Rise of Industry 2 is a sequel to the 2019 business-management tycoon. Created by SomaSim and published by Kasedo Games, the second game takes place in 1980’s America as the player character works managing different departments in different cities to conquer the market and, well, rise to the top.

As a quick aside, while this game was marketed as a sequel to Rise of Industry, this title was not made by the original development team, Dapper Penguin Studios. The IP was sold, and eventually landed in the hands of Kasedo Games. As such, I will not be directly comparing the two games for this review despite owning both.  

Open for Business!

In Rise of Industry 2, you play as a customizable, upstart business guru under the advice of Frankie Says Business. Frank Wilson sees potential in you, so he has you sent to various locales around the United States to start production facilities. Each map gives the player in a different scenario, focusing on certain tasks and strengths that the location provides you with to try and turn a profit. 

This premise does lead into what is Rise of Industry 2’s greatest strength: the presentation. The VHS recordings that Frankie uses to communicate with you have a lot of charm to them. The live-action actor for Frankie is charismatic and delivers some witty satirical lines about the business or the state you’re being sent to. There were a few small chuckles to be had, such as denying that a bribe occurred – he “accidentally” dropped the money out of his wallet!

Additionally, Rise of Industry has a simple 3D art style, but buildings are able to stand out at a glance, so the visuals are clear and readable which is a major plus. The use of building lighting during night-time is also neat. The menus and music are safe and standard, but either way, the overall presentation of Rise of Industry 2 is the game’s strongest aspect.

Read the Fine Print

The first hurdle in Rise of Industry 2 is the new player experience. A quick stop to the tutorial teaches you, if anything, that there will be lots of scrolling through menus. The game focuses a lot on micromanagement and learning what buildings and utility grids pair with each other. A lot of the time playing the game will be spent trying to figure out what will produce which needed material and the glossary until the experience becomes more streamlined with maintaining and growing those buildings. 

Not helping matters is that the tutorial itself is rather long. The amount of reading is so overwhelming that, about more than halfway in, I ended up forgoing it to learn by myself. It’s hard to gauge this aspect for Rise of Industry 2, since as we’ll be discussing later, the game is rather mechanically involved and complex. But the blurbs for tips throughout the tutorial are everywhere on screen and it can be hard to get through the information, especially when some of the notifications can cover up the action. In short, I hope there can be some compromise on the UI between the amount of information being told and making it easier for new players or those with reading disabilities to understand everything that is important. 

The Rise of an Empire

Getting into the game details proper, Rise of Industry 2 has the player start in one scenario. They are given a brief description of what to expect out of the area and what materials to focus on exporting. In order to gain more cash, resources, and discovery points, the player has to also make deals and appease shareholders for their slice of the pie.

After the initial hardships, it is nice to see Rise of Industry 2 start to open itself up. You begin to make a modest company, building quarries and factories to mine elements and create materials with them. Rise of Industry 2 becomes very fun in this sense, having to manage everything yourself and making hard choices along the way to avoid bankruptcy. On top of this, the player needs to be careful when placing objects so they can network and deliver goods and energy using different transportation systems. 

The Fall of an Empire

With initial impressions and observations out of the way, this section of the review will go over the in-game hardships that the player will face; both intentional and not intentional.

The difficulty of Rise of Industry 2 is through its learning curve and adapting to scenarios. The gameplay takes a minute to get going, especially in sandbox mode where you realize you both need to buy more land and hire someone to help buy more land. Various companies and the local government approach you with either complaints or offers to help or hinder your progress. You have to keep an eye on the market and competition at all times to avoid bankruptcy. Rise of Industry 2 does get very mechanically involved. For gamers that are looking for a tycoon game with a fair challenge, this game would be up their alley.

However, there is one obstacle that obstructs the player most. Rise of Industry 2 is a lofty game, but it is in dire need of polish. A lot of the time in the game will be spent scrolling through menus and manuals to check what building will produce materials. There are certain mechanics that are not fully explained, such as the process of buying land. The autosave feature by default is very intrusive and can kill your pace as it takes a solid few seconds.

Speaking of intrusive, the in-game notifications are very hard to sort through when you have important messages about trade deals mixed in with updates on construction. If one of your facilities, say, runs out of energy or water, the game will spam notifications until it is fixed. All of these small details suggests that Rise of Industry 2 is in desperate need of some quality-of-life updates.

Final Thoughts

In short, Rise of Industry 2 is a very ambitious project. There is clearly a lot of passion and care from the developers, especially in terms of visual and design. However, the game is a mixed bag. It’s very hard to start off with. The relatively hefty price attached ($35 USD) can also put many would-be consumers off. And those who stay seem to have trouble either maintaining their in-game project long-term, or experience stuttering and game crashes. I personally have only experienced the occasional stuttering on a mid-tier PC, but it seemed to be a common issue while glancing at reviews and the discussion boards. To their credit, developer responses are relatively quick and there have been a few hotfixes here and there while playing this for review.

At the end of the day, I see what Rise of Industry 2 is going for. This title has a lot of charm, which is coming from someone who usually doesn’t play the city builder genre of games. However, the amount of bugs reported and the lack of polish says that Rise of Industry 2 needed some time in the oven, or perhaps needed to be released in early access while the development team ironed out the growing pains. The core gameplay is fun and decently challenging, I just hope that Rise of Industry 2 receives more QoL updates and bug-squashing to grow into the industry-busting title that it sets itself out to be!

Rise of Industry 2 released June 3rd, 2025. The game retails for $34.99. A review key was graciously provided to NeverMore Niche by the developers.