Dungeon Defenders 2 coming to a PC, Mac, Android and browser near you

Dungeon Defenders, Trendy Entertainment's tower defense action role-playing game, is getting a sequel for Windows PC, Mac, Android and web platforms, and is already in pre-alpha, the company announced on its official blog today.

"We're incredibly excited to finally get to show what we've been working on to the world," Trendy Entertainments marketing director Philip Asher told Polygon. "There's a lot of new things in this sequel and we're hoping our fans like our vision for the new game."

The sequel includes richer lore and is more focused on story than the original title.

"We've hired a full time writer and are actively developing the 24-player overworld as a vehicle to tell the game's story between missions," Asher wrote. "Our concept artists have been heavily focused on lore while crafting DD2 heroes and environments, and some fans on the forums are already picking up on clues they've left in the first teaser trailer.

Dungeon Defenders 2 will feature a cooperative mode and a new competitive mode, which went into beta today. The new mode is a multiplayer online battle arena where five players must protect their respective towers from the other players. The cooperative mode will go into beta late 2013 or early 2014. Heroes, pets and items are transferable across both modes.

"There's been a lot of announcements today, and we want to make sure everyone knows that the Dungeon Defenders gameplay they know and love is returning in full force in Dungeon Defenders 2's cooperative mode," wrote Asher. "Yes it's coming a bit later than the competitive mode, but we hope the wait will be worth it."

The sequel will be free-to-play although the company is adamant that it won't be "pay to win." Players can purchase heroes, however, Trendy says there will be a rotation of free heroes to choose from.

"Two of the main problems we wanted to solve with Dungeon Defenders 2 were: How do we get more people to play with each other? How do we always have people for new players to play with?" Dungeon Defenders 2 official blog stated. "Creating 24-player overworlds and adding in a 5v5 competitive mode was our answer to the first problem and free-to-play solved the second.

"The constant stream of new players entering the game would mean there was always enough people for low-level players to play with, and eventually even more higher-level players to play with the vets."

As the team is focusing on developing on platforms that allow for cross-platform play and consistent updates, the game won't come to current generation consoles, but next generation consoles haven't been ruled out.

Those interested can sign up for a beta key here and PAX East attendees will have the opportunity to play the title.

Dungeon Defenders launched for iOS and Android in 2010; Windows PC, Xbox Live Arcade, and PlayStation Network in 2011; and, Mac and Linux in 2012. A PS Vita version was in the works but it was shelved in June, 2012.