Frozenbyte built Trine 2 around a simple promise: three heroes, one body, and a world that wants to kill them with falling rocks and bad physics. It shipped in December 2011 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, with a Linux release following in March 2012. The game asks players to juggle a wizard, a thief, and a knight in a fairy-tale kingdom, and it mostly delivers on that strange, lovely premise.
Trailer, via Focus Entertainment.
Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius Share One Life Meter
The hook is the Trine itself, a magical artifact that has bound Amadeus the wizard, Zoya the thief, and Pontius the knight into a single entity. You control one at a time and swap between them at will. Amadeus can grab objects with magic and conjure boxes and planks to bridge gaps. Zoya fires arrows and grapples onto surfaces. Pontius swings a sword, smashes walls, and deflects projectiles with his shield.
Each character has a separate life meter. If one drains, that hero is locked out until the next checkpoint. If all three fall, you restart from the last checkpoint. That rule turns every puzzle into a resource problem. You cannot simply brute-force a room with Pontius and ignore the other two.
Fifty Vials Buy One Skill Point
Scattered through the world are magical vials. Every fifty collected earns a skill point. Those points feed a skill tree for each character, and they can be traded between the three heroes. A player who favors Zoya can pour everything into her, or spread the points to keep all three viable. The system rewards exploration without forcing it.
Cooperative play supports up to three players. Each controls one character, and all three must be unique, so a full party is locked into Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius. Two players can swap characters if both agree. Dead heroes revive at the next checkpoint. The design is generous, but it never lets a group skip the core lesson: you need all three skill sets to finish a stage.
A Curse, Two Princesses, and an Enchanted Tree
Trine 2 takes place several years after the first game. The Trine summons the heroes again, and a mysterious light leads them into an enchanted forest. They learn a curse has fallen on the kingdom. Princess Rosabel needs help saving her sister Isabel and restoring balance to the realm.
The truth is uglier. Rosabel, jealous of Isabel’s magical powers, imprisoned her sister inside an enchanted tree. The land fell into chaos. The forest overgrew, and goblins invaded the kingdom. The heroes confront Rosabel and defeat her. Isabel wakes, and despite the bitterness between the sisters, she dives into the water to save Rosabel.
The game ends with the three heroes returning home. The fate of the two princesses stays unclear, though Isabel’s magic is set to heal the kingdom and forest. It is a quiet ending for a story about sibling cruelty, and it works because Frozenbyte refuses to hand out a clean moral.
Physics Puzzles That Reward Patience
The side-view perspective keeps every puzzle readable. You see the gap, the ledge, the weight, and the water. The challenge is in the arrangement. A box conjured by Amadeus can hold a pressure plate or shield Zoya from arrows. A plank can become a bridge or a lever. Pontius can smash a wall that looked permanent.
The physics engine is the real antagonist. Objects roll, tip, and drift. A solution that worked once may fail on a second attempt because a crate settled differently. That unpredictability is the point, but it is also the game’s sharpest edge. Players who want clean, deterministic puzzles will find the looseness maddening. Players who enjoy improvisation will find it endlessly replayable.
Online Co-op Turns a Solo Game Into a Comedy
The cooperative online mode changes the tone. Three players controlling three heroes in one level produces chaos, and the game leans into it. One player builds a bridge while another grapples past it. A third smashes the bridge by accident. The checkpoint system keeps the frustration from curdling into resentment.
Frozenbyte did not skimp on the mode. It is not a bolt-on. The level design supports multiple approaches, and the character-swap rule for two players shows the studio thought about how real groups actually play. The Director’s Cut edition later arrived on the Wii U eShop on the console’s launch day in all regions except Australia and Japan. Trine 2 also launched alongside the PlayStation 4 in North America and Europe in 2013.
A 2019 Switch Port and a 2015 Sequel
The game’s reach kept growing. On February 13, 2019, Frozenbyte announced a Nintendo Switch port, and it arrived on February 18, 2019. A successor, Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power, shipped in 2015. The original Trine established the formula. Trine 2 refined it.
That longevity matters. A puzzle-platformer from 2011 that still earns ports eight years later is doing something right. The art style ages well, the physics still feel loose in a way that reads as intentional, and the co-op mode remains the reason to return. The game is not perfect. The story resolves its central conflict off-screen, and the princesses’ fate is left hanging. Some players will want more closure than Frozenbyte offers.
The Score: 8.5 of 10
Trine 2 earns its reputation. The three-hero system gives every room multiple solutions, and the shared life meter forces players to care about all three characters instead of maining one. The skill tree and vial collection add a light progression hook without turning the game into a grind. The co-op mode is the standout feature, and it is rare for a 2011 release to support three players so cleanly.
The weaknesses are real but minor. The physics can betray a careful plan. The plot’s ending is deliberately unresolved. Neither flaw sinks the experience. Trine 2 is a puzzle-platformer that trusts its players to experiment, fail, and try again. That trust is why it still holds up.
Numbers Behind Trine 2
- Title: Trine 2
- Developer: Frozenbyte
- Publisher: Atlus
- Release: December 2011 (Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360); March 2012 (Linux)
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, Linux, Android, Microsoft Windows, Mac, Xbox 360
- Genres: Platform, Puzzle, Adventure
- Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative
- Aggregate score: 8.5/10 across 9 outlets
- Sequel: Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power (2015)
- Switch port: announced February 13, 2019; released February 18, 2019
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