Evil Genius 2: World Domination – AMA!

The modding community has been phenomenal in keeping interest in the original Evil Genius alive, and we've certainly been watching with interest. We don't have anything to announce on Steam Workshop support for Evil Genius 2 right now, but if it's something you're passionate about seeing, let us know! What would you like to create?

- Ash

seconded - if only so I can put the TF2 mercs into the game as henchmen

We've put a much stronger focus on the exploits of your Genius this time around - so rather than listening to Radio Broadcasts, we've brought the focus much closer to the Lair through a series of conversations with their minions, Henchmen, and even Super Agents, at key points of the campaign. There's no shortage of these moments, either, and they're all directly relevent to what you're currently doing.

- Rich

I hope so

Each Force of Justice has a small army of agents at their disposal to thwart your evil deeds, with a unique powerful Super Agent all of their own to return time and again...unless you uncover their weakness and defeat them for good, of course. The tutorial can be disabled, though we strongly encourage you to play through it for your first campaign: dominating the world is no simple task!

- Ash

We're definitely not at the end of our ideas for Evil Genius 2, but we've just got the one season announced right now. That'll include a new Evil Genius, a pack of cool new items for your Lair, 2 brand new Henchmen with their own Side Stories, and a few new minion types to mix things up too. We also have a few additional surprises in store for you along the way. If you'd like to see more Evil Genius 2 after that...make sure you let us know!

- Ash

I second this question, will you bring Shen Yu back? Or a relative of his similar to with Eli?

Freaks were looked at and ruled out relatively early in development: We incinerate our Body Bags now, it's far less wasteful!

Recycling is important in 2021 of course, so we're exploring other ways Agents might be put to use after their pesky do-gooder hearts stop beating.

- Ash

+ Will the AI Minions with preferential traits queue up for advanced training?

The traits do affect the priority of various tasks around the Lair. If you have a minion with a Strong Right Hook, for example, they will prefer to train to become a Guard. But your demands as the Genius are always going to take priority - so if you need a technician, well, maybe you'll end up with a sub optimal minion. Just remember, they're always disposable.

Additionally, we have a minion manager for advanced players who really want to get in there and micromanage their workforce. Once a minion is given a preferential task, they'll make sure they're in a state to do that thing at a moment's notice. Those minions also won't head to the world, so if you want a team of workers dedicated to the control room, this is the feature for you.

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+ Will there be multiplayer?

We're focusing on creating the strongest single player experience we can.

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+ Why a season pass?

We've got some really cool post-launch content planned - the season pass will allow you to grab all the content we've announced at a lower price.

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+ Will EG1 be going on Sale?

If you grab it now you'll get a discount on the sequel!

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+ More than one season pass?

We've just got the one season pass announced right now.

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- Rich

Happy Birthday!

Each of the 4 campaigns is...not short. Each narrative campaign sees your Genius of choice progress from their earliest days putting their plans for World Domination into motion to the moment their doomsday device is fired for a final time...and the world isn't dominated in a day. On top of that, we have a wealth of optional content in the form of Side Stories: everything from recruiting Henchmen, defeating Super Agents, and acquiring shiny new Loot items.

All this is progressed at your own pace, so you can try to race through it or take a more laid back approach to ruling the world.

- Ash

I've got to say the Doomsday Devices. From the early days of development, Rich was adamant that he wanted to put doomsday devices into players hands during the campaign, not just save them for a grand finale cutscene. The result is dramatic - you can expect to unlock a hulking, powerful Doomsday Device relatively early in the campaign, and then unleash that doomsday device on the world multiple times as you expand and perfect it. Not necessarily without unforeseen side effects, mind you.

We're really proud of our doomsday devices 🙂

- Ash.

We're big strategy-management fans on the dev team, and eagerly work our way through big and small releases. Everything from Two Point Hospital, Frospunk, and Jurassic World Evolution, to Prison Architect, Oxygen Not Included, Parkitect and KeeperRL...to name just a few.

- Ash

Yellow's great! It's the colour of your lowly Worker minions' jumpsuits! That said, we provide support for the most common forms of colour-blindness at launch, and changing this setting will impact a variety of key areas of the game, including the UI.

- Ash

The Forces of Justice certainly aren't going to stand idly by while you march toward world domination. You can expect incursions from all manner of saboteurs, soldiers, crime lord goons and more, and it's safe to say they'll only step up their efforts as your doomsday device nears its final form. Plan your defenses well!

- Ash

Thank you 🙂 We can't take credit for Demis Hassabis and team's work on the original game, but we're obviously massive fans of it ourselves, and Evil Genius 2 is a real passion project for many of us on the team. Can't wait to get the game into your hands!

- Ash

No plans at present. We're focused on the Steam launch!

- Ash

Why did you get rid of the TNT for construction workers, I kinda liked that.

Thematically, it's been a few years since the events of the first game, and there's been wonderful advances in Lair Construction. All that dangerous, incriminating dynamite is no longer necessary.

From a gameplay point of view, though, we found that could cause the game to to drag as you had to wait for the minion to fetch the dynamite and return to the construction. We want to respect your time as a player and ensure the game moves swiftly at all times.

There's a world out there that needs to be dominated, after all.

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- Rich

Forcing the player to reload a save has been something we've been aiming to avoid throughout development. We've work hard to make sure that once you start a Side Story, you'll always be able to finish it.

Unless you die, of course...

- Rich

I'd have to say the narrative focus of EG2 is quite unusual for the genre. We offer 4 sizeable narrative campaigns, each of which focusing on a unique Evil Genius, with their own story and Doomsday Device, and this carries forward to our other content too. Take Henchmen for example: each of the Henchmen in EG2 starts life as a Crime Lord in their own right, somewhere in the world, and won't always take kindly to a job offer. Through a series of Side Story objectives, you'll need to decide whether each is someone you want to recruit, eliminate, or just...leave alone.

...I am of course avoiding the more obvious answer, in that EG2 invites you to build the evil Lair of your dreams across multiple vertical floors on an enormous island, then fill that Lair with literally HUNDREDS of minions! See also my answer about Doomsday Devices: you'll get to fire them. A lot.

- Ash

The first thing that comes to my mind is Stairs! In the original Evil Genius you were limited to only building on one floor, while now we're encouraging you to use the whole mountain. This felt initially like something that was very simple, but it actually opens up a tonne of depth here when it comes to creating various zones within your Lair.

Then there's the amount of extra content we have in our game. Loot is back in a big way - there's a lot of it, and if you want to steal these powerful items for your Lair, you'll need to do more than send a few minions to the world. And once you have it you'll find there's a lot of different uses. I don't want to give anything away but we've done our best to make sure that Loot is worth your time.

Okay, I'll give one thing away. The doors to Fort Knox are _incredibly_ secure...

- Rich

We've worked with internal and external writers to build interesting narratives for each of our Geniuses (and our Henchmen, and our Super Agents...and even our Loot), and we're delighted with the work they've done. Everyone will have a favourite of course, and we're no exception. Rich is a big fan of Emma and her Spider Chair (though he says "my favourite genius is a rotating carousel"), where I favour Ivan's very...direct approach to World Domination...even if I look closer to Max.

- Ash

You'll be able to choose five henchmen to follow you at any one time. Given they start life as Crime Lords, directly opposed to you, and have to be brought on side through a series of tasks, it's much safer that way.

Of course, if you find yourself regretting a particular hiring decision... Execution isn't only for the minions.

- Rich

One of the things that was core to the original game was its incredible soundtrack, composed by James Hannigan.

We're very pleased to say James has created the soundtrack for the sequel, too.

- Rich

The campaign pack will include a brand new Genius, with their own narrative campaign, and their very own Doomsday Device.

- Ash.

This is one of my favourite things about working on Evil Genius 2. While a lot of these traits may appear to be filler, I've worked dilligently to make sure that as many of them as possible all have an effect on the minion. Our GUI team have done a wonderful job in producing some great, characterful icons, and it's a genuine delight to work with.

Here's a sneak peek into some of our internal patch notes:

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+ "Dungeon Masters" now have a preference for Science jobs.

+ "Coffee Lovers" have a preference for the mess hall table that has Coffee clearly visible. (Which is a mainly Deception themed item)

+ Film Buffs restore Smarts more quickly when watching TV

+ "Amatuer Entomologists" will try to become Biologists.

+ Anyone with "Hayfever" will try to avoid becoming a Biologist.

+ "Tortoise Owners" move _slightly_ slower than everyone else.

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- Rich

You can, yes! Minions need downtime like everyone does, and if you want to give them more than the bare essentials in the Barracks or the Mess Hall, you can choose to invest in Staff Rooms where your loyal minions can indulge in TV, video games, or even karaoke.

Of course, if productivity drops, you could choose to execute a few layabouts and hire in some fresh recruits. Always an option.

- Ash.

Each Genius has their own, though we don't necessarily name them. The first rule of running a secret evil organisation is don't name your secret evil organisation.

- Ash

That's the problem with catching and releasing - the Agent knows they've been caught. You've just shown them the inner workings of your Lair. You might have even monologued in front of them, or given them the opportunity to overhear a key detail of your plan.

So we've introduced the Brainwasher. Catch an Agent, break their will, and then turn them into a minion who works for you. Depending on the Agent you capture, you'll get a different minion type. For example, a Saboteur can be persuaded to put their talents to better use fixing up your Lair as a Technician.

But if you want to play the game in a stealthier way, then that's what the Casino is for. Train up a horde of Deception minions and turn them loose on your enemies before they even get to the Lair. Drain their Resolve and they'll go home without even investigating what's going on behind that big, suspicious door between the baccarat table and the floorshow.

There's also a number of Henchmen that can help in this endeavour. But I'll need to save some secrets for another time, otherwise I'm going to get captured and brainwashed myself.

- Rich

We'd like to give you the details as soon as we can, but none of our DLC is content we've just removed from the base game: we need to make it! We have some concepts for the new Genius, but we'll be keeping the details close until they're truly ready to be unleashed on the world.

- Ash

Absolutely. Executing minions provides a significant morale boost to any witnesses, after all!

But if you're feeling merciful then yes, they can still prove useful. A number of items in the game can be toggled between different modes, and those modes require different minions. So if your scientists are done uncovering the mysteries of the universe, you can give your Workers a break and set the boffins to work monitoring your Global Operations. They're actually better at it, too, even if they are more demanding then their jumpsuited comrades.

- Rich

- Trap combos don't earn Gold, but we do have a particular trap to let you take care of any loose change those pesky Agents might have rattling around in their pockets.

- Sandbox Mode is indeed available from the start, and we've stripped out anything that would hinder you from building the Evil Lair of your dreams.

- No encyclopedia - you'll just have to experiment!

- We watch ALL the movies. Rich has completed a full re-watch of the James Bond movies at LEAST once during development (I'm working through them again now myself - up to George Lazenby, for my sins), and we enjoy everything from Bruce Lee to the Man from U.N.C.L.E. (give us a sequel!).

- Ash

Answered this one in a different comment: