SpeedRunners 2: King of Speed is the sequel to the long-running competitive platformer, developed by Fair Play Labs and published by tinyBuild. It expands lobbies to eight players, adds crossplay and proper matchmaking, brings in ranked play and 64-player elimination tournaments, and wraps it all in a story campaign set in New Rush City.
Our verdict: SpeedRunners 2 delivers frantic, skill-based competition that rewards mastery and punishes mistakes. If you crave tight platforming action with friends, this is absolutely worth your money. The reservations are about content volume and a few movement quirks — not about whether the thing underneath works.
The Movement Still Sings
The tutorial deserves a specific mention, which is not a sentence we write often. It doesn’t just cover the basics — it teaches genuinely advanced movement tech, the kind of thing the original expected you to learn from being repeatedly humiliated in public lobbies. For a game whose biggest historical barrier was the skill gap, that’s a meaningful fix.
The New Toys
Fire the runner behind you straight into the kill zone. Comfortably the most obnoxious thing in the game.
A quick direction swap — Celeste dash-crystal energy — at the cost of your super speed.
Fireballs, freeze rays and golden hooks are all back and behaving as you remember.
Not a power-up, but it beats the original’s, which was already good. Separate OST DLC available.
Matchmaking Is the Quiet Headline
On netcode: it’s serviceable rather than exemplary. Players report clean games even across timezones, but there’s a visible contingent who want rollback and are running a third-party tool called DART to get something closer to it — reportedly common enough to show up in public matches. That’s a community workaround for a gap in the base game, and worth knowing about before you buy.
It Looks Considerably Better
The visual jump is real. The game has moved to a largely 2.5D presentation with 3D character models, and the concern with any move like that — readability — has been handled. Scenery is busier but still parses at speed, which matters enormously in a game where you’re tracking eight runners and a wall of fire simultaneously.
Characters look better, the UI is a clear improvement, and returning players from the first game describe the whole package as prettier without losing the identity. Twelve playable characters, dozens of unlockable cosmetics.
Where the Complaints Are Legitimate
The bigger structural worry is one a positive reviewer raised honestly: this game is fun right now partly because of the influx of new players. Competitive multiplayer games live or die on population, and if the newcomers drift off, SpeedRunners 2 risks inheriting exactly the veterans-only problem that made the original hard to recommend.
That’s not a flaw in the game as it exists today. It is a reason to buy it now rather than in six months.
Things to Know Going In
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly |
|---|---|---|
| Matchmaking Fixes the Series’ Oldest ProblemThe original’s surviving population was all veterans, which made public lobbies brutal for newcomers. Actual matchmaking plus eight-player chaos means you can drop in cold and have a good time — the single most important change here. | The Map Pool Is ThinSixteen layouts, with a chunk of that made up of B-side variants of existing maps. There’s a fair counter-argument that a smaller pool helps new players learn, but people who like the game are still asking for more. | Population Is the Whole BallgameOne positive reviewer put it plainly: it’s fun right now largely because of the new players it’s drawing. If they drift, this inherits the original’s veterans-only problem. Buy it now, not in six months. |
| The Movement and Grapple Still SingMomentum, swings and shortcuts all feel precise, and the adjustment from the original is short. This is why the series lasted a decade and it survived the transition intact. | Grapple Restrictions Frustrate VeteransYou can’t jump while grappling, and touching the ground after being airborne cancels the hook. Design decisions rather than bugs, but they close off options experienced players expect, and they come up constantly. | Netcode Isn’t RollbackPlenty of players report clean matches, but enough want rollback that a third-party tool called DART is reportedly common in public lobbies. A community workaround filling a gap in the base game. |
| A Tutorial That Teaches Advanced TechNot just the basics — actual advanced movement, the stuff the original made you learn by losing repeatedly in public. For a game whose barrier was always its skill gap, this is a genuine fix. | Missing Custom Game OptionsSuper speed, lethal spikes and triple rockets don’t appear to be toggleable, and those were part of the first game’s party-mode chaos. Modding may cover it, but it shouldn’t have to. | Launching Into an ArgumentMixed at 276 reviews, with a visible split between people calling it a faithful sequel and people unhappy it isn’t the original. Whatever the merits, that rating will shape sales before the game gets a fair hearing. |
| Cheaper Than the Original, With More In It$9.99 — five dollars less than the first game — for 8-player crossplay lobbies, ranked, 64-player tournaments, a campaign, split screen and LAN. The value proposition isn’t really debatable. | No Crossover Skins YetThe original had Octodad and Payday cosmetics. Their absence is a small thing, but it’s the kind of small thing returning players notice immediately. | A 16 GB RAM MinimumFor a 2D platformer with a 3 GB install, that’s a surprisingly heavy floor — and the store page lists no recommended spec at all. Check it before you buy. |
The Verdict
SpeedRunners 2 is a good sequel to a very good game, arriving into a reception that’s harsher than what we played warrants. The movement is intact and precise, the grapple feels right, the soundtrack is better than the original’s, and the visual overhaul preserves readability while looking substantially nicer.
More importantly, it fixes the thing that was actually killing the series. The original’s problem was never its design — it was that only experts were left playing it. Matchmaking, a tutorial that teaches real tech, and eight-player lobbies where the opening seconds are pure noise all lower the wall that had made SpeedRunners impossible to recommend to a friend.
The legitimate criticisms are about volume and options. Not enough maps yet. Missing custom toggles that made the original a better party game. Grapple restrictions that close off veteran techniques. Netcode that has people reaching for third-party tools. All real, all fixable, none fatal.
The honest read: at $9.99 with crossplay and eight-player lobbies, buy it — and buy it now while the population is high. If you played the first game, expect a sequel rather than a remaster, and go in knowing a few habits won’t transfer. If you’re new, this is the most approachable this series has ever been, and the tutorial will actually teach you how to play it.
One caveat worth repeating: we’re reviewing at launch into an unsettled reception. If the map count stays where it is or the population dips, this reads differently in three months. Right now, it’s a lot of game for ten dollars.
For more game reviews, check out our full reviews section.
