I’m what you might call a Souls-like freak.
This style of game is my bread and butter.
Remnant 2is Gunfire Games' take on Dark Souls meets bullets.
Remnant 2 has some insane weapons, like the Hellfire flamethrower.
Seriously, Remnant 2 is that incredible.
The first title persuaded me with its sharp, dialed-in combat.
Guns blazed the path of foes with a wide variety of weapon mods to complement the experience.
Remnant 2 does the same, returning to form with some of the finest coop gunplay I’ve experienced.
It’s chaotic in every sense but always seemingly manageable so long as you’re on your game.
Make a mistake; that’s on you, and trust me, you’ll make plenty.
Even the most seasoned of gamers will find a worthy challenge in the game.
Many times, I found myself dying to the silliest of things.
All the deaths I’ve tallied on my pilgrimage through Remnant have been of my own doing.
Remnant 2: The Pros
Guns, guns, and more guns.
Every class, gun, weapon mod, and mutator produced wildly different experiences.
Let’s start with what I believe to be the game’s core: primary weapons.
Every player will be gifted with a firearm that best suits their character’s archetype.
I was given a robust LMG that held 150 rounds.
My only worry during encounters became my inability to reload promptly and my gun’s spiteful capacity to overheat.
Remnant 2 has some insane weapons, like the Hellfire flamethrower.
Every upgrade provided a needed damage increase per round fired that felt suitably scaled throughout my playthrough.
Early, I came across my first weapon mod, Fire Bullets.
When charged, I unleashed a hellish barrage of projectiles from my muzzle that melted foes left and right.
You have a range of classes you can mix and match as part of your builds.
This weapon shot five rounds, which all returned on impact with the enemy.
It vends as much damage as my LMG but allows me to forget about nonsense like reloading.
I absolutely loved it, and it drove me to uncover as many superior firearms as possible.
Some of the elite enemies can be quite a challenge.
Helping players along the way, I found various relics, consumables, armor sets, and jewelry pieces.
These allowed me to build a character that best suited my playstyle.
A blistering fast glass cannon was my main go-to for most of the game.
Being a souls type game, Remnant 2 has a lot of bosses, and some will definitely test your abilities.
I augmented myself with a myriad set of rings and an amulet to match.
Anything that maximized my overall killing power was worn religiously.
I became a near-literal glass cannon build, and I love that!
Remnant 2 features a diverse selection of worlds to fight through.
Remnant 2 allows true player freedom, like today’s most renowned Soulslike titles.
Variety is king, and exploring the build combinations grants even more replayability.
Here’s to giving players a wide range of in-game items that genuinely change the experience.
Don’t mess with the Mother Mind. Just wipe her out.
Bosses and Enemies
A weapon is only as entertaining as the enemy you’re using it against.
A target standing still with no presentable threat isn’t the ideal setup for fun.
New mechanics emerge from world to world as well as from dungeon to dungeon.
Where pockets of gun-wielding foes might exist in one lair, another may contain a swarm of contact-exploding nutjobs.
Basic enemies, when faced, are quickly overtaken on a singular basis.
When grouped, their numbers and abilities prove sufficiently capable of dismantling even the best players.
One of the many different armor sets in Remnant 2. The Invader set is found on Root Earth.
It could be more straightforward, but this red gem is the heart of the beast.
Attacking it means the creature will meet its end far more quickly than if shot at directly.
A lesson I learned the hard way.
Everyone likes a puzzle, and Remnant 2 has its fair share.
Have you ever wanted to fight against the slow-falling intimidation of an electrified gem descending an elevator?
Remnant 2 gives you that chance, but only potentially, as your playthrough may differ entirely from mine.
The puzzle mechanics surrounding many boss fights make Remnant 2 all the more special to me.
The Nightweaver is one of the harder boss encounters in the game.
Players will find themselves combating gigantic foes while also engaged in a battle of wits.
This constant tug-of-war to balance the riddle-like fights with bosses keeps you guessing at the opening of every conflict.
Putting player freedom above all else once again.
If you’re hunting for one of the most important items in the game, you’ll come across Nimue.
To start, I rolled the Medic class.
Plus, after leveling it a bit, I was able to better keep my own teammates alive.
While Medic remained my primary archetype for a while, and I toyed around with Hunter as my second.
That is until I found the class I would use until I was near the end, Summoner.
I had found my first secret class, one I didn’t even know existed.
I came across it in Yaesha in a Blood Moon Altar.
There, I donated a world item that granted me the ideal solo class.
Medic plus Summoner gave me healing alongside extra targets to draw aggro while also dealing damage for me.
Later on, I completely abandoned these two classes for others that were also secret, Archon and Invader.
I’m delighted they ditched the original system and made it into what it is.
The puzzles in Remnant 2 are well-done and deserve a stamp of respect put on them.
They’re not only amusing, but I found myself seeking them out as I went through the world.
I rerolled the map in adventure mode to find and complete these puzzles myself.
Check out our Remnant 2 guides!
The portions leading to the reopening of the World Shard in Ward 13 are silly and make little sense.
This isn’t a story-driven game where players will find themselves shocked at every turn.
We simply need a vehicle for which to drive the story forward.
Give us a reason to save the universe, so to speak.
Remnant 2 delivers on that, and I even found myself tearing up towards the end.
Something I didn’t think I’d do.
Putting the nanite technology to work.
Scattered cloth with accurate visual movement, particle effects across the board, and highly detailed items littered about.
I played anywhere from Medium to Ultra configs at 1440p and extensively used DLSS in various forms.
Before launch, the game was unplayable even on high prefs without using one of the three super-sampling techniques.
It would even drop under 60 frames a second on medium tweaks.
DLSS, or your GPU variation, was an absolute must.
As of writing, those areas I saw drop below 30 no longer do.
I’ve gotten a decent 20 to 40-frame improvement, depending on the area.
Running through N’Erud, the area most notorious for these issues, was a much better experience.
This isn’t the same for everyone, though.
Mileage definitely varies depending on your setup.
Dropping resolution below 720p helps with FSR set to performance, but it doesn’t totally fix things.
If not from the developer, we’d expect some future tweaks to Proton could help.
But there’s undoubtedly promise for playing this game on theSteam Deck.
Remnant 2: Should you play?
The short answer is absolutely.
All while coming in for $50/44.99 in a world filled with titles that cost $20 more.
If you’re a genre fan, this game is an absolute must.
It quenches the thirst for discovery and challenge while reinvigorating what makes video games entertaining.
I never found myself becoming bored, nor will you.
