Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Spelunky 2
Year: 2020
Developer: Mossmouth
How many games save their best stuff for last?
One that does come to mind is Mass Effect 2’s Suicide Mission, which we still consider the pinnacle of the series years later. But beyond that, I can understand why many games are reluctant to nest their best piece of story, best boss, or best level at the very end. After all, a surprising proportion of players don’t finish games.
Spelunky 2, even as one of the best platform games of this generation, is no exception to that practice. according to Steam performance statsonly 60% of players have even made it past the first four levels the starting area, The House. This will take about 10 minutes. Even taking into account people who own Spelunky 2 but haven’t played it, that’s data discouraging if you’re a developer. Further down the achievement list, you can see that only one in five players has acquired the Ankh, a crucial item that gives an extra life. You get it by beating the game’s first boss, Olmec, the “right” way and dropping his giant golden cabeza into lava.
4.6% of players – less than one in 20 – have managed to make it to the Cosmic Ocean, the repeating sequence of 95 random levels that is beyond Spelunky 2’s hardest end. Frankly, I understand why. Getting there requires you to perform an elaborate series of maneuvers, the equivalent of performing a scavenger hunt while running a marathon.
- Get the Udjat eye by finding the golden key in The Dwelling
- Complete the moon challenge
- Defeat Quillback and reach Volcana
- (Not always possible, but very useful) Get the Kapala by sacrificing damsels or enemies on the altar
- Complete the Moon Challenge, get the bow
- Rescue From Horsing
- Drill to the bottom of the volcano to reach Vlad’s Castle, kill Vlad, get his cape and Crown
- Beat Olmec
- Take Excalibur in the second stage of the Tide Pool
- Defeat Kingu, get the Tablet of Destiny
- In Neo Babylon, take the correct Ushabti
- Ride the flying mountain Qilin to the top of Tiamat’s lair and reach the sunken city
- Survive the Sun Challenge to receive the Arrow of Light
- Defeat Hundun, the hardest boss in the game
- Shoot Hundun’s eye with the Arrow of Light you picked up earlier
Relief. All this in a procedurally generated world where lava, wasps and teleporting crocodiles shuffle together in a world of knife drawers.
But waiting for the end of this expansive chain is something magical: the Cosmic Ocean, a 94-level celestial marathon in which Spelunky 2 culminates. This is Spelunky’s endgame and it’s ingeniously designed transcendent chaos. Spelunky 2 shuffles the tile sets from eight of the previous stages and places them against a starry sky – if you fall off the edge, just walk back to the top of the level. A giant cosmic jellyfish blocks the door until you (or something nearby) pop three purple orbs, which unleash the jellyfish on your character in a circling, returning path.
Mossmouth’s decision to reuse existing levels gives them a new lease of life. Your techniques for dealing with familiar enemies and traps must adapt to their new context: Into the infinite void a poisoned arrow or bumbling caveman can fall forever.
This stamina (the best Spelunky 2 players in the world can sprint 7-99 in just under an hour) is softened by the game’s best music: an 11-minute melody that envelops every tense moment with a zenny calm. It’s a perfect coda that provides Spelunky 2’s acrobatic speedrunners with a treacherous stage to show off, and for the average player a sense of wonder that lasts as long as you can stay alive.