As was the case with its older sibling, Slay the Spire 2 won't have microtransactions because the developers are self-proclaimed haters of real-money cosmetics and the like.
Slay the Spire's lead developer and studio Mega Crit's co-founder Casey Yano all but confirms microtransactions will never worm their way into the hit roguelike in an interview with Destructoid. "We're microtransaction haters," he tells the site, "a lot of our players threaten to buy all and any cosmetics we may ever release."
As for why, Yano explains the team "really want players to experience all of the same content, as discussion of game content and balance is sort of our lifeblood." So, you can feel confident knowing the $25 spent on Slay the Spire 2 will be the only cash you'll need to drop on the game as it chugs through early access and beyond (unless you eventually buy one of its unconfirmed but inevitable console ports.)
New paid content is seemingly not on the cards, but Yano still hopes to frequently update the game's "pure content" or "the good stuff" as it heads toward 1.0. And modders will likely be just as important for this sequel as they were with the first Slay the Spire, which received loads of beloved, widely-circulated mods throughout the years.
"Both in STS 1 and STS 2, you can replace entire swathes of code, so you can kind of do anything," Yano explains. "A lot of our focus this time around is reducing friction, so players have more resources and easier entry points to work with mods."
