The sci-fi looter-shooter I’ve been waiting for - Remnant II Quick Review

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play this one, because it’s bound to be one of this year’s best games, and it’s in danger of being overshadowed by a slew of bigger titles that are dominating the hype cycle right now. Remnant II is the best looter-shooter I've played in years, assembling things I loved from The Division and Outriders along with bits of Dark Souls, The Last of Us, and Gears of War. To top it all off, Remnant II has a thrilling multidimensional sci-fi premise that provides the thematic foundation for what I believe is the most inventive and fluid uses of roguelike worldbuilding, ever.

TIME PLAYED

I’ve played eight hours of Remnant II so far, and I’m bound to log a lot more time with it over the rest of the year. In the time I’ve played, I’ve made my way through the introduction, met the rag-tag group of human survivors at the settlement called Ward 13 (which returning players will remember as the base of operations in Remnant: From the Ashes), and ventured out into the first biome, where I’ve encountered two of the game’s many challenging bosses.

Here’s the brilliant thing, though: If you were to jump into Remnant II right now, you’d probably have a completely different experience. You’d play different levels, find different dungeons, fight different bosses, and even see a different storyline. We’ll talk about that in a minute.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Roguelike done right. The roguelike (or rogue-lite) genre has fallen out of fashion a bit, and I think it’s because players and developers noticed that while these games were generating unique levels for every run, they tended to be…pretty boring in exactly the same way every time. Happily, that’s not the case for Remnant II, which takes the procedural level generation concept and extends it to boss fights and even its storyline.

Levels themselves are pretty straightforward, but they’re built from gorgeous components that allow the game to create impressive vistas and spooky catacombs full of glowing red fungus. It’s so well done that it would be easy to completely miss the fact that these levels were created on the fly—up until you revisited an area and found things rearranged.

I mentioned this before, but it’s an incredible thing to see pulled off this effortlessly: Two people starting new Remnant II saves will most likely see different initial levels, different story beats, and a different set of bosses. While I was playing, there was nothing to indicate I was playing anything other than a hand-crafted storyline through a series of well-constructed levels. As in the first game, though, even two players who wind up in the same biome to start out will likely fight different bosses while they’re there. There’s no way to see all of what Remnant II has to offer in a single playthrough.

• A flexible, generous class system. If the variety offered by the procedural generation system weren’t enough, Remnant II also has a strong set of customizable classes, called archetypes, that completely alter the way the game is played. For my first playthrough I picked the Gunslinger archetype, which specializes in ranged combat and never has to worry much about ammo thanks to its special perk. However, I’m looking forward to trying out the Challenger archetype, a tank class that excels in close combat with high survivability and lots of damage buffs. There’s also a handler archetype that includes an awesome dog companion that you (or your co-op buddies) can pet at any time.

What’s really cool is that I won’t have to start a new playthrough to try out new archetypes. I can switch to any archetype I’ve earned at any time, although each one does have to be leveled up individually. Once my Gunslinger has enough experience, I’ll be able to add a secondary archetype, allowing me to mix and match based on the playstyle I’ve developed.

• Combat. Fighting in Remnant II feels great, and it’s been a consistent challenge for me on veteran difficulty. Even within the one biome I’ve explored, the enemy variety has been impressive: Outside in the overworld, I ran into organic creatures made of tree roots that ranged from tree lizards to lumbering sacs of orange explosives, as well as vicious fiery dragonflies and rolling balls with giant mouths. I encountered more fearsome “special” monsters in the dungeons, which included a hooded, scythe-wielding assassin who would retreat and spawn a fresh clone of itself when I damaged it enough, a mass of roots and horns armed with a cannon, and wizards who summon new root soldiers from out of the ground itself.

• Boss fights. One of the big things that held Remnant: From the Ashes back from greatness was its boss fights, which, while sometimes neat-looking, tended to make themselves challenging simply by giving bosses huge health pools. Remnant II corrects for this and more. Boss encounters are weird, challenging, and spectacular in the way that the best Souls bosses are, and I found that defeating them required the same kind of dedication and study.

The first boss I ran into was a swamp monster with a giant sword who I fought in a waterlogged arena. The first few times I walked in, the thing simply flattened me, either with an aggressive melee attack or one of the tentacles it sent under the ground. It took me more than a dozen attempts to get to the point that I could read and respond to its moves, and when the penny finally dropped, I was thrilled: I could get this guy. Souls fans know this feeling well, and there are few games that can evoke the feeling of going from utterly hopeless to knowing that victory has become inevitable.

WHAT SUCKS

In the eight hours I’ve spent with Remnant II, I honestly haven’t run into anything that actually “sucks.” This is pretty rare—I can almost always find something to complain about, even in games I really like. For the sake of being thorough, I’ve noted something I found mildly annoying:

• Unclear weapon mod and ability descriptions. One of the ways Remnant II let me experiment with combat is its weapon mod system. It’s similar to the one found in the first game, allowing me to have a special new mod built using a part I picked up from a defeated boss. The frustrating thing is that I’m not always clear on how a mod is going to function out in the field. I’d have to activate it a couple times to get the hang of it. For me, it would have been helpful to have one of those little video clips that shows the feature in action—that way I’d have a better idea of the ideal time to activate it.

💬 Will you be heading out on this adventure into the multiverse, or is Remnant II going to take a back seat to Baldur’s Gate 3 and Starfield? Let me know in the comments!