Remnant 2 is one of the more popular games from Gunfire Games, the developers behind Darksiders 2 and 3, plus the trilogy of games of Chronos, later titled “Before the Ashes”, into Remnant: From the Ashes, and now Remnant 2.
Having gained its fame via the streaming community, AdmiralBahroo is a significant contributor and one of the game’s most outspoken enjoyers, who also got an in-game ring made after him. I doubt many would have gotten into the first remnant if not for all of its showcases online, so much so that the third game in the series garnered 92k concurrent players on release and over 100k a few days thereafter.
With so much hype surrounding this release, with many prepping builds in their minds, has the game been released in a state to please all?
The Root Is Back
The game starts straight into the story, though somewhat better than the first game. Your player-made character is following a friend through a dilapidated city, hoping to find the Ward. A bastion of defence with food, water, and supplies, it is an oasis within a world ravaged by invading forces. Even more so when your friend is inflicted with an illness that needs treatment.
Though immensely saddening, this plot point is resolved as soon as it pops up. There’s no real discussion about her illness outside of talking to her yourself with optional dialogue, and even then it was pushed to the side. An emotional tug at the protagonist to help their friend, but then fixed off-screen. It felt as if it was being set up for us to fix, but nope.
After finding the Ward and the people within, we are quickly put to work. No farming or scavenging runs for us though, no no, we talk to the leader and are immediately put on the track to go to other worlds and save them all. With Clementine being kidnapped through the red crystals of the first game, our sole purpose is to rescue her.
Just like the first game, Remnant 2 grants you access to four worlds and a hub world that connects them all, plus the Ward for restocking items. A first run will last you between 8 and 15 hours if you do not reset any of your worlds or spend time getting all you can from each.
The length of the game is highly extended, in a poor display, by talking with the main characters of each world. Most have slow breaths and elongated words to pad out their dialogue, even cutting three paragraphs into single sentences at a time. The breadth of their speech is far too broad for what you need to know, and many times they repeat themselves or repeat others.
If the character spoke quicker and condensed their wording, the game could easily shave off 3 hours. Probably more if pointless topics were never brought up. Though, they aren’t all pointless, as many classes or pieces of gear are locked behind exhausting people’s discussion topics. Mudtooth alone has stories that can last up to an hour for a reward at the end.
Being set a few decades after the first game you’re bound to recognise some returning cast members. Many of these have extended lifespans due to reasons that are actually explained in the lore and dialogue.
This Is My Root Stick
Remnant 2 builds upon the first game amazingly well. Designed as a third-person shooter with a better focus on melee combat and rolling around to avoid damage. A plethora of guns and beating sticks can be acquired from exploring the worlds and defeating bosses, some with alternative means to do so.
Aim with the right mouse button, fire with the left, or just press left for a melee attack on its own. Some weapons have charged attacks, some are semi-auto or full-auto. As you play through the game, possibly several times, you will be changing up how you approached combat as dictated by what drops for you.
With so many more pieces of gear to acquire, Remnant 2 thrives on player ingenuity and build depth. Though on the flip side, if you had any idea of a build in mind you are at the whims of randomness.
Remnant 2, just like the previous game, is designed as a loot-athon and collection-minded experience. You will have to play through it up to a dozen or more times to have different tilesets spawn in the worlds, varying bosses, and killing the world bosses in up to four ways to get new rewards.
As this is the core design philosophy of Remnant, you could easily have a full run where you lack the gear to suit your needs. No summoner gear, no melee-focused gear, etc. If you’re familiar with the first game, you are informed of this aspect, but newcomers could be put off by this aspect.
If you’re invested in such elements, however, you’ll have a much grander time with the game. I spent 98 hours in From The Ashes and was able to 100% it and its DLC, except for the rogue-like addition towards the end. I can easily say this game will come close to that kind of timeline for getting it all. Though you may need to wait for the DLCs to come out to reach 100 hours.
Outside of the normal gameplay found in third-person shooters, Remnant 2 I feel has tripped, fallen, and can’t get back up in some other genre regards. People wanting a fast-paced shooter with shiny guns all around are going to hit a brick wall when it comes to certain generations or just 1 world in particular, in the form of puzzles that can’t be skipped. Not everyone loves puzzles, and being forced into them might put many players off. At least 1 cannot be skipped through resetting your world.
This wouldn’t be so egregious an issue, if not for the roundabout ways to figure out how to do these puzzles. Some are simple press-a-button puzzles, while others use symbols and different languages to explain the solutions. Not to mention the return of sound-based puzzles that some hard-of-hearing players might find impossible to do. As we are in the age of the internet, you can find guides for most of the puzzles, though some are randomised per run.
Viewing the map can also be a challenge at times, due to the increase in verticality that Remnant 2 instated. We now have a 3D map that can be rotated around all axis to get a look at all the levels, however, this does cause issues where maps overlap each other. You will see corridors on the map that you cannot access unless you circumvent the area, or enter into buildings and accessways. They are typically only minimally noted too, without the feature for making your own notes or drawings.
This is shown even more so in the Ward home base. You get the names of the people in the area, but not their or their area’s functions. Mudtooth is just that, yet he sells you buff items. Wallace can improve your relics or give you classes, but he is just a name on the map. Until you learn the functions yourself, you’re a headless chicken banging around to find what works.
These Are My Mods
The music of Remnant 2 takes a step up from the first game, which was a concern I had initially. The first game became empty as you traversed the levels, but the second improves upon this with more atmospheric tunes to listen to plus more environmental sounds to accompany your footsteps. Some of the battle music is also more engaging and energetic.
When it comes to difficulty, Remnant 2 still has the same problem as the first, it has level-scaling that you cannot alter too easily. The worlds and dungeons therein are tied to your power level, which increases with your class and weapon advancements. You can stay low as you enter and then upgrade, but this is a snowball effect for the next area that levels to you again.
Grinding is only half effective when the world just becomes harder to combat that growth. You get access to new skills or attack types which can help in the long run, but it removes a lot of the RPG feeling of getting better when the enemies magically do so too when they should be set per world. Games like Wartales allow you to set a map-based difficulty or level-scaling. Remnant 2 with its world selection is in a prime place for this option too, have them go up in level based on what world number you are on.
Remnant 2 sticks to its design philosophy of level-scaling though, breaking away from what many would call a souls-like that typically have set difficulties outside of invasions. If you dislike level-scaling, there isn’t a solid way to avoid it in this game.
The difficulty of the game is also quite skewed in the beginning. A lot of your power comes in the form of versatility. You begin with 1 mod and 1 ring, after completing your first world you have maxed out your slots on those with more to pick and choose. Specialisation allows you to be such a killing machine that the next worlds lack that punch in the gut as the first boss does.
The overall game isn’t too hard, especially since there are four difficulty settings to pick from, but it feels like the introduction could be smoothed out to not be such a smash in the face when compared to progression later on.
Puzzling situations aren’t overly obtuse through most of the game either, though you will need to go back and forth to read books or make notes to get through many of the riddles and pictures found in the game. Though I stand firm that some of these puzzles are too “alien” in design to be fun to figure out.
The puzzles and gameplay wouldn’t be as bad if not for the plethora of bugs and glitches in the game. It feels at some points that Remnant 2 lacked a lot of playtesting with how many crashes, progression halts, freezing, connectivity issues, or just falling through the world occurs. Thankfully the developers are fixing this with patches, but releasing so broken paints a bad light on how much polish went into it during development.
The dog you get as the Handler class constantly falls through moving platforms or just jumps off cliffs, causing that class to lose a main part of it just due to terrible AI. Healing bombs can also fall through the world if you hit stairs or raised geometry, some melee attacks will hit you even when they do not touch your model, while loot can fall off the world or float into the air.
Remnant 2 is designed so much better than the first game. Simply looking at the UI or items found within tells you that they were built on the first release. This is good, there wasn’t much broken in the first’s design in that aspect. They simply refined and added. The number of rings is so darn high I had choice paralysis at times.
It is just a shame that a lack of polish, some rushed story beats combined with slogged dialogue, and a low amount of difficulty adjustments pull down the overall experience. Bugs and glitches pull you out of an immersive experience far too often, while slower designs such as non-voice acted notes that halt a fast-paced shooter with friends create a strange dichotomy of having fun or learning lore.
Overall, Remnant 2 gets a 7/10. It is better than the first, no issues there. However, it keeps the contrasting designs of the first and bunkers down with its bizarre choices. Build depth is as deep as a chasm to get lost in, while both melee and gunplay have been improved. Full voice acting is a charm, but falls away when there are pages of books that you have to read slowly. After a year or two of development, I can see this game easily getting an 8, but it is too rough and pointed right now that it feels as if it released too early.
The game was also played on PS5 and it’s as it is above, but fewer issues than the PC version.
Remnant 2 Trailer
Review made with the assistance in writing and co-op by Sahil Lala and Nalsarius.
Read more reviews here https://invisioncommunity.co.uk/category/review/
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