Party Hard 2 story trailer smells like violence, final demo now available

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Party Hard is a 2015 stealth-action game about noisy neighbors and what happens to them after they ignore your requests to tone it down at 3 am. Party Hard 2 is built around a slightly different premise—you've been fired, so it's time to crash the company party—but the underlying mechanics are essentially the same: Get inside and kill as many people as you can, in whatever ways possible. 

It's all (or mostly) tongue-in-cheek, of course, although there's no escaping the fact that it's kind of wantonly violent, too. And while I can see the need to do something about all-night revelers when you've got to get up for work in the morning, committing mass murder because you lost your job doesn't seem quite so defensible. Maybe you were really bad at it, or difficult to get along with. That last one seem especially likely, under the circumstances. 

The Party Hard 2 story trailer is a little grimmer than the previous one, too. It's more obviously demented: It's still 3 am, but instead of worrying about getting to work on time, "his glass needs to get red," the narrator says. And violence smells like melon bubblegum. Apparently some people find that arousing. 

It's all very odd, so it's good that a demo is free to download and play at partyhard.game. The download link says players will get access to the first Party Hard 2 alpha, the "Christmas alpha," and the final demo, which publisher tinyBuild said is now available. It covers the first two levels of the game, including some story elements and "never before seen story sequences." The full version of Party Hard 2 will be out on October 25. 

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.