Moonlighter 2 is an indie game that doesn’t try to grab your attention. It’s a simple game.

The whole game basically has six worlds – or rather, three worlds with two stages each. You get small objectives to complete in each one, and the core idea is to sell more every time you return to base. In Moonlighter 2 you run an item shop, but you skip the middleman: you go into the dungeon yourself to collect the items you’ll sell, keeping 100% of the profit.

The game draws on several classics, most notably The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. You can tell that a lot of the interface was borrowed from and inspired by that specific Zelda.

And it’s a game that isn’t ashamed of being a game. Your character is a merchant with an item shop who cuts out the middleman, heads into the dungeon, gathers the loot and brings it back to sell.

In an era when everyone – or at least every big company – wants to release an epic saga, and it’s clear the industry has lost track of what a game is and what its real scope should be, Moonlighter 2 stays exactly where a game should be.

That’s wonderful, because it doesn’t try to be much more than it actually is. It tells its story in an honest, simple way that never gets in your way. You don’t need to get attached to the story to enjoy the game.

Without a shadow of a doubt, that was the right call – both because the character doesn’t wander into politics or preaching, and because the theme hits the mark. The music won’t stand out, the graphics are very simple, and the gameplay offers a satisfying enough loop.

Final score: 8/10 – it has a few technical problems, but nothing that hurts the experience too much.