I went into my hands-on session with Wo Long 2: Wings of Ember expecting to hate it. That probably isn’t the sort of sentence Team Ninja wants associated with its upcoming action-RPG, but it’s an important one. I’ve never been great at souls-likes. The combination of punishing enemies, precise timing, complicated combat systems, and the possibility that something resembling an eldritch horror might annihilate me in three hits is not my idea of a fun time. Wo Long 2 initially looked like it was going to be another game determined to make me suffer. Instead, I had a surprisingly great time and walked away from my Gamescom preview eager to play more.
The sequel to 2023’s Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is still built around fast, demanding martial-arts combat, with deflection remaining a crucial part of surviving encounters. After my demo, I went back and played the original, and found it to be far more approachable than I remembered. However, Team Ninja has made some significant changes since Fallen Dynasty that mean I can already confidently say that Wings of Ember feels like a far superior game to its predecessor.
My problem with souls-likes isn’t necessarily that they’re difficult; it’s that they refuse to explain themselves. That’s great for gamers who enjoy throwing themselves at things repeatedly until they figure them out, but that’s not me. Wo Long 2 is more than happy to teach you its ways without holding your hand and making things trivial.
My hands-on session gave me plenty of information about its combat systems, and the tutorials are considerably more useful than simply throwing a paragraph of text at you before sending you off to your untimely death. There’s a lot to take in, but the game gradually explains how its different mechanics interact rather than expecting you to instinctively understand the entire combat system, and that made a huge difference when it came to my enjoyment.
The most notable change is that rather than following the linear design of the original, Wo Long 2 features a vast open world with plenty to discover and no “right” order to discover it all in. That change is exactly what made it click for me. Instead of progressing through one level of enemies after another, Wo Long 2 gives you far more freedom to explore its battlefields. Instead of approaching the game focusing on just surviving, I found myself wondering, “What’s over there?” and going off on short exploration quests of my own making. It’s that approach that made Elden Ring click for so many people, and in a similar vein, Nioh 3 from the same developer.
That was really rewarding at times, too. By completely ignoring the main objective marker and heading to a nearby area that piqued my interest, I stumbled across a tiny squirrel demon in an oversized dragon outfit, called a Fengli. It had a vaguely ridiculous expression, and when I approached it, it started a minigame where I had to parry it to get it to freeze and drop a bunch of rewards. And you can pet it! The loot made stopping to investigate every corner of the map feel worthwhile, and the squirrel was the cutest thing I’ve ever encountered in a souls-like–that alone probably pushes Wo Long 2 into my official considerations for Game of the Year, because I’m a sucker for cute creatures.
It reminded me of the first game’s Shitieshou–a panda-like demon that’s completely harmless and grants you a reward by feeding it equipment. They’re present in Wo Long 2 too, much to my delight.
The world is still packed with enemies, flags, outposts, and encounters, but exploration isn’t just about wandering around and finding pretty things. The Morale system is back, and capturing outposts and raising Battle Flags can strengthen you and give you more reason to explore before taking on tougher enemies further on. It also gives me options when I’m struggling–if I run into something that flattens me immediately, I don’t have to keep throwing myself at it. I can go elsewhere, explore, and make myself stronger. Or find another squirrel.
Of course, the game hasn’t suddenly transformed into a cozy open-world adventure about befriending cute creatures. Wo Long 2 still needs you to pay attention. Deflecting attacks at the right moment is fundamental, and you’ll still need to adjust your approach to combat to shift between offensive and defensive tactics depending on what’s unfolding. But once I understood what the game wanted from me, its combat stopped feeling like a wall I couldn’t break through.
Fighting enemies is fast and flashy, and Wo Long 2 introduces the Focus system, which adds more combat mechanics to broaden the possibilities, and makes you depend less on deflecting incoming attacks. First, you’ll need to build up Spirit, which is essentially a combat momentum meter returning from the first game. You build Spirit by hitting enemies and deflecting attacks. Deflecting is particularly effective as it drains the enemy’s Spirit too. However, taking hits will push your Spirit in the negative direction. If the negative side fills up, you’ll suffer Spirit Disruption, leaving you stunned and vulnerable.
The Spirit Focus Deflect move uses Spirit to counter circular red attacks. It’s stronger than the normal deflect, and sends enemies flying backwards, potentially knocking foes into each other. It can also bounce some ranged attacks back at enemies. Focus Jump uses Spirit to deal with linear red attacks, so instead of just parrying, you’ll jump over or through the attack to kick airborne enemies down to the ground. Without using this, enemies can pummel you from above, so it’s an important mechanic to master.
I’m not going to pretend I suddenly became a souls-like expert, but I wasn’t frustrated by Wo Long 2 in the way I expected to be. For someone who doesn’t naturally gravitate to souls-likes, playing them can sometimes feel overwhelming. Wo Long 2 is more interested in showing me how it works before becoming too punishing. The result is that I began to notice things I probably wouldn’t have appreciated if I spent the entire preview session panicking about dying. The open-world structure meant I could explore more, the combat was more approachable without being too easy, and the various systems made sense from the start.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m probably still going to swear at it, there will almost certainly be bosses that make me wonder why I’m even playing it, and I’ll definitely still make catastrophic tactical mistakes, but I still want to play more. Wo Long 2 has convinced me that I don’t actually hate souls-likes, but I’m probably still not going to go and finish the Elden Ring DLC.
