Summary of the Whole Year of Shopkeeping!

Hello Merchants,

As 2025 comes to an end, we would like to look back on the journey we have taken together so far, before we enter the New Year with fresh challenges!

After announcing Moonlighter 2: The Endless Vault in December last year, we worked hard to polish the game and made a key decision: we wanted to develop it together with the community. That is why we chose to release the game in Early Access. Your feedback gives us invaluable insights into how we should continue shaping the best possible experience for you.

From the very beginning, we knew the second installment would be a major shift for the series, while still preserving its original DNA. We transformed Moonlighter’s visuals into full 3D not only to explore new possibilities but to give you a greater sense of freedom in your journey. 

Throughout the road to release this year, we carried you behind the scenes with our Behind The Counter series, offering a peek at how we work and why we chose this new approach for the game, which turned out to be the right path!  

In April, we were invited by our friends from 11 bit studios to the Hands-On 2025 Event, where journalists and creators from all over the world could play the game for the first time ever. Their excited faces when we were asking them for feedback after the playthrough were priceless!

Next, we launched Closed Playtests and gathered your valuable feedback to make sure we are going in the right direction before the release.

Right before release on November 19th, we also hosted a developer livestream and an AMA on the r/games subreddit to answer your biggest questions about Early Access. And, if you have not yet joined our Discord, we would love to see you there, as we drop by there usually to listen to your feedback and chat with you!

And now here we are. Early Access has launched (with its first update already), we have received a ton of amazing feedback to work with in the coming year, we have shared our Roadmap for the next steps on the road to the full release during the 11 bit studios Digital Showcase, and most importantly, we have YOU - the Moonlighter community that keeps us moving forward and gives us huge encouragement for the future.

The cherry on top is that Early Access right now has reached 86 percent positive reviews on Steam, which means the world to us. Don’t forget to leave us a review if you haven’t done so yet! ❤️

Thank you so much for being with us throughout this year, and get ready for what’s to come in 2026!

~ Digital Sun and 11 bit studios Teams