Four diggers share a beach in Digging A Hole Together

Three red digging tools point into one hole in a press screenshot for A Game About Digging A Hole Together. Around them, the sand is flat enough for a deckchair. At the lip of the hole it's all ledges and scooped-out pockets, a ragged spiral that disappears into darkness. The diggers have already made themselves a place that would be hard to draw on a map, and they're still standing at the top of it.

The sequel arrives on 4 December for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2, with online cross-play for up to four diggers. The first game sent one person into the garden of a newly bought house to see what they could find. Moving that job to a beach gives Mi'pu'mi Games room for a deeper dig and a new proposition. The walls another player carves out are part of the route you get to explore.

The shape of a shared hole

One of the most revealing views is from 18 metres down, looking back up. There's a patch of blue sky through the opening and just enough light to pick out where the shaft bulges and narrows. The cut goes sideways as well as down. Look at it from the surface and it's a hole in the sand. From underneath, there are shelves to aim for and dark pockets to peer into, with your way back marked by a tiny bit of daylight.

Digging is a surprisingly good way to give four people something to do without handing out four jobs. Two people can open up the same patch, or somebody can take an interest in the wall while the others head deeper. The interesting part of dividing the work is what it leaves behind. An opening made to chase a find becomes another way into the shaft, whether or not the next person cares what was inside.

There's a different kind of cooperation in Dumpster Gang's heavy loot and rescue jobs, where a raccoon depends on its friends to move a prize or get out of a cage. Here the patch of ground gives everybody something in common even when their attention wanders. You can go back to a wall where somebody else started a cut and carry on from the shape they left you. The next person down has a different wall to work with.

Back up to the counter

The sequel keeps the old rhythm of selling what comes out of the ground and putting the proceeds back into equipment. At the beach workshop, a red shovel can go from a flat blade to a pointed one. Its upgrade card shows the Size figure rising from 30 to 45 and a separate change to Speed. The shape of the blade sells the idea before you look at the numbers. With a wider bite, the same stretch of wall calls for fewer passes, whether you're chasing a find or opening up room for another digger.

There are four categories of tools, and the new dig goes through several kinds of terrain. That puts a little more distance between finding something valuable and deciding what to spend it on. A shovel upgrade has an obvious appeal when you've got a lot of sand ahead. The jetpack does a different job. On a beach that keeps losing its floor, being able to fly is an especially good fit for the trip back up. The October playtest update singles out the handling as something the team was working on before launch.

Under the timber beams

The workshop is one reason to head back to daylight. There are also things to collect underground and bring back to the beach to fill out a collection. That gives a detour a purpose of its own alongside the finds you sell. It fits a game where somebody can be quite happy looking into the next recess while a friend is busy making the main shaft deeper. Both are following their noses through the same excavation.

At a depth reading of 50 metres, one press shot shows two diggers in a passage framed by timber, with a lamp hanging over their heads. Further down, a shot at 112 metres puts the group among grey rock beside a round opening. That change of scenery makes the depth counter more interesting than a personal best. A few more metres can mean a change of material or a space worth stopping in, with your companions' names and depth readings on screen.

Playing alone is still an option, and there's a lovely compact loop in bringing a pocketful of finds up to pay for the next descent. With friends, that same trip gives you a chance to see what happened while you were at the counter. Look over the lip again and the best thing waiting down there might be a new opening in the wall, just large enough to follow.