Hunter Studio is a small team based in China that started out in 2015 in the dorm rooms of three university friends. Their love for games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter drove both their passion and inspired the name of their studio. The original Lost Castle was a million-seller, and as the saying goes, the rest is history. Hunter Studio recently updated Lost Castle 2 to 1.0, and I reviewed it, giving it a 4.5 out of 5. Curious about what’s next, why roguelite is such a popular trend, and what inspired them to iterate so heavily, I interviewed Vincent Chen, Producer at Hunter Studio.
10 years have passed from Lost Castle’s release to Lost Castle 2’s release – while I know your team grew from a three-person studio to a 40-person studio, how has that shaped your approach for Lost Castle 2?
Our core team for Lost Castle 2 is around 20 people; the rest of our staff are working on a separate new title. Even so, a 20-person team is a massive upgrade from our original three-person crew. More team members allow clear role division, lifting the game’s overall quality ceiling and enabling far richer content output. Our core six or seven developers are all versatile generalists, yet each has distinct strengths and weaknesses. With more teammates onboard, we can split work properly, letting everyone focus on their strengths while avoiding tasks outside their expertise.
While there are many trends in gaming, roguelite mechanics seem to be one of the most consistent features in video games currently releasing. From a developer’s standpoint, what motivated you to implement these features, and do you have any insight into why they’ve become so prevalent?
We didn’t overthink adopting roguelite mechanics for Lost Castle 2. The original Lost Castle was built around roguelite gameplay, and the genre also has a relatively lower development barrier. This made it an ideal project to help our many new team members gel together. As for roguelites’ enduring popularity: modern hits like Hades have shifted the genre’s focus away from pure randomness toward build diversity and randomized build strategies. Still, the core draw remains the ever-fresh experience of every new run. From a developer’s perspective, once a base level loop is finalized, roguelites let us pour most resources into expanding and refining build combinations and randomized content. This flexibility encourages studios to experiment with unique ideas, constantly spawning high-quality, innovative roguelite titles—and that’s why the genre stays mainstream.
While playing Lost Castle 2, it was clear to me that Hunter Studio put player experience first. While there is some randomness, I never felt like I was ever going to fail a run because of bad drops. Was this intentional on the part of Hunter Studio?
Absolutely. Like many modern roguelites, Lost Castle 2 uses controlled pseudo-random systems. Treasure drop weights shift dynamically based on what items players already carry. We also added cross-class core treasures to avoid repetitive playstyles caused by weighted randomness. We intentionally decoupled weapons from rigid build paths to cut down learning complexity. Players can freely pick their preferred weapons and skills, while veteran players can explore synergies between different builds. Some players argue the pseudo-randomness makes the game “not roguelike enough.” However, action roguelites feature heavy combat systems, unlike titles such as The Binding of Isaac that naturally stack countless buffs onto core movement and projectile mechanics. As our item pool and build options expanded, controlled pseudo-random rules add reliable predictability amid chaos, letting players plan strategies and greatly boosting overall play comfort.
Lost Castle 2 has its more standard weapons like sword and shield, but there are a couple of interesting and odd additions such as the Phantom Lantern and Turbo Lance. Was it an important part of the game’s design to have weapons that were both satisfying and distinct?
Weapon combat design was a core priority from day one. We retained classic staple weapons, while all unique new armaments grew from well-received concepts brainstormed by the whole team. The entire team gets highly motivated designing these distinct, creative weapons.
With Lost Castle 2 selling over 700,000 in early access, you’ve entered the last part of the roadmap at Phase 6. With all this in mind, does Hunter Studio have a new goal? Should players be looking forward to new and exciting announcements?
As I write this response, Lost Castle 2 has been out of Early Access and fully released for nearly a month, with sales approaching 900,000 copies. As mentioned earlier, our studio runs two parallel development projects. Our other title had a prolonged tough development phase due to its experimental 3D shift, but we’ve overcome the hardest hurdles and entered stable production. Meanwhile, the Lost Castle 2 team will keep delivering expansions and maintenance updates for this game, while we begin pre-production on another brand-new project—players have plenty to look forward to.
