Monaco 2 Preview

I love heists in fiction: there’s something about that familiar pattern of setting a goal, gathering a crew, and executing the plan that is eternally entertaining, be it due to the often colourful characters, the tense scenes, or the eventual 5D chess moves that are revealed at the end. In the sphere of videogames, however, it’s more common than not for any and all heists to go from a meticulously planned mission to chaotic slapstick in the span of a single mistimed peek around the corner, bringing us to today's topic: Monaco 2.

During our traditional look into the co-op offerings of Steam Next Fest, the GrinCast decided to test our thieving mettle by sneaking through a few levels offered in the demo. If you’ve played the original Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, you may be as surprised as we were to discover how different the sequel looks! Ditching the original pixel art aesthetic, Monaco 2 boasts rendered 3D assets and an isometric view of our thieving endeavours.

Before each mission, we were allowed to see the floorplan of whatever location we were breaking into, with important points of interest, such as disguises and checkpoints, being made visible. While we could each add a single marker to the map, I was slightly disappointed we could not draw out plans or point out more than one thing at a time. After some arguing over strategy, we hopped in with our selected heisters (each with their own skills) and started the gig.

As we got our bearings and completely forgot about our plans, we explored the grounds of an opulent mansion. In addition to other guests of an apparent party, we found some coins that could be gathered and a few doors we could unlock. Any guards skulking around the area were shown as silhouettes unless we were looking straight at them, with a slowly filling question mark symbol letting us know if we’d been spotted.

In general, the sneaking was simple enough. Keep out of sight, and if you happen to be spotted, hide in a bush or cupboard and hope they didn’t catch a whiff of your perfume. If you do happen to alert a guard, you will have to outrun them or get smacked on the head with a nightstick. Thankfully, we could use the money we collected to buy items, such as smoke bombs, to make our escape slightly easier. However, we quickly noticed that my character had the most powerful item in the game: a tiny dog.

By using my character-specific power, I was able to send my canine companion to charm any single guard into inattention, allowing us to simply walk past. Now, this may not sound like much, but the charismatic power of this pooch was so strong that a fully angered guard could be calmed with a single yip… you can imagine how we dealt with any and all issues from this discovery onwards.

As the mission continued, we managed to avoid some classic laserbeams and find an air vent that took us to our target. With our prize in tow, we casually made our way to the drop-off point and finished up our very first heist!

Based on the demo, Monaco 2 is a pretty solid and humorous co-op stealth game. There seemed to be plenty to do and explore in the locales we visited, though it did seem that some characters were more useful than others; our poor healer never got to bandage a single cut on our first outing. Regardless of the small niggles and slightly too easy sneaking, I did enjoy the experience and co-op-flavoured chaos we created during each of the heists. If you liked the original Monaco, this may be one to keep an eye on! If not, it may still be a great addition to any game night’s archive.