'The journey was long': two years later than planned, boomer shooter Project Warlock 2 blasts out of early access with a 50% discount and a request to submit your own loading screen tips

Project Warlock was a thoroughly entertaining FPS throwback which caught the bloody wave of the boomer shooter revival right at its height in 2018. As such, I was excited by the prospect of a sequel, and one was duly revealed at the PC Gaming Show in 2021.

Then, years passed. My eyesight deteriorated, flecks of grey appeared in my beard, and my short-term memory was obliterated by a delightful bout of Covid. As such, I completely forgot about Project Warlock 2 until this very week, when the game sprung unexpectedly out of early access.

As it turns out, the last four years have been a bit of a trial for developer Buckshot Software, which concedes to biting off a little more than it could chew with the sequel (or at least, chew efficiently). "Project Warlock II continues a story of the first game, but was always meant to be more than just a remix of the old locales, weapons and enemies within a given template," writes Buckshot in its Steam post announcing the launch. "It was ambitious, it was bigger, longer, meatier and offered not one, but three protagonists."

Apparently, this ambition led to the game taking significantly longer than anticipated. "In hindsight, perhaps that second step sequel-wise should have been a smaller one, as this resulted in the game being pushed from the originally conceived date of 2023 to 2025," Buckshot continues. "But I feel this is the best version of Project Warlock 2 both the team [at] Buckshot and I could come up with."

I'll reserve judgement about "best" until I've had a chance to play Project Warlock 2 properly. But this final version certainly is beefy. The game features three campaigns, each placing you in the role of a different character, as well as 36 levels, 54 weapons, a whole bunch of perks, upgrades and spells, and more than 50 monsters. It even bundles in a "realmshift mode" that lets you play through any chapter with any character.

That seems like a lot of a game for what is, certainly at the moment, not a lot of money. For the next week plus gibs, Project Warlock 2 is available at a 50% discount, meaning you can pick it up for $8.50 (£6.74).

That discount ends on June 11, but if you decide to pick up the game in the next couple of days, Buckshot is running a fun little community event where players can submit their own game tips. These may be selected for inclusion in Project Warlock 2's loading screens, all properly accredited to the tipster. That's a neat way of involving players in the release, and may yield some slightly more atypical hints that what you usually see running along the bottom of a loading screen.