Monster Train News

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It’s official, Monster Train App will be released on Android! Soon, you’ll be able to play your favorite roguelike deckbuilder on the train, in the car, in the bus, or while you’re waiting in line at the grocery store. Really, you’ll be able to play Monster Train anywhere (although please don’t do so while operating heavy machinery or power tools).

Pre-register for Monster Train on Android today by clicking on the link here!

What does it mean to pre-register? It just means that you will be the first notified when the game launches (which, although I cannot reveal an exact date, I can say that it will be very soon).

So, spread the news and pre-register here so you don’t miss a single second of Monster Train on Android!

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The One Who Waits has spread his influence to Heaven! Our friends at Massive Monster have lent the power of the Red Crown and its Cultists to the Legions of Hell! Embolden one of your units with the power of the crown, making them endless and giving them a random equipment each time they’re summoned! The source of this power is wrapped in secrecy, but there are rumors of obtaining it at a Celestial Alcove if you’re lucky.

Don the Red Crown, amass your cult, and take down the corrupted legions of Heaven! Cult of the Lamb is just the beginning - keep an eye out for other strange visitors from worlds beyond when Monster Train 2 hits PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch on May 21st!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2742830/Monster_Train_2/

My name is Cami and I am the Community Manager at Shiny Shoe. You might have seen me during one of our weekly dev streams or hanging around the Shiny Shoe Discord server as ‘ShinyCami.’

This week, I’m taking over the dev blogs and putting on my game designer hat to talk about the cutest clan (in my opinion) in all of Monster Train 2: the Underlegion!

Don’t let their cute faces deceive you, the Underlegion is one of the most formidable clans in Hell. Spawned from the putrid soils of a forest on the edges of Limbo, this clan has many dangerous characteristics beneath the surface.

Led by the incomparable Madame Lionsmane and her trusted right-hand mushroom, Bolete the Guillotine, Madame Lionsmane has a slew of followers who adore her and her odorous perfumes. Mistress of the olfactory poisons, Madame Lionsmane disarms her enemies with her fumes before she strikes.

Also, can we all just appreciate her outfit?!

First Underlegion champion: Madame Lionsmane

One of her starting Abilities is Maneating, which has a cooldown of two turns and applies Decay and Sap to one unit. She also has Spawn at Incant. Spawn is a focal feature of the Underlegion clan that you’ll see again and again.

In the example below, I chose for Madame Lionsmane to have the starting Trigger “Incant: Spawn 1,” meaning that every time I use a spell card, she spawns a unit.

But what unit? Well, that is where my all-time favorite unit comes in: the Funguy!

Funguy

Every time an allied Underlegion unit uses Spawn, a Funguy unit will appear. This one shown below is the first unit I spawned after using one of Madame Lionsmane’s starting Trigger: which is to spawn one Funguy whenever I play a spell card on her floor.

Madame Lionsmane’s Tooltips

Funguy spawned after playing a spell card on the floor with Madame Lionsmane.

As I use more spell cards, the more Funguy are spawned. Below, I have shown what happens after I play multiple spell cards on the same floor. As you can see, Troop stacks and Funguy gains health and attack damage with each stack.

Funguy unit with Troop 2

However, the unit loses said stacks when it takes damage. Below, you’ll find before and after images of when Funguy takes damage.

Funguy with Troop 1

As you can see, after losing 4 health, the unit loses one stack of Troop.

Other Underlegion units also have the Spawn mechanic. Take, for example, the Green Recruit which Spawns two Funguys when killed.

Underlegion shroom unit card: Green Recruit

Or Room Cards, such as Infectory, which spawns one Funguy unit whenever a unit without Troop dies.

Underlegion room card: Infectory

As you can see you cannot kill the Funguy in a way that matters.

The second of three core mechanics of the Underlegion clan is Decay.

Born from the roots of the Fatal Elm tree, the Underlegion’s Shrooms often can apply Decay to their enemies. Decay slowly chips away at an enemy until they are overcome by its rotting power. More specifically, Decay deals 3 damage per stack at the end of your turn. While not an immediate damage mechanic, stacking decay on enemy units can be a game changer.

Underlegion shroom unit card: Cheery Deathcap

And, finally, the third core Underlegion mechanic: Propagate. Propagate increases the stack count of Buffs on friendly units and Debuffs on enemy units. To better illustrate this, check out the spell card Proliferate below.

Underlegion spell card: Proliferate

With the spell card Proliferate, all units get Propagate 2 immediately. So, for example, if I have friendly units with Valor, that Buff will increase by two. Propagate will also work for Troop and Decay, which, with the Underlegion clan, can be a huge advantage.

The Underlegion is a dynamic and complex clan that has lots to uncover and plenty of variability. Honestly? It’s my favorite clan (but don’t tell Luna Coven). The characters are a little bit terrifying but mostly formidable, the core mechanics are not too complex that you can’t get a good run but not too easy that it feels impossible to master, and the Funguy is adorable!

Oh, and did I mention that the Underlegion has a dog named Truffles?

Underlegion Shroom unit card: Truffles

If you’re interested in learning more, I’ll be playing this clan with Avarem on Friday, April 25th, 2025 at 12:00 PM PST on Twitch. I'll also be sending out more sneak peeks in our Shiny Shoe newsletter before Monster Train 2's launch on May 21st, 2025!

I hope you’ll love the Underlegion as much as I do and thank you so much for reading!

I’m Albert A. from the design crew. Today I’m here to introduce one of the clans in Monster Train 2, the Luna Coven!

Below, you’ll find Ekka, leader of the Luna Coven. A powerful magic wielder, she was present for the tragic destruction of the Coven’s home beyond Heaven. She is also one of the few champions who has seen first hand the corrupting force enveloping Heaven. Perhaps that is why her home was targeted.

Ekka, Luna Coven's main champion

She is accompanied by the second Luna Coven champion: Arduhn, Guardian of the Coven and personal guard to Ekka. He too, remembers the tragic fall of the Coven’s homeland and has made it his mission to return to Coven to the skies once more.

Arduhn, second champion of the Luna Coven

As you might have guessed, the Luna Coven are not original denizens of Hell or Heaven. They come from a place far beyond Heaven and hints of their origins are found throughout the game.

The Luna Coven clan was designed around the theme of balance between darkness and light, good and evil, the full moon and the new moon. From the beginning, players can see this balance at play with Ekka’s starter card, Witchweave. This card has dual properties and can be used to heal allies or cause damage to enemy units.

Ekka’s starter card, Witchweave

The Luna Coven utilizes magic power and spells to defeat their enemies, all while tapping into the mercurial power of the moon. The clan has a unique mechanic, each turn during combat the moon changes phases between New Moon and Full Moon. Some cards allow you to manipulate the current phase of the moon, in order to set up certain spells or units.

Luna Coven spell card: Moonrise

Certain cards gain bonuses based on the current moon phase, or whenever the moon changes phases. Mooncycle, shown below, triggers when the moon changes phases between turns.

Luna Coven spell card: Starstruck

Luna Coven Equipment Card: Luna Cyclestaff

Since the clan focuses on spell-slinging, there are various ways to make your spells more powerful than they already are. We already discussed one method, which was through utilizing the current phase of the moon. Another way to build up powerful spells is through a new status effect called Conduit, which you can apply to units, and which grants Magic Power for every stack.

Luna Coven spell card: Moon Ritual

Conduit isn’t only useful for spells. Units can also benefit from magic power as well! For example, with the card Moonlit Glaive, an equipment card that uses Magic Power to boost a unit’s attack. In the case of Moonlit Glaive, the equipment gives Mageblade 3. Mageblade increases a unit’s attack by +1 for each Magic Power on the floor.

Luna Coven Equipment card: Moonlit Glaive

And here’s another card,The Planetarium, which offers blanket boosts to Magic Power by granting all friendly units Conduit 5.

Luna Coven Room card: Planetarium

The Luna Coven is also where we as the designers first stepped away from the card designs of Monster Train 1 and took on a more experimental approach. Take, for example, the following:

Luna Coven spell card: Heavenfall

Heavenfall can affect all floors during the full moon. This ability was not present in any Monster Train 1 card and we were very excited to incorporate it into this sequel.

The Luna Coven is a magic casting clan, but not everything is about Magic Power, there are cards that have other ways of manipulating spells. For example, Stardust Invocation can copy spells which are made Ephemeral, meaning players have until the end of their turn to use the copied spell.

Luna Coven card: Stardust Invocation

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you will have as much fun playing the Luna Coven clan as it was to design it.

Note from ShinyCami:

Want to chat with other players? Join the Discord server here!

Want more sneak peeks? We have a newsletter in which we show off special, not available anywhere else sneak peeks of Monster Train 2. Sign-up here.

Edit: Cards and text updated for clarity and to reflect most up to date information in Monster Train 2.

Howdy! I’m Brian, senior gameplay programmer at Shiny Shoe, and I’m here to introduce a new clan in Monster Train 2 - the Lazarus League.

The Lazarus League is a group of mad scientists and their creations. Themed around horror and the macabre, we drew our inspirations from a variety of films and books: Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Reanimator, Alien, and a bunch of others have their DNA running through the League.

Orechi, first champion of the Lazarus League clan

This is immediately exemplified by their Champion, Orechi. He serves as the head of the Lazarus League, the scientist at the center of every dark experiment and twisted creation.
He’s a clear nod to Dr. Frankenstein, though in my head he’s closer to the one found in Young Frankenstein (it’s pronounced Franken-steen). During gameplay, he excels at bringing back the dead and brewing dangerous serums.

Erratic Assistant Unit, Lazarus League clan

Within the labs of the League, a host of different Assistants lend their expertise. These are the grunts of the group, and are often the subject of experimentation themselves. Some have weapons stitched to their body, which can then be… reappropriated by another unit. Some have been made unstable through some rather iffy science and are in danger of coming undone.

Erratic Assistant was inspired by Edward Scissor Hands, having sharp hands attached to her body and behaving a little off-kilter. Thematically she serves as the group’s ace surgeon, able to perform delicate amputations and not-so-delicate ones as the situation calls for it. Gameplay-wise, she has starter equipment that gives her an attack boost. Should she lose those pointy fingers, another unit can take them up to get the added attack.

Overworked Assistant, Lazarus League clan

Visually, Overworked Assistant is a nod to the BBC adaptation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I just really wanted a two-headed character in the clan. A frustrated worker bee who is the subject of experiments as often as he is conducting them, years in the lab have made him increasingly unstable. This is reflected in his gameplay mechanic of gradually becoming more unstable as you cast more spells in the room he’s in.

(Fun fact: early in design we discussed using the merchant cats as our assistants, but I decided against subjecting those cuties to the horrors of the League.)

Hydra Armed Horror Monstrosity, Lazarus League clan

Hulking Mass Monstrosity, Lazarus League clan

The clan’s experiments have led to grotesque Monstrosities. These are the more outlandish units, with deformed features and anatomy that doesn’t quite work. But they’re also the powerhouses.

Hydra Armed Horror gains more attacks for each piece of equipment fed to it - if you’ve got the cards to spare, it can be quite the heavy hitter. It’s the clan’s take on a nightmarish tentacle monster, but with muscley arms instead. Hulking Mass gains armor each time it is reanimated from the dead, making it a doubly (or triply) effective front-liner.

Lazarus League equipment card: Organ Harvester

Mechanically, the Lazarus League is a “high risk, high reward” clan. Many of their cards center around purposefully letting units die to gain some reward. New statuses help facilitate this - Reanimate immediately revives a unit upon death. If you’re careful, even a sacrificed unit can survive to continue the fight. The Unstable status will cause units to explode on death. Combine the two, and you can create combos where units die, explode, die again, explode, die for the third time … life in a mad scientist’s lab is tough.

Lazarus League spell card: Tome of Horrors

Every clan has a Tome card, a powerful card that can inform the strategy of a run. The League has Tome of Horrors, which grants a massive amount of Unstable. Playing it on an enemy can be good, but it can also combine really well with the Overworked Assistant for massive, repeated explosions. It’s also gives some fun Evil Dead 3 vibes.

Lazarus League spell card: Brain Transfer

And as for Brain Transfer, it’s good for sac’ing your underperforming workers to embolden your sturdier units. It’s one of the first cards I designed, a reference to similar operations found in several classic works, and it helped inform how far to push the horror motifs.

Lazarus League spell card: Secret Ingredient

There are other new gameplay mechanics underpinning the Lazarus League, but I don’t want to spoil all the surprises just yet. You’ll have to come check them out when the game launches on May 21st! In the meantime, thanks so much for supporting Monster Train 2 and us folks at Shiny Shoe!


From ShinyCami, Community Manager at Shiny Shoe: Thank you so much for supporting the Shiny Shoe team and for your interest in Monster Train 2! If you would like to see the Lazarus League in action, watch the dev stream live on Twitch on Friday, April 18th, at 12:00 PM PST here. Have questions? Chat with the devs on our Shiny Shoe Discord server.