Remnant II Review: Gameplay Videos and Multiplayer Impressions

Remnant II is the follow-up to Remnant: From The Ashes from developer Gunfire Games.

That 2019 debut became a sleeper hit for many who fancy loot-based games and experiences such as Dark Souls while providing a very appealing foundation for much bigger things in the future.

The future would appear to be now as Remnant II is a much more in-depth, third-person shooter and procedural generation Soulslike that looks and feels much better than its predecessor, too.

While it has the task of competing in a very oversaturated market space at launch, it certainly appears to have the weight to elbow aside many of the biggest names.

Graphics and Gameplay

Remnant II is a looker and deeply immersive, to say the least. Visuals and presentation are one of the biggest areas of upgrade stressing just how much the support around the game boomed from a handful of developers to a larger group.

Players will travel through a big variety of different biomes and locales over the course of the game. There are crypts with waist-high water, forests, jungles, cities and bosses that can make the player feel quite, quite small, to boot.

Each area is packed painstakingly with details and little effects that tell a bigger story. Exploration won't go unrewarded either, not with so much in the way of hidden things to uncover. Some of these puzzles are not easy either, bringing back an old-school feel to exploration as opposed to the new era of run to this cursor and hit a button for an unlock.

While there aren't a ton of friendlies out in the world to interact with beyond the base hub area, enemy diversity is at least a huge boon. They all look distinct to their respective biomes and span all sorts of classes, be it up-close bruisers, aerial enemies and even long-range snipers who fade into the background after taking potshots.

Overall gameplay look and immersion is just really, really good. The over-the-shoulder perspective is fantastic while aiming, with hair flowing realistically against feedback from firearms and the characters emoting as they do so.

Combat is punchy too, with a lot of vibrations and booms tied to pulling a trigger. It's a thing many shooters struggle with, but not here.

So as a looter-shooter without a live-service element, Remnant II's gameplay loop boils down to something simple—tackle a mission, return to a hub littered with vendors and people, spend the earned currency on upgrades and do it all over again.

It's old-school refreshing and, most importantly, fun.

Exploring the world is just fun to do, too, and there thankfully isn't a stamina meter holding the player back outside of combat. A well-crafted 3D map makes it easy to navigate dungeons that have some impressive verticality to them.

There are even bonfire-like checkpoints and healing items inspired by Dark Souls, asking players to routinely explore each route and properly manage items between them.

Combat-wise, Remnant II channels a ton of prior experiences, ranging from Gears of War to other old-school shooters as players dodge around environments in and out of cover, chucking bullets down range toward enemies between rolls. It's a little janky and clunky, asking players to plot out moves just a little enough in advance to make it feel nicely strategic.

One of the bigger upgrades on the gameplay side won't be easy to guess. Some might suggest gunplay or environmental interaction, but it's actually melee combat. It's impactful and can swing a tough fight, helping to create space. Third-person shooters tend to struggle with this too, but not here.

Even boss battles tend to feel fantastic, largely because they differ from the usual genre staples. These often include some sort of puzzle to tackle beyond simply juggling wave after wave of enemies after the boss reaches a certain health gate.

Given the deep nature of the buildcrafting, team composition can be an important part of success or failure. There are class system ultimate-styled moves, with a good example being how the medic's ultimate ability can revive players and send out massive healing bursts, outright saving an encounter from a wipe.

In looter-shooterish fashion, enemies level to a player's gear score, though often in a way that feels fair. The game feels like it wants players to get better in this regard and find rewards from skill improvement and strategic decisions, not just arbitrarily raising the number on a piece of gear mindlessly.

Players turned off by the description that Remnant II is a Soulslike experience designed to test patience and endurance need not worry. It has some elements of that subgenre, yes, but the aim assist feels like it's set to high and there are a significant amount of i-frames during every dodge. It's not an easy game, but it's clearly one tuned to be accessible to a wide audience and simply fun, not a stress test.

Story and More

Remnant II is not a story-heavy game, at least in the form of delivery. The long and the short of it is in the wake of humanity opening up portal-styled transportation, an enemy known as The Root emerged. Now players must dive through and tackle The Root in the great unknowns beyond to prevent the collapse of humanity's remains.

Much of the storytelling happens within the environments themselves. Some might not love that it isn't right in their faces at all times, but a deep-as-you-want-it route for those who look deep enough and pick up on cues seems to fit the game's whole vibe.

Speaking of vibe, there's something really fitting in this environmentally-based storytelling as players struggle to slap painted leather and rough-looking metal together to protect themselves against the supernatural while shying away from heavy sci-fi-like lasers.

The procedural generation certainly isn't just a gimmick here either. It includes storylines, NPCs, side quests, even boss fights, to the point it seems plausible that two playthroughs could be entirely different.

As for the in-depth buildcrafting, the game flexes a very impressive multiclass system. This essentially lets players pull from a hodgepodge of different classes. In addition to weapon mods and skills, players get passive boosts and an archetype trait, the last of which levels on its own and can then be swapped in and out, allowing players to dip into other playstyles.

Players pick from medic, marksman, or tank specifications, then from several archetypes that spiral out from those three options.

Much of it sounds exactly like what it does. A gunslinger can roll perks such as timed infinite ammo and team-based boosts that provide teammates more ammo when they come across some.

The Handler class is one of those other fun things that continues to set this budding series apart. That character has a dog as a companion, which makes it fun in any setting and a must-have for solo players who tackle this game alone.

Beyond that, Remnant II features extensive progression in the form of picking from perks (Prime, Damage, Team, Utility and Relic) while juggling other modifiers like rings, armors and the ability to craft items.

One of the big things to chase are mutators, which drop from important enemies and let players apply what are effectively full set bonuses. Smartly, this frees up players to use whatever armors they want.

Regular looter-shooter players might find themselves a little caught off guard. The game isn't shoving a shiny new purple legendary weapon down their throats at every turn or incessantly nudging the player to go spend spoils at shops conveniently located next to vendors that take real-life money. That might turn some players off, but it should lure in an even bigger percentage of players who don't usually vibe with these types of experiences.

The game is also impressively technically sound, as it runs well and connections are mostly smooth. It's a nice feat for a newer series trying so many things at once (never mind procedural generation, of all things), especially when so many recent games have run poorly at launch.

Conclusion

Remnant II is one of the most interesting genre blends we've seen in a long time. It's a looter-shooter in a sense, but a rewarding one without the live-service element that feels geared toward addiction. It's a Souls-esque experience, but accessible enough on normal difficulties that it won't push players away. And it's super deep in terms of buildcrafting, a responsive shooter and procedurally generated for nice replayability.

In short, it should be a nice stress test to see if such a quality experience can develop a dedicated community and long legs sans features like battle passes and the usual jazz of games these days.

Very much a refreshing throwback in some ways and a savvy trailblazer in others, Remnant II is surprisingly a can't-miss game in a year stacked with must-have releases.