2019’sRemnant: From the Asheswas an unlikely hit when it came out, but it was clear that Gunfire Games still had room to expand and refine the game’s best elements in order to create something truly special. Deemed “Dark Soulswith guns” by its cult fan base,the firstRemnantdid an admirable job of mixing Soulslike design principles with third-person shooting mechanics and packaging the whole thing with a procedurally generated twist.Remnant 2now goes deeper, bigger, and bolder with all of these elements, but it often stretches itself too thin when pursuing these new heights.
Right at the start,Remnant 2does a great job of addressing quite a few points of weakness from the first game, such as the lacking class diversity and lackluster visual design. But more impressively, thissequel takes the procedural generation from the first game and cranks the dial to 11, making for a super replayable experience where no two playthroughs are ever truly alike.Remnant 2should please returning fans and might even pick up a few new ones as long as they have a friend or two to jump in with, despite a few nagging issues.
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The story forRemnant 2picks up some time afterFrom the Ashesended. The Root problem that presumably ended in the first game is far from over. In fact, the Root is now threatening to destroy all of reality, and it’s up to the new main character and his odd companion Clementine, to do something about it. The stakes are higher, and the scale is bigger inRemnant 2, leading to a world and visual design that is delightfully more strange and atmospheric as a result. Each new area that the main character visits is a new flavor of fantastical, gothic, or even alien, with a visual palette that ranges from levels that look ripped out of an H.R. Giger painting to otherworldly labyrinths that exist somewhere between reality and a dream. Where the main story often feels secondary inRemnant 2, the actual levels that players inhabit do more than enough to keep the player interested in where this is all going.
One of the leading complaints from the first game was the lack of a rigorous class system.Remnant 1had a solid foundation, but almost every class ended up playing very similarly to one another due to their bare-bones nature. For the sequel, Gunfire Games has decided todive deeper into the RPG elements ofRemnant 1and has introduced five specialized classes: the Medic, the Hunter, the Challenger, the Handler, and the Gunslinger. Each Archetype has its own distinct playstyle featuring unlockable traits and abilities that further specialize the class into DPS, support, or healing, and, later on, it introduces the ability to run dual classes. Throughout our time with the game, we rolled three different campaigns and used the Challenger, Handler, and Gunslinger, and we found ourselves approaching combat in the game in fundamentally different ways each time.
The Gunslinger is our personal favorite because it is all about DPS and has a special ability where it can rapidly fire its revolver for massive damage–it’s a satisfying move to land and is fun to hit every time. Meanwhile, the Challenger is a visceral close combat machine that deals serious damage at a slower pace using shotguns and a huge cleaver—good fun for those who want to take the fight right to the Root. Then there is the Handler, which seems to be Gunfire’s response to many who said that the originalRemnantwasn’t balanced too well for solo play. The Handler’s dog companion can heal and revive the player and also unlocks additional support systems over time that can boost healing and defensive capabilities.
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Additionally, each character has a set of baseline and unique traits that can be buffed up using Trait points to boost health, stamina, and all the other common base states. The longer players stick with one Archetype, the more abilities and traits they will unlock for it. These aren’t super in-depth classes that naturally lend themselves to high-level theory crafting a laDiablo, but for a game likeRemnant 2that wants to focus on the shooting,boss battles, and co-op play, the depth and variety of these classes feel just right, especially when factoring in the dual class system that can take some builds to fun new places.
ForRemnant 2,Gunfire Games said that the sequel would take the procedurally generated core ofFrom the Ashesand take it to the next level. The way procedural generation worked in the first game was that a dungeon layout would vary from seed to seed, and more importantly, NPCs and dungeon bosses could differ from playthrough to playthrough. It was a fun concept, but it only made an overall short game replayable for one or two extra runs. InRemnant 2,the procedural generation is almost overwhelmingly more expansive. Now, whole storylines, puzzles, bosses, levels, and critical paths can vary wildly from one person to another, and it’s an incredibly impressive feat that Gunfire Games has accomplished. The full scope ofRemnant 2’s procedural generation ensures every playthrough is basically a completely different game.
However, there is a trade-off that comes with all of this procedural generation, and that is one of consistency.Remnant 2is a game that gets quite bogged down by its erratic shifts in difficulty and player expectations both in combat and out. For example, its puzzles can often be as simple as connecting two dots, but occasionally a brain buster comes up, and the game doesn’t do a great job of laying out what the puzzle is all about when it decides to get fancy with puzzles out of nowhere. Spending multiple hours doing easy puzzles and then hitting a wall out of nowhere was always jarring and killed the pacing of the game’s progression.
Then there are also odd difficulty spikes and a lack of refinement over crucial gameplay elements that make the whole experience somewhat frustrating. As a result, it can be hard to find a moment whereRemnant 2really finds its groove, and it often feels like it’s biting off more than it can chew as its inspirations never truly mesh well. Nothing proves that more than this game’s boss fights.
Compared to the first game,Remnant 2has made great leaps in creating battles that are both a bigger spectacle and a greater challenge, but ultimately the bosses highlight how quickly the “Dark Soulswith guns” concept can get messy and buckle under its own weight. For example, many of these bosses like to toss out bullet-hell-like projectiles and also spawn a multitude of enemies in an almost overwhelming capacity. The game’s overreliance on overwhelming the player is often frustrating and not in a way that feels fair becauseRemnant 2has some sluggish third-person shooting at its core. It often feels likeRemnant 2was designed believing the player can move more nimbly than they actually can.
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Things like knockdown recovery, dodge-rolling, ability usage, and using the estus-like Dragon Heart all take a painstakingly long time, and then there is the issue of hitboxes which are always quite generous and often let the enemy get a few cheap shots in. These nagging problems make the difference between feeling a sense of pride when defeating a boss because the player is mastering the game and just being happy that an encounter is over because it was more or less a situation where everything went incredibly wrong incredibly quickly. The margin for error is incredibly low inRemnant 2, and the general jank just causes frustration.
However, these issues all arise becauseRemnant 2is still mostly balanced for co-op play. Whenever we played co-op, we found that many of the more minor compounding issues were mitigated simply by having someone watching our back and, most importantly, synergizing with our build. Although the new class system is excellent and grants a good amount of replayability, it also makes solo play a bit harder because there will always be a weak spot in the build that is usually remedied by playing with others.Remnant 2is still played best with friends, but it is disappointing that solo mode still needs some balance tuning before it can be as fun as co-op.
Ultimately,Remnant 2still hits more than it misses. This mish-mashing of two wildly different styles of games still largely succeeds despite not being an entirely clean fusion, and best of all, Gunfire Games has expanded the foundation laid by the first game into something that is truly unique and interesting.Remnant 2is still rough around the edges, but its interesting worlds, incredible procedural generation system, and variety of playstyles do enough to hold up a game that might not always feel as refined or intuitive as the inspirations it draws from.
Remnant 2releases July 25 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Game Rant was provided a PC code for this review.
Remnant 2
WHERE TO PLAY
REMNANT II® is the sequel to the best-selling game REMNANT: FROM THE ASHES that pits survivors of humanity against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses across terrifying worlds. Play solo or co-op with two other friends to explore the depths of the unknown to stop an evil from destroying reality itself. To succeed, players will need to rely on their own skills and those of their team to overcome the toughest challenges and to stave off humanity’s extinction.Intense Remnant Combat Experience: A mix of methodical and frenetic ranged/melee combat returns with cunning enemies and large scale boss battles. Choose specific gear and weapons to optimize for the different biomes and battles ahead. Bosses will bring high-level players to team up to overcome the challenge and try to obtain the biggest rewardsNew Worlds to Explore: Players can travel alone or with friends as a team through strange new worlds and beyond, overrun by mythical creatures and deadly foes while trying to stay alive. There are multiple worlds to explore with different types of creatures, weapons, and items. Utilize and upgrade discovered items to take on tougher challenges
