Differences From the Original Streets of Rogue

Streets of Rogue 2 is a sequel to the original Streets of Rogue, sharing its developer, its freedom-of-choice philosophy, and parts of its underlying codebase. However, the developer has stressed that the sequel is a much bigger game in nearly every way, and that many existing systems had to be rewritten or overhauled for it. This page summarizes the confirmed differences. Mechanics, items, traits, and characters specific to the original game should not be assumed to carry over unchanged; the sequel's systems are documented on their own pages such as Character Classes, The Open World, and Gameplay Systems.

From Levels to One Open World

The most fundamental change is structural. The original Streets of Rogue took place across small, self-contained, procedurally generated levels. Streets of Rogue 2 instead takes place in one large, persistent open world: a procedurally generated island nation with no loading screens between activities. The developer has stated the map is more than 10,000 times the size of a single level from the first game. This shift affected just about every notable element of the game and is the main reason the sequel has taken much longer to build.

Built on the First Game

The developer has said he used the original game as a base for the sequel, and that building Streets of Rogue 2 from scratch would not have been feasible in a reasonable timeframe. Even so, the move from contained levels to a large persistent world meant many systems had to be reworked. Front-end menus, for example, were carried over from the first game's system early in development and then rebuilt on the sequel's own system.

Expanded World Tools

The level editor returns in a greatly expanded form. The chunk system that builds the world supports a much wider range of sizes, with twelve chunk sizes compared with three in the first game, and editor features that speed up authoring such as automatically orienting locked doors and selecting context-appropriate object variants. As in the first game, the editing tools are intended to be available to players. Details are in The Open World.

Continuity and Context

Some elements carry forward in spirit. Both games center on freedom of choice, multiple solutions to objectives, and a cast of unusual classes, and several classes such as the Soldier, Gorilla, Thief, Hacker, and Cop return. The system of leaders to topple, glimpsed in the original, is expanded in the sequel through the Mayors described in Mayors and the President. Where this wiki references the original game, it is for context only; confirmed details for the sequel are documented on their own pages, and any original-game specifics not yet confirmed for Streets of Rogue 2 should be treated as such.