Gedonia 2 review: when a small team makes a better RPG than entire studios

Key information

• 🎮 Platform: PC (Steam), compatible with Steam Deck
• 📅 Early Access release: April 9, 2025
• 👨‍💻 Developer: Oleg Kazakov
• ⏱️ Current content: 2+ completed zones, 30–40 hours of gameplay
• ⚔️ Genre: Open-world RPG, fantasy, indie, co-op (1–4 players)
• 🏆 My verdict: 7.0/10 (during Early Access), an ambitious project that keeps surprising me

Remember my review of the first Gedonia, where I called it a “diamond in the rough”? Well, Oleg Kazakov has picked up that diamond and started cutting it 🙂. Gedonia 2 entered Early Access on April 9, 2025, and you can already see that the developer has addressed the original’s shortcomings while keeping everything that made it special.

The first thing that stands out is the scale. The first Gedonia was an impressive achievement for one person, but the sequel looks like the work of a small team. And that’s exactly what it is: the development team has grown to six people, plus the voice actors.

They keep proving a simple point: passion and talent matter more than AAA budgets.

What’s new in the sequel?

The biggest change is co-op. You can now explore the world with friends, up to four players, and this isn’t some stripped-down extra: it’s a full mode with all the quests and zones. It works surprisingly well for an Early Access project, although companions sometimes behave a little strangely. More on that later.

Gedonia 2 is an online co-op RPG that lets up to four players freely explore a living open world and build completely unique characters. An expanded and improved sequel to the RPG Gedonia.

— Official Steam description, Gedonia 2 Steam page

Character progression is even deeper now. There are hundreds of build combinations and new skill trees, including the recently added tree for taming and mounted combat. Without rigid classes, you get the kind of freedom so many modern RPGs lack. Be whoever you want, build whatever you like, and the game won’t judge your weird combinations.

Gameplay: familiar, but improved

Combat and mechanics

Combat is still recognizable, but more responsive. They’ve added two-handed swords, finally, expanded the magic schools for anyone who likes throwing fireballs, and improved the physics. There are still rough edges and odd hitboxes, though. A couple of times I missed an enemy standing right in front of me… but I can forgive that in Early Access.

What really impressed me was the skill-check system. Conversations are packed with checks for basic attributes and specific skills such as blacksmithing. Talking to a weapons merchant? Knowing your way around a forge can unlock extra dialogue options. One of my quests took a completely different turn simply because I’d invested in charisma: it opened up options a character focused heavily on strength instead would never have seen.

Here’s an interesting mechanic: your jump height depends on the stats you choose at character creation. Since you can’t redistribute those attributes after starting, your jump height stays the same throughout the game. Sounds restrictive? Not really. Brew a jumping potion and you can reach hiding places that would otherwise stay inaccessible. That’s exactly how I stumbled on a secret chest: I brewed a potion, jumped onto a ledge, and found a rare sword. So keep searching your surroundings. Sometimes something completely unexpected is hiding behind an ordinary-looking rock.

One more small detail: the bards in the Free City give you buffs for free. Walk over, listen to the music, and get a stat bonus. A little thing, but a nice one.

Quests and story

Quests are more varied. There are the usual escort missions, yes, those ones, but they’re less annoying than in other games. NPCs behave more sensibly and don’t charge headlong into groups of enemies… well, mostly. And they mostly don’t bug out 😅

Here’s my small request: speed them up a little, or make their movement speed depend on the player’s, since there are several ways to change that too.

Then there are unexpected little moments, like rescuing a cat stuck in a tree. It sounds trivial, but these are the things that make a world feel alive. You’re walking through a village, hear meowing, look up, and there’s an actual cat sitting on a branch. Help it down and you get some thanks and a small reward. Not every RPG bothers with that kind of detail.

I especially liked the puzzles. The underwater temple and its puzzles broke my brain, in a good way. There were hints, but no hand-holding: just you, some ruins, and mechanisms whose logic isn’t immediately obvious. I spent about 40 minutes stuck there trying to work out the words. I even asked an AI, and it couldn’t solve it either… When I finally figured it out, I felt like a genius and went to bed in peace…

Here’s a hint: once you’ve finished the witch’s quest, look for bubbles rising from the sea. That’s where you’ll find the temple entrance.

Conversations now have voice acting, and it’s pretty good. A single dialogue can offer lots of responses, each with its own consequences. You can even hold a feast in honor of a forgotten blood god. Seriously, that’s an actual quest. Or you can take a diplomatic approach, or solve the problem with magic. The game doesn’t force a particular playstyle on you; it adapts to yours.

As I wrote in my review of the first Gedonia, quests with multiple solutions were one of the series’ strengths. The sequel does it even better, with more varied checks and consequences that feel more tangible.

Crafting and progression

As in the first game, you can make weapons, armor, potions, and plenty of other things. There’s one part I’d like improved, though: the crafting window doesn’t show recipes you haven’t unlocked. That’s a problem for newcomers, because you can’t tell which skills to develop or what you’re working toward.

You simply don’t know what’s available until you level the relevant skill. I hope the developer changes this, perhaps by adding greyed-out icons with padlocks so you can at least see what exists.

I’d also like to zoom the minimap out as far as possible to see nearby resources and points of interest. You can already zoom out and spot resources close by, but I’d like that option to go further.

Gedonia 2’s world and atmosphere

Visuals and technical condition

The graphics are better than in the first game. They’re still a long way from AAA standards, but you know what? I don’t care. The game has style, and that matters more than photorealism. Capes sometimes clip through armor, but you can disable them in the settings, so it’s hardly a major issue.

Technically, the game is still rough. It’s Early Access; what did you expect? There are bugs. Characters occasionally fall through the floor, rarely, but it happens. Your attack can stop working after death, forcing you to reload a save. Companions behave strangely, particularly in narrow passages. The Berkmere Ravine update also brought performance problems in the new areas, with freezes and FPS drops.

None of this is a deal-breaker, though. In over 20 hours, I hit one serious bug: I got stuck in the scenery and had to load an earlier save. Everything else was a minor annoyance I could live with. Besides, the developer is actively patching the game: there have been three hotfixes in the past month.

Sound and music

They’ve really raised the bar here. The voice acting has improved dramatically, with a whole team involved now. Characters sound convincing, which isn’t something you can take for granted in indie games. There’s almost none of that typical “indie sound” where you can tell the lines were recorded in someone’s apartment on a cheap microphone.

The music in some areas reminds me of The Lord of the Rings soundtrack: grand, epic, and perfectly suited to a fantasy adventure. Riding out into a field at dawn as the orchestra comes in… those are the moments that stick with you. It nearly brought an old-school tear to my eye.

Latest updates

The Berkmere Ravine update, released on January 14, 2026, is the biggest so far.

What did it add?

• A new level 22–24 zone with unique enemies and bosses
• A war between factions
• A unique storyline for an origin, finally giving that backstory some content
• The Husbandry skill tree, covering taming and mounted combat: you can now ride a horse and cut enemies down from the saddle
• Two-handed swords, a long-awaited weapon type for fans of slow but devastating attacks
• Loads of new loot and crafting recipes

The developer called this update ambitious, and he’s right. There’s enough new content for several dozen hours, especially in co-op. I haven’t reached it myself yet, but I plan to get started as soon as I’ve finished this review.

My impressions from inside the game

After spending more than 20 hours in Gedonia 2, I can say one thing: it gets its hooks into you. It’s imperfect and has its share of issues, but it pulls you in the right way. You know when you sit down “for an hour” and don’t get up until three in the morning? That’s this game.

What works as it should

Quest design is probably the game’s greatest strength. Quests don’t simply send you off to kill 10 wolves. There are entire quest chains, and the same quest can play out completely differently for a warrior and a mage.

Build freedom is another huge plus. You can put together radically different characters. Nothing confines you to a single archetype: start as a conventional swordsman, add necromancy, throw in blood magic if you like, and end up with something like a vampiric warrior-necromancer. The important part is that the system supports it. The game doesn’t tell you “you can’t do that”; it gives you the tools and encourages experimentation.

The atmosphere holds up too. The world goes about its own business. NPCs follow their routines, guards patrol the streets, and merchants open and close their shops. Details such as the cat in the tree or bards in the tavern make it feel like a real place rather than a stage set.

Where the game stumbles…

The controls are clunky, no getting around it. Sometimes your character doesn’t respond the way you expect. The camera likes getting caught against walls in cramped rooms. Nothing disastrous, but occasionally irritating.

• Companion AI is unfinished. That’s less of a problem in co-op, but NPC companions behave oddly. They get stuck in doorways, attack the wrong enemies, or just stand there watching you get beaten up. Oleg is working on it, but for now you’re better off bringing actual friends.
• The lack of fast travel is debatable. On one hand, it encourages you to explore on foot and discover hidden spots. On the other, trekking across the map to hand in a quest gets dull. Horses help, but it still takes time. Then again, there are portals: unlock them all and getting around becomes much quicker!

The latest update introduced performance issues. Berkmere Ravine eats up more FPS than the older areas. It’s not fatal, but you notice it.

The developer’s roadmap and the game’s future

Early Access is expected to last 18–24 months. The plans for the full release are to:

• Complete all world zones, with roughly 40% of the planned world currently available
• Implement the full main storyline
• Expand all skill trees
• Polish the mechanics and fix bugs
• Add endgame content

Oleg actively collects feedback through the Steam forums and Discord, promising to respond to every suggestion. Judging by his support for the first Gedonia, which still gets updates after release, I have no doubt this one will turn out just as well.

System requirements

The game runs on Steam Deck and supports Xbox and DualShock/DualSense controllers over USB.

Gedonia 2’s pros and cons

A quick look at the game’s current strengths and weaknesses:

My verdict: is the game worth your time in Early Access?

YES! Gedonia 2 is an RPG for people who value deep mechanics and freedom of choice over graphics, although its cheerful cartoon style is rather nice, a little like WoW. If you enjoy Fable, Gothic, Outward, and World of Warcraft, and can live with the rough edges of Early Access, it’s well worth playing.

The game is actively evolving: bugs are being fixed and content added. By the full release, it could be one of the best indie RPGs of recent years.

I’ve already put more than 20 hours into it myself, and I don’t regret a second. The fact that one person is creating all this is simply astonishing. Oleg Kazakov proves a simple point: you don’t need a multimillion-dollar budget to make a memorable RPG. You need vision, talent, and a love of the genre.

P.S. All my impressions are based on the January 2026 version of the game. Given how quickly the developer releases updates, many of the problems mentioned here may already be fixed by the time you read this. Or there may be new bugs. Who knows? 😉