For The King
For The King
Game
Game2023
For The King II
Developer IronOak Games
For the King II is a tactical role-playing game developed by IronOak Games and published by Curve Games. It is the sequel to For the King (2018). From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
350 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Nov 2, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
70
Fresh
194 positive · 84 negative
95% range 64–75%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 194 | 84 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 13 | 1 | 56 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 2 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mostly Positive
5,437 of 6,869 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
69% recommend · 177 yes, 79 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 256 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mostly Positive (11,544 of 16,286 positive).
Many players praise the game's improvements over the first, including deeper combat and more content. [1][2][3] Several reviewers criticize the UI as confusing, buggy, and lacking tooltips. [4][5][6] Some players report the game is still buggy, with issues like freezes and save corruption. [1][7][8]
Liked
Representative posts
- [5]
This is the first game I've ever played with a solid combat and resource management system, deep and cool item management, etc. that I've given a negative review to. Why? BECAUSE I CAN'T HOVER OVER YOUR UI TO TELL WHAT A BUFF OR DEBUFF DOES? I GO TO BUY A PET, YOU SHOW ME THE ATTACKS OF THE PET, AND I CAN'T SEE WHAT THEY DO BEYOND THE ATTACK NAMES? I HAVE TO OPEN THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AND SCROLL FOR 10 MINUTES IN MY COOP …
- [8]
UPDATE: UPDATE: I FIXED IT MYSELF (fix for non-loading save) :) My campaign wouldn’t load because the game threw an exception while creating a dead character’s grave visuals. With AI assistance, I edited a copy of my save and gave two dead characters 1 HP. Two bytes changed. Campaign loaded. That’s a workaround, not a fix—and it required reviving characters just to access my campaign again. I enjoy the actual game. …
- [1]
The reviews for this game are mixed because frankly, the game launched in an extremely buggy state. However, the developers have demonstrated that they care about this game and have consistently addressed issues as they have arisen. If you enjoyed For the King 1 the game is now in a state where I would be happy to recommend. It is a significant improvement over the first game, significantly more content and a much …
- [3]
📝I thought the first For The King was a great beer-fueled game with friends, but it turns out it's the second one that takes the cake. 🧠The sequel is more linear and is in a way stricter with the plot. However, some missions provide enough time for exploring, particularly if you slow down the chaos in the settings of difficulty. The fighting has turned out to be much more appealing, with an implicit tactical …
- [4]
seems like a good game if you can endure the most deceiving and buggy UI ever made. Explanations of some weapon properties are confusing and some are missing tooltips. UI bugs that happen sometimes or constantly: - Focus displayed incorrectly when using focus - Overworld encounter shows incorrect red hexagon area - in a fight, selecting a new target instantly uses primary action - in a fight, game deselects an …
Summarised from 34 of the 319 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 11, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked For The King II talk about significant improvement over the first game with more content; those who didn't talk about uI is confusing, buggy, and lacks tooltips. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
For the King II received positive reviews on Metacritic. PC Gamer said they had fun with the challenging battles, but the game seemed more like a high definition remake of the first game than a sequel. Though IGN found it "interesting, challenging, and engaging", they said some of information withheld from the player made it unnecessarily frustrating.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 350 · most liked firstThis is the first game I've ever played with a solid combat and resource management system, deep and cool item management, etc. that I've given a negative review to. Why? BECAUSE I CAN'T HOVER OVER YOUR UI TO TELL WHAT A BUFF OR DEBUFF DOES? I GO TO BUY A PET, YOU SHOW ME THE ATTACKS OF THE PET, AND I CAN'T SEE WHAT THEY DO BEYOND THE ATTACK NAMES? I HAVE TO OPEN THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AND SCROLL FOR 10 MINUTES IN MY COOP MULTIPLAYER GAME? It'd be a fine game if the experience of playing it wasn't…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Basically very little changes compared to the first game. And all the changes made are terrible. The game has one of the worst UI I've ever seen, it's buggy as ♥♥♥♥, the pace of a game is abusively slow, and multiplayer is HORRIBLE with lots of de-sync. One of the first time in my life that I consider the devs ripped me off.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →They did everything a sequel typically does. They added complexity, with new classes, a four person party instead of a three person party, new equipment, and a deeper roguelite rewards system. Yet in doing so, it's just not all that fun. Setting up the game takes longer because there's more choices right at the start. Moving around the map seems to take forever. Combat is rarely fun -- it's either a 3 or 4 or 1 curb stomp or you are very outmanned and preposterously outgunned. This is a…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The reviews for this game are mixed because frankly, the game launched in an extremely buggy state. However, the developers have demonstrated that they care about this game and have consistently addressed issues as they have arisen. If you enjoyed For the King 1 the game is now in a state where I would be happy to recommend. It is a significant improvement over the first game, significantly more content and a much deeper combat system than the previous. While I believe some of the initial poor…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I really enjoyed FTK1 but not this one. I dont see much improvements compare to the first game, in fact a lot of thing became worse : UI is so bad and difficult to understand, why change it that much ? Optimization is bad as well, even though graphics/fx doesnt change that much The pace of the game seems a lot more slow than first one, it is so boring starting a new adventure When you change character turn, it is so slow to calculate your movement dice, it is slowing the game so so so much…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The small things really add up to slow down the game. Clicking on a non-default abilities somehow feels clunky. Trying to click around enemies on whatever camera angle the game picks for that fight. Using focus, to then click the ability, to then have to reclick to use focus is annoying at times. I would take all of these in stride though, if looting didn't feel like such a chore. Four characters, and you can't just pick who gets the loot. Got to either take the loot or 'pass', which just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Liked FTK, started a game with my friends during free week, we each saw different things on the map, and first battle didn't pull everyone even though they were in the fight, their character was still in the over world. Label it early access ya dopes.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I can't actually believe how bad this UI is. The game itself is pretty fun (more of the same from the first really), but the UI makes it such a drag to do anything or find things out (look at BG3 devs, you can pull up tool tips on literally anything via a click of a button. Chance to inflict RANDOM SYMBOL, and also not explain the effect, is a choice). It's just honestly embaressing that a team of developers made this UI, tested it and thought 'yeah, this is really good'. It ruins the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I lose. I learn. I come back. Stay away from For The King II—unless you want the game to haunt your dreams. I've been playing For The King II for over 24 hours now, and I dream about fighting monsters and waves of enemies at night. No joke. The battles, the time pressure—it all keeps playing out in my mind. Admittedly, I was pretty frustrated at first. My heroes died left and right, and it easily took me six or seven attempts to complete the first map. If it wasn't the enemies, it was the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So, I've beaten 4 out of 7 campaigns and had my fill. Don't take it as a diss, I've had a jolly good time for the whole 30 hours, it isn't something to scoff at. I barely played the first game and I repent, but I can't compare the two. All I know is that the sequel looks fancier, and what they share - hostility towards the unprepared. FTK won't hesitate to kill half the party in your first battle, then you realise the timer isn't there just for show. It's not so bad after you adapt to the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR; Plenty of similarities or improvements from the first game, still buggy in Jan 2026, lots of replay value, addictive gameplay, needs bad luck protection or adjustments to RNG in some way. I loved FtK1 so much that I spent 120+ hours within a few months time. I've beaten the campaigns over and over, and brought probably 8 different friends into it. I then played the Alpha for this game and realized it needed time to cook. We finally bought it over the Christmas Holiday and fell in…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I wasn’t in game dev when I last saw one of these on Twitter. Psyched to see the Bsky version 🙇 On my front, we just launched our first free DLC for For the King II. It’s a roguelite infinite dungeon. And I got to do all the dialogue and descriptions! store.steampowered.com/app/1676840/...
positive · AI labelView post →UPDATE: UPDATE: I FIXED IT MYSELF (fix for non-loading save) :) My campaign wouldn’t load because the game threw an exception while creating a dead character’s grave visuals. With AI assistance, I edited a copy of my save and gave two dead characters 1 HP. Two bytes changed. Campaign loaded. That’s a workaround, not a fix—and it required reviving characters just to access my campaign again. I enjoy the actual game. I should not have to perform save-file surgery to keep playing it. Still not…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I do like when playing a turn based game (For The King II) with family online, cause I can crochet when it’s not my turn. 🤪 And having most Mondays off for the rest of the year is mighty nice too.
positive · AI labelView post →For the King II: More Content, Less Magic Back in 2017, my cousin and I randomly stumbled on the original For the King on EA Play. We figured, "why not give it a shot?" and ended up discovering a pretty fun game. It captured that feeling of sitting around a table playing a board game mixed with the classic D&D-style RPG elements. Even though it was flawed, we still had a good time playing it. When For the King II was announced, I was really hoping for a better sequel. Unfortunately, it just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Like a lot of games, I have really mixed feelings about this one, so the negative review might change. But seeing the same issues called out in 2023 reviews still present now doesn’t make me confident it will. The fundamentals are great. It’s largely the same as For the King with a few meaningful additions: -Party size up to 4 -New campaigns, items, loadouts -Pets and hireable mercenaries I played the two campaigns on easy difficulty just to test it and get familiar. The pacing is…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For The King II is coming to Xbox Game Pass on December 12. news.xbox.com/en-us/2024/1...
neutral · AI labelView post →This is going to be my first negative review here but I think after 35 hours I can safely say it's not based on first impressions. Now, the experience might be different for someone who only encounters For the King through this second version of it, it's a decent game and if there was a middle option between yes and no that's where I'd put it. Maybe I'd love it if I hadn't played the original. I am however a veteran player - For the King was pretty much the first game I ever played and I've…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think the only thing this game has over the first game is that it can be played with the standard 4 players instead of 3. In my opinion, the first game is just better, and simply making a 4 player version of that along with a new story and classes would probably have been better than this. It feels and sounds dull, looks worse, and the HUD is atrocious.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Genre - Turn based rogue or adventure game with optional Co-op It's a 6.5/10 game for me, but still fun for a few games, so maybe get on sale. There are 3 distinct ways of playing. The rogue mode, the adventure mode, or co-op mode. + It has hot seat mode + The characters and enemies are varied. + The rogue mode can be fun up to a point. + Loads of weapons, items to find (in small quantities). + The mini-boss fights can be well balanced. + Permanent upgrades and characters to unlock (but limited…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For The King 2 has a more visually appealing look than its predecessor. Instead of the cubic style so beloved by indie developers, characters and environments have taken on more form, and the level of detail has increased significantly. The game feels the same, but better in every way. The interface has been significantly improved, making many features simply more user-friendly and intuitive and yes i am gay.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →📝I thought the first For The King was a great beer-fueled game with friends, but it turns out it's the second one that takes the cake. 🧠The sequel is more linear and is in a way stricter with the plot. However, some missions provide enough time for exploring, particularly if you slow down the chaos in the settings of difficulty. The fighting has turned out to be much more appealing, with an implicit tactical aspect added. Though it doesn't blow the mind, it was certainly absent in the first…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Unfortunately this game used to be good. but then they ruined it with one single update. I have 165 hours in this game as you can see on my review, I've also been playing the first game for many years, even before FTK 2 was announced. so I really did like this game. but then they straight up removed the roguelike elements from the game, so its no longer a roguelike. What do I mean by this? They decided to remove perma-death which is the core feature of a roguelike and in for the king, the whole…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →game has dialogue like "queen mommy" and other annoying mechanics that don't get explained well. the original is the only one worth playing
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's like they just tossed a bunch of new features in without thinking about how any of them would interact. For example, the pet I acquired ended up being a huge detriment because it would do the exact same thing every fight: take the first turn, whiff a buff, and then move behind my blacksmith, blocking my herbalist from taking cover. This could have been simply solved by allowing player characters to move into pet squares and swap places with them, but instead it's just a huge annoyance and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you want unbalanced pain and suffering this is your game, iill never be able to see past the stupid mine carts dont recommend unless you cheat and i recommend to
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It looks better, but it's way more boring. They crammed it full of unnecessary mechanics. I honestly think the first game is miles more fun. I have no idea what they were trying to do with the campaign mode, it just sucks. I'd rather play the first one if I'm in the mood.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →For The King II launches on December 12 for PlayStation 5, Xbox, and Game Pass: www.rpgsite.net/news/16644-f...
neutral · AI labelView post →On the surface this is exactly what my multiplayer group was looking for: build a party from a mix of characters with combat and exploration abilities, get thrown into a random map with an objective and some quests and slowly grow into a tactical powerhouse. We'd done that in plenty of curated experiences (Gloomhaven, Baldur's Gate 3) and figured the roguelike elements might be something a bit different. In practice this is one of the games we gave a solid try but ended up bouncing off. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Feels like a slightly worse version of the first game with better graphics and just, more things? UI is genuinely just a downgrade, some of the characters suck comparatively to others (imo), and actually half of the abilities/perks have basically no explanation or a terribly short and unhelpful one. Not really worth it unless you get it on a big sale.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →As of right now, I would only recommend buying FTK2 if it is on sale. There are many improvements from the first game, such as the ability to play with a party of four and numerous quality of life changes. The overall difficulty is also easier with the addition of pets, mercenaries, changes to healing item scaling, and more plentiful loot. However, the game still has noticeable bugs almost 2 years after its initial release, the UI is a downgrade from the first game, and there are some clearly…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game, you need to be able to swap positions with people or pets and you need to be able to turn the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ camera.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Personally I love FTK2 even more than FTK1, and I really really love FTK1. I feel like FTK2 does everything even better! I have a few buddies that don't like that you can't rotate the camera (which is a valid complaint), but it doesn't bug me too much and I still think this is a great game for playing with friends.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's OK. Not as good as the first game, but I enjoyed most parts of it. Maybe it's the multiple chapters taking too long or the added content that's a bit too much. Sometimes less is more. It could be fun with friends or solo. I had to complete the final chapter alone, though I had fun. It's good that the developers still keep updating the game. Most of the patches are welcome, and overall I had no crashes, only maybe one or two loading problems, but with the frequent autosaves no progress was…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to like this game. I've tolerated some bad UIs, but this one is baffling. Like, I get that some of it is that I'm playing single player, and the UI was clearly built with multiplayer as the priority. Outside of that, I spend way to much time looking at items. It's a lot of comparing differences that feel like they don't matter. When comparing, it only shows the stat for the new item, not the one that's currently equipped, so if it comes up in loot, you have to distribute all the loot,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It took my wife and I awhile to "beat the game" where we saw the credits. We took very long breaks, months at a time. But the mechanics are simple enough that anyone can pick it up, and start playing. We haven't even unlocked all the characters yet, and are looking forward to doing that. The system for sharing money and items are a bit weird for having to be next to the character, but I get it. Either way, the game has made my wife and I spend about 100-125 hours together and I quite…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is kind of the definition of underwhelming and I struggle to understand the many positive reviews. For The King II doesn't do anything really well. It markets itself as RPG/Party-Based RPG but the RPG elements are close to non-existent. You level, but that doesn't allow to spend any attribute points, learn skills or anything. All it does is an pre-defined auto-increase of stats that allows you to fight higher level enemies. The only actual RPG elements in the game can be found in…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →All the classes only have 1 singular ability that makes them different than the others, and the majority of them have little impact on how the class plays. The weapons you pick up while fighting are what determines how your character plays which I personally find very backwards. Want to be a wizard? Here hold this wand! It comes with all the abilities of a wizard with none of that silly years of magical training. Can you say fireball? Then you can hurl a fireball! Now some classes are certainly…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →10.7 -Sopa – Tale of the Stolen Potato Standard 9.17 -For the King II -Overthrown -CoD: Modern Warfare III Game Pass Core 10.1 -Cities: Skylines – Remastered -Disney Dreamlight Valley -Warhammer 40,000: Darktide news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/0...
neutral · AI labelView post →[ STREAM SCHEDULE ] { January 05 - January 11 } NEW YEAR SAME WOLF-CAT!! We got a new game, Nine Sols OH HO!! Followed by all the side stories of Dragon Age! For The King II W/ Dog & Sapphire! (FINALLY) Drunk stream with Riri! More Fixation of Exile II W/ Leth Hope ny'all have a FANTASTIC week!!
neutral · AI labelView post →fun game with a truly awful, game-ruining interface. I highly prefer 1 compared to this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →nice, should have more items for ranger class, the game is full of items for mage...
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hello, new Adventurers! We seemingly popped onto a few Canadian Game Dev lists over the weekend, so thank you all for joining us! We're IronOak Games! Creators of For The King and For The King II, a TTRPG-inspired co-op roguelite RPG for up to four players! And we're based out of beautiful BC! 🍁
neutral · AI labelView post →Super fun, especially with friends! We are 4 peeps doing shenanigans and achievement-hunting, slowly making our way through the story! Love the idea of the Lore-Store, and the way you unlock by playing :)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I love the game but there's definitely some things that need to be addressed. 1. You can't hover over elements in the UI to figure out what they are or what a certain mechanic is. You either have to try to find it in the game's encyclopedia or search it online on your phone or something. Really interrupts the flow of the game. this has been changed 2. My game will randomly completely freeze, I have to alt+F4 out of it, stop it through Steam, and sometimes end task with task manager. That…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great Multiplayer game!! good story and nice game mechanics both in and out of combat. a must-play.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fire. Played with mates who also like to minmax our strategy which made it way more fun. The corny ass story, characters, dialogue, etc also really make this game stand out and create some dumb funny moments. As a sequel, it does really well in keeping the gameplay similar but fresh when compared to the first, so I'd further recommend if you played 1.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yes the UI is clunky and the balance is not balancing sometimes. But if you have a group of friends to play with, BUY NOW. This game gave our group more laugh than any other games have. It was a blast. Don't expect it to be deep turn-based strategy, it is not. The game doesn't take itself too seriously, embrace it and you will have a great time.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →seems like a good game if you can endure the most deceiving and buggy UI ever made. Explanations of some weapon properties are confusing and some are missing tooltips. UI bugs that happen sometimes or constantly: - Focus displayed incorrectly when using focus - Overworld encounter shows incorrect red hexagon area - in a fight, selecting a new target instantly uses primary action - in a fight, game deselects an already selected target - in a fight, turn order enemy highlighting with mouse hover…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The ever-talented @johnrobertmatz.bsky.social is among the nominees for Best Main Theme with his work on For The King II in the 24th annual Game Audio Network Guild awards! We're so proud of all the amazing work John puts into creating beautiful soundtracks for the For The King series.
neutral · AI labelView post →Gave it a shot during the free weekend. Found it to be incredibly confusing and absolute sensory overload with how much information it immediately hits you with. It has all of the elements of TTRPGs, but lacks the elements that make those kinds of games fun. It's just a bunch of numbers you have to keep track of and a bunch of clunky UIs that are hard to keep track of. If you're a fan of turn-based RPGs, this is not that. If you're a fan of TTRPGs, this is not that. If you're a fan of…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I honestly didn’t expect the game to impress me this much 😄. The visual style, overall presentation, and the way everything is delivered feel genuinely top-tier — you can clearly see the developers put a lot of heart into crafting this world. The atmosphere pulls you in right away, and every location looks polished and full of detail ✨. Even though the gameplay felt a bit unusual at first, it quickly grew on me, and I found myself enjoying the challenge and the variety it offers. The more I…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →buy first ftk on discount and don't even bother trying this one it's awful comparing to the first game. worse ui, worse fps, worse graphics(immo), unintuitive ui whatsoever
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →i tried the free week, it didn't take a week i enjoy this game. if you need a break and a good way to relax this is for you. if you don't enjoy games that don't require a lot of thought, you might want to pass it up. there's no voiced dialog, and its a hex crawler but the story is good enough to keep you entertained and the gameplay keeps you engaged.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It's fun, flexible, casual enough for casual players and extremely min/maxeable. Still rough around some edges, could use some polish, but it feels like it has a lot of love from the devs. Just like in For The King (1), the DLC is well worth its price.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We've already put like 30 hours into this game & we bought it the day before Hobbitmas If you're looking for games with couch co-op that a) have a little bit of story and b) aren't shooters, I highly recommend For the King II (the first one is great too)
positive · AI labelView post →For The King II is officially coming to all Xbox platforms and PlayStation 5 on December 12th! Also coming to Xbox and PC Game Pass Day One! youtu.be/LQF5H8-RLzk?...
neutral · AI labelView post →Good game, but way too many bugs. Sad experience
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is a vast improvement over the first game in my opinion. Almost everything is better honestly. Classes are ported over and are individualistic for a niche, having a wide variety to use in each run. The first game has a similar concept so it's not that different here except additional stuff added in this one. If you liked the first games classes, I'm sure you'll like this one. Campaigns are now shorter, normally 2 boss encounters (with 2 miniboss encounters leading up to said…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you're looking for a local co-op proper RPG, this is the one! For The King II improves upon its predecessor in every way and has shaped up into one of my favorite games to play with friends. I often get a craving to play a true RPG with a decent bit of depth, but played with my wife. This game is EXACTLY that. It's basically a classic TTRPG hexcrawl in terms of its structure, just abridged for video game conventions. Tactical combat is satisfying and not totally brainless, there is a wealth…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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