Chapter 1 of the new campaign, Skirmish mode, and three playable factions will be available during the test.
Stones Keeper II: Chaos Lord brings back the flying castles and gloomy fantasy of the first game, but this time it hands the reins to the undead. Once again, everything revolves around a mobile fortress drifting over a troubled land. The developer SK Team has opened the playtest requests, but I’ll tell you more about it.
In Stones Keeper II, the fortress is your home base, your economy, and your battering ram. You steer it across the map, pick fights, raid settlements, defile temples, and hunt down artifacts, then head back to upgrade rooms, recruit fresh troops, and get ready for the next clash in the skies.
The story picks up after the fall of King Aurelius. Archbishop Marius of the Inquisition is chasing an artifact that could give his order overwhelming power, and to get it, he makes a deal with ancient undead lords.
They want control of the Temple of Water; he wants his hands on the relic. Out of that bargain comes the Chaos Lord, and you end up leading the Circle of Unquenchable Thirst and their armies of skeletons, zombies, and other corrupted followers as this alliance starts to spiral out of control. It’s the same world as the original, but with the camera moved to the other side of the battlefield.
Stones Keeper II is a straight-up turn-based tactics game on grid maps. Combat leans on classic ideas like zones of control and backstabs.
The roster pulls from nine planned races and factions, including a new Forest Spirits faction, with more than 50 unit types spread across roles like warriors, assassins, support units, riders, and heavy “strongmen.”
Each unit has its own movement pattern and toolset, and battles quickly turn into tight puzzles where you’re trying to lock enemies in place, deny key tiles, and punish anyone who exposes their back.
Units grow across six levels and can pick from 15 talents in total, split between nine special talents and six class talents. On top of that, you’re handling weapons, armor, and elixirs for your troops.
The campaign itself focuses on the undead armies and the Chaos Lord and is planned to run for more than 30 missions, with over 20 hours of play.
The team is reworking the visuals compared to the first game, with more detailed fortresses, sharper environments, and fully redone animations for every unit. It still keeps that isometric, 2D look, but the movement and attacks are meant to feel snappier and more readable.
Outside the story, there’s a freer mode where you can fight as one of five factions: humans, undead, orcs, elves, and forest spirits, in solo or LAN multiplayer for up to two players. The full release is also planned to support online PvP, online and local co-op, and split-screen options.
Overall, Stones Keeper II: Chaos Lord looks like a bigger, more focused version of what the first game tried to do: a mix of overworld fortress management and tile-based battles, now wrapped around an undead-led campaign with a broader unit roster and sharper tactical rules.
The current focus is on the upcoming playtest. Sign-ups are handled via the Steam page, with a build planned to land in Q1 2026. That test should give a decent slice of the experience: the first chapter of the Undead campaign, a separate Skirmish mode that wasn’t present in the earlier demo, and three playable factions (Humans, Undead, and the Inquisition).
The playtest build includes the full unit and castle animations, dialogue portraits, a couple of achievements, and a feedback form so players can comment on pacing, balance, and difficulty.
There are some small rewards for getting involved early. If you take part in the playtest and meet a few conditions, you can unlock equipment that carries over into the full game: a stronger starting axe for the Zombie unit and an improved healing potion that restores more health, with a limited number of uses.
To qualify, you need to wishlist the game, follow publisher Valkyrie Initiative on Steam, and earn the “Strategist” achievement by finishing the campaign content in the playtest without losing a unit on any difficulty. Below is the official playtest trailer.
