REVIEW: Remnant 2 – Rooter Shooter

At the advent of the Souls-like genre, many attempted to meld it into other subgenres to create something new. Though not many stood out, Remnant: From The Ashes definitely did. Since it’s release, I have wondered if others will follow along this new branched-off subgenre. And though that hardly ever happened, we’re now graced by an ambitious sequel. The question is, does it live up to its roots?

STORY

The game takes place several years after the events of the first, and though there’s several returning characters and references to the ‘Wanderer’s’ exploits, the game still largely focuses on the ‘Traveler’s (you) story.

The game starts off with your character and a friend named Cass in search of a place rumored to be the safest place from the spreading ‘Rot’. Trouble finds you along the way and from the brink of death you’re rescued by settlers of the rumored shelter and taken in as one of their own. Almost immediately after, you’re roped into an errand that suddenly turns into a rescue mission then quickly into saving the world as we know it.

The main campaign’s pacing is a bit of a head scratcher and progressions all seem like sudden shifts with little to no build-up or exposition. Its really all like a fever dream, especially towards the last few moments of the game’s campaign. The first cutscene feels like a total scam, masquerading as a story-driven campaign, as even Cass takes a permanent back seat immediately after the intro, demoted into nothing more than a mere vendor in the game’s hub throughout the rest of the campaign.

No, I would not care too much about the main campaign. Thankfully each area servers their own little adventures and lore.

GAMEPLAY

The game’s world mechanics are very much still akin to that of the first game. For those who are uninitiated, Remnant’s worlds are procedurally generated, and the dungeons in your campaign may not be the same as what others get in theirs. The same goes for the loot you can find, prompting players to explore other worlds or re-roll their own. Later on, the game allows you to host an adventure, which is separate from your main campaign. This creates a separate procedurally generated instance of any unlocked biome you choose. This enables you to explore dungeons your campaign didn’t roll with and subsequently unlock previously unattainable gear.

The gameplay loop remains largely the same. (If it ain’t broke…) The biggest difference perhaps is the scale. Remnant 2 doubles down on everything that fans loved about the first game, providing more weapons, mods, and perhaps more importantly, more Archetypes.

Archetypes are like classes and subclasses that allows you to customize your character and build to your preferer playstyle. The gunslinger class, for instance, is a new archetype that excels at ammo management, fire rate, and reload speeds, capable of fanning the hammer to take out several ads or fire a concentrated shot at a boss’ weakspot. The handler, on the other hand, is another new class that equips you with a companion dog that fights along side you and is capable of reviving you when you’d downed; an absolute gamechanger if you plan to play solo.

The difficulty curve is a bit all over the place. You’ll likely find the game very challenging in your first few hours. This can be quite frustrating as initially as certain mechanics will seem quite unfair while you lack certain abilities and traits. The game can be played solo but co-op is highly recommended. Unlike souls games, your coop partners are persistent and stay with you throughout your session. This makes for really fun session with friends, but you’d be mistaken to think that the game will be any easier. Enemy health and damage sustained scales based on the number of players, but having someone capable of reviving you or bring with them a different set of archetypes can really mean the difference.

After around unlocking your first subclass, the game begins to open up quite a bit in terms of your characters capabilities and tools to handle the game’s challenges. But along the way you will still find yourself being stuck quite a few times on certain areas where the difficulty spikes quite a bit, once again forcing yourself to rely more on wit and luck rather than just your build.

Perhaps what the most endearing aspect of the game at least for me is its vast amount of secrets and puzzles. What’s seemingly a straightforward dungeon could sometimes hold secret rooms, boss-fights, or even entire areas that at one point in my campaign, was much larger than the main dungeon itself.  In fact, as of this writing, many players with over 400 hours played have yet to see everything the game has to offer, some secrets were even only uncovered through datamining since pre-conditions were way too specific that no one was able to discover it manually.

VISUALS & PERFORMANCE

Remnant 2, on the surface, do not look too different from the first game, which isn’t necessarily bad, the first game looked great. The game looks like last gen graphics perfected; that’s a bout the best way I can describe the visuals and I meant it as a compliment. Nothing to flashy in terms of visuals and leaves everything pleasing on the eyes. That being said, despite not looking too over-the-top, the game seems to be poorly optimized on PC. Nothing too bad, and recent patches have made small improvements, still, maintaining a stable 60fps on an average to below average ping can be challenging, especially on the busier areas.

VERDICT

The high difficulty curve can be a deal breaker, especially considering the weak campaign and the poor optimization on PC. But powering through those initial gripes and coming to terms with lower-than-usual graphics settings, you’ll find the game can be quite rewarding, offering you a vastly customizable looter shooter that could easily turn into over 200 hours of souls-like shooter fun. If you are into Souls-like games, there’s a lot to love in Remnant 2. Though recent patches has improved optimization slightly, I would suggest playing on console if you consider your specs to be somewhere between average to below-average.

[This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher]