Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed Review

Our psychotic little alien friend, Cryptosporidium, is back once again with Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed, a remake of the original Destroy All Humans 2 for modern hardware and modern audiences. And of course for fans of the original too! But does its time capsule gameplay and humour work today?

Set in 1969, ten years after the events of the original game, we find our friend Crypto having his Earth life disrupted by some pesky Russians out to take over the world in the most dastardly fashion possible. The game lovingly spoofs and makes fun of the time period and, especially, the era’s entertainment. Join Crypto in his Bond-like shenanigans as he consorts with a Russian Femme Fatale almost loses his patience with Hippies and fights a Kaiju. And did I mention all the Ninjas? Yes, they’re there too!

There’s a bit of a kitchen sink approach to what Crypto gets up to. He’s moved on from merely abducting humans and cows to starting his own cult while dealing with an alien invasion, not of his own making. Sure, there’s still plenty of abducting to do, but it’s filtered through narrative lenses and oodles of humour to lessen the impact of the repetitive gameplay.

Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is, mechanically, rather simple. The original game’s design has been brought wholesale to new hardware with the largest change being to the game’s visuals and engine it’s running on.

Disgusting Humans

Crypto returns with his original arsenal and some new toys gained across the adventure. While Crypto is all about running and gunning, he can engage in light stealth by possessing a human. While it’s needed for some missions, it’s really there to get you from A to B with as little conflict as possible. But if you want to adopt the run-and-gun approach over wearing a meat suit, you can. There’s a GTA-style alert meter that slowly builds up as you’re seen or causes chaos, which slowly escalates the threat level and what you’ll face until the army and their tanks roll on up. Escaping a firefight is only a quick Jetpack jump away though.

The mission design is stuck very firmly in the early 2000’s, meaning that there isn’t all that much in the way of variation. You will be spending most of your time killing things and blowing up stuff or running around in a meat suit to avoid detection or lure someone to some remote location for dastardly alien purposes. There’s just enough variety and leeway to the game tools to let you approach each situation as you want, within reason of what’s capable that is. The fun comes in subverting the straight approach, such as when I was tasked with killing someone important in Britain. Instead of gunning through the situation, I disguised myself as a Russian agent, found the provocateur, and had him follow me out to the Thames where I dropped him into the water unceremoniously while electrocuting him. It’s these sorts of fun little moments that are peppered throughout the game that help to make it continually feel fresh and enticing.

Boom Die Humans

What will prove divisive, most likely, is the humour of the game. This too is firmly entrenched in the 2000s when the idea of offending people didn’t matter. The game’s humour is juvenile and full of stereotypes and fluctuates between cringe-worthy to laugh-out-loud funny. If you’re offended easily, you may want to steer clear

Where the game does succeed though, is in its playability and fun quotient. Simply put, Destroy All Humans 2: Reprobed is big, dumb and incredibly fun. Everything just comes together to make this one of this year’s most unputdownable games. It’s brash, it’s loud and had me entertained from beginning to end.

The other area in which the game excels is in its visuals. Unreal Engine is powering Crypto’s outing this time and it is absolutely gorgeous. In fact, I’d say it’s easily one of this year’s best-looking games to me. The stylised visuals and colour palette, especially in Bay City and Takoshima simply look gorgeous running on next-gen hardware. The level of detail, both on Crypto himself and the NPC is wonderful while the world is full to the brim with wonderful touches such as the graffiti on buildings and the number of objects littering Takoshima’s streets.

And the explosions! Oh my, do the explosions look wonderful. Bringing down a building, whether with a thrown tank or your Saucers Death Ray, fills the screen with gorgeous-looking smoke and particle effects that never got old.

Human Scum

There are some visual issues though. Screen tearing exists, most notably in the Takoshima and Siberia levels while that ungainly UE texture pop-in rears its ugly head during cut scenes. Later in the game, there was also a slowdown during cut scenes. These are small niggles on what is an excellent remake.

Destroy All Humans 2! Reprobed is the perfect showcase for how to do a remake while honouring the legacy of the original and what made it unique. With its new, fancy and gorgeous visuals along with addictive, absurd fun, Destroy All Humans 2! Reprobed is a remake you should definitely put into your stocking.

Developer: Black Forest Games

Publisher: THQ Nordic

Platforms: Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 5

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