Grab your favorite orc-slaying sword and a friend — you’ve got some hideous monsters to exterminate. Orcs Must Die 2 is the follow-up to Robot Entertainment’s 2011 tower defense hit that combined real-time combat elements with the best of strategic trap planning. This time, the focus is on co-op action, where you and a buddy must team up to eradicate the endless stream of orcs pouring in from specific spawn points. Thinking you’re going to guard one area while your buddy takes the other? Wrong! You may be able to fight through half the game with this tactic, barely hanging on by a thread, but when various types of orcs begin spawning (particularly earth golems and those damnable flying enemies) you’ll need a different game plan.
You’ll need traps, and a whole lot of them. Spike, steam, acid, and launchpad traps are all meant to slow down orcs that climb up from the depths. Killing off the expendable baddies nets you in-game currency that may be spent on additional traps or troops such as dwarves with bombs or archers. Place them about the battlefield in a bid to help thin the often overwhelming crowds.
Artifacts and relics may be purchased with skulls earned after each area to keep you on top of your game. Though the male player is given a close-range weapon and the female player has a long-range spellcasting ability with the secondary chance to charm enemies (a useful ability, if fluffy) you may upgrade to a crossbow, a lightning ring, or even some admittedly awesome greaves, all of which you can easily switch between on the fly in the heat of the moment.
But don’t expect a cakewalk. Orcs Must Die 2 is a difficult affair. It’s easy to get lost while you’re scrambling to keep scragglers from escaping and blindly slicing through the crowds. It’s also a bit on the repetitive side, especially if you’ve been playing for a few hours or so. But when you’re on crowd control, summoning thunderstorms, and stationing dwarves all around the play field in the hopes that even four or five orcs are obliterated before things get even more hairy, you know you’ve hit the sweet spot. Skip the single-player jazz and go straight to co-op, if you’ve got some friends around. This is a celebration of orcish bloodshed that’s best experienced with comrades.