiefs. Once the primary mission is accomplished you sail back home and upgrade your crew or recruit new crew members in preparation for the next expedition run. This is done ad infinitum, and is a hell of a lot of fun. This is a definite 10/10 rating for me for the following reasons:

1. Its only 20 bucks or less
2. You can replay the game multiple ways (campaign or director mode), and replaying the campaign is actually fun because locations and events are procedurally generated. The core events will remain the same or change depending on the choices you make.
3. The game has actual replay value after playing 40 hrs.
4. The game has multiple play styles (be friendly to natives, hunt, plunder, treasure hunt, survey, collect items)
5. There is a wide repertoire (classes) of main characters and secondary characters to choose.
6. Each expedition you pass leaves you feeling with an overall sense of accomplishment.

Why people don't like this game:

1. It can be challenging, things can go wrong quickly but this is part of the learning process.
2. There are minor bugs when playing with a controller.
3. There are elements of luck involved in all aspects of game play.

I enjoy both skill based games and luck based games. This game requires solid strategy and luck. But this is what adds to the replay value. Things aren't always going to go in your favor and you need to adapt to survive. Curious Expedition 2 now allows you to make some sizable upgrades during expedition intermissions which is a welcomed addition. The graphics are much more aesthetic this time around, and I found that because of this I was pulled further into the lore of the game and had more genuine enjoyment. You probably won't find this game fun if you are a kid. The critical thinking required demands a more developed mind. I really appreciate the game guys/gals, I am looking forward to your switch release too. Keep up the good work and make more games like this, I will be watching and buying. I will be playing this game for at least another 60 hrs.

Best
Jeremy M