Welcome to the Game II

Welcome to the Game II (stylized as Welcome II the Game) is a puzzle horror game developed by Reflect Studios and a sequel to Welcome to the Game.

It was released April 3, 2018.

Story and Gameplay

Though the sequel's story and characters are unrelated to the original, it still has the same mechanical gist, as first-person, puzzle-based Deep Web exploration. The player controls Clint Edwards, a reporter investigating the disappearance of a woman, Amelea, who frantically explained through a livestream that she's being hunted by some men in masks. Clint's only lead is on the Shadow Web, the darkest bowel of the Deep Web, and The Prey, which with the help of Adam he deduces is the front for a Deep Web-based cult called Noir, most definitely the perpetrators behind Amelea's torment. Clint has from 10 PM to 4 AM to complete his objective, and a minute in-game consists of 30 seconds in real life, so the player has 3 hours.

His goal is to scour the Deep Web from the safety of his own home for eight hashes that can be pieced together into a digital tunnel to the Shadow Web. To avoid trouble with law enforcement for his illegal activity, Clint must jump between his neighbors' Wi-Fi's after hacking into them, while also fending off other hackers trying to invade his computer. Clint can order products to help him, like Wi-Fi Boosters and Motion Sensors, with DOSCoin. Starting with 10 DOSCoin (as well as a Remote VPN Adam bought for Clint on the house), Clint earns more by successfully countering hacks with backdoors and setting up Remote VPNs, after purchasing the right equipment from two stores: zeroDay Market and the Shadow Market. The former installs software to his computer while the latter delivers hardware via a drone drop in the alleyway. Upon picking the delivery box up, the purchased product is teleported to Clint's kitchen counter, which he can promptly pick up and place wherever the player chooses. Remember that the placement of the devices is always extremely important.

There are five physical threats to Clint: a hitman hired to assassinate him, the aforementioned law enforcement, a couple of Noir cultists, a serial killer, and an additional fifth secret killer. All five have their own elaborate and unique ways of being dealt with, described in detail on their own pages. The power is consistently turned off, which not only almost completely blinds the player if they don't have the Flashlight but also prohibits them from using the computer, so going to the maintenance room in the stairwell and reactivating the breaker should always be their number one priority. The flashlight is found at Clint's bedside. The game auto-saves every 20 in-game minutes so they can Continue on the title screen, but getting a Game Over completely and permanently wipes the save, forcing them to start a New Game. See the Endings page for the climax of the game's story. It was first fairly beaten by Elajjaz. 

There's an additional "1337 Mode", where the difficulty is amplified to ludicrious extremes. There are no saves whatsoever, all threats are active from the beginning, there's no tutorial, you don't start off with a free Remote VPN nor any DOS Coin or Back Doors aside from 1 each, all hacks are maxed out in difficulty, and the player can't force them. It was first beaten by Distortion2, who also holds the world record Welcome to the Game II speedrun.

For further information, go here.

Development

On August 29, 2017, Reflect Studios' Adam Flatau announced his long-awaited passion project, Rides With Strangers, was suffering financial issues due to its expensive, borderline triple-A development. As compensation, Adam promised a soon-to-be-released sequel to his well-received side-project Welcome to the Game, as doing such would both cost little money and produce the profit needed to fund the rest of Rides With Strangers. Its release date was unknown at the time, but Adam said he was trying to get it out by Halloween. On September 25, the game's Steam Store page was launched. WTTG2 getting wrapped up was postponed in favor of The Waiting Room, a prequel/teaser for WTTG2. The trailer for the game was released on March 16, 2018, wherein it was announced the game would be released on March 30. However, the game was delayed for a few more days due to extenuating circumstances for Adam and to add the achievements section. It was finally released April 3, 2018, for Windows, and the Mac version released on April 19, 2018.

System Requirements

• Windows
• Mac OS X

Minimum:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 7
• Processor: 2.4 GHz or Better
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 670(or equivalent) 2 GB Of Video Memory would be nice
• DirectX: Version 10
• Storage: 3 GB available space
• Sound Card: Any
• Additional Notes: Works best in a 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ratio resolution.

Recommended:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: Windows 10
• Processor: 2.8 GHZ
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: GTX 970(or equivalent)
• DirectX: Version 11
• Storage: 3 GB available space
• Sound Card: Any
• Additional Notes: Works best in a 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ratio resolution.

Minimum:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: 10.10 +
• Processor: 2.4 GHz or Better
• Memory: 2 GB RAM
• Graphics: 2048
• Storage: 5 GB available space
• Sound Card: Any
• Additional Notes: Works best in a 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ration resolution.

Recommended:

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• OS: 10.12
• Processor: 2.8 GHZ
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics: 4096
• Additional Notes: Works best in a 16x9 or 16x10 aspect ration resolution.

Reception

Aside from a handful of optimization issues, Welcome to the Game II is widely viewed as an improvement upon the already acclaimed original in every facet. Its reception is listed as "Very Positive" on Steam, both recently and overall. However, the game has been subject to much criticism due to absurd difficulty, many gamebreaking bugs (the player falling through the floor or the breaker prompt never activating, for example), an extremely cryptic and arguably overcomplicated progression system, and its design's heavy reliance on RNG. One of YouTube's top gaming content creators, Markiplier, dedicated several livestreams to his staunch attempts to beat the game, and during the sixth and final one, climaxed with him personally insulting the developer, Reflect Studios, and unintentionally sending a mob of his 20+ million subscriber base after Adam Flatau's Twitter. The endings of the game are also considered disappointing by even the developer himself when stacked up against the incredible workload required for them.