Remnant II – Initial Impressions

First Impressions on Remnant II

Warning: Minor spoilers ahead, may mention a boss encounter or puzzle. Names and locations are vague on purpose.

Gunfire Games’ Remnant series has always piqued my interest, and I haven’t had a chance to play the first game. On a whim, I decided to spend the weekend playing the sequel. The Remnant series was pitched to me in a way as a ‘souls-like’ with guns. I’m 17 hours in and it tickles that part of my brain in a way that no other co-operative, loot-based action RPG has done for me since 2009’s Borderlands.

As a sequel to 2019’s Remnant: From the Ashes, Remnant II aims to double down on what made the original so well received, emphasizing player expression by offering varied playstyles strengthened through the game’s build diversity and loot pool.

Remnant II is a cooperative third-person shooter ripe with multiple class archetypes, unique weapons to attain through branching storylines, and zones ranging from a Bloodborne-inspired Yharnam-like village called ‘Losomn’ to cold alien technology similar to something out of Destiny 2’s Vex Machine World. The game’s level design borrows cues from the Souls series I had come to know and expect, but there are embellishments beyond the typical ‘Miyazaki’ locked door leading to the dungeon’s entrance a lot of other ‘Souls-likes’ often do that Remnant recognizes and varies the level design in a way that makes each subsequent playthrough more interesting and engaging than the last.

For starters, each run-through of an area is randomized, meaning that boss spawns, world events and items can all vary, even allowing an option to ‘reroll’ your campaign to get a different starting level. The game encourages you to run through the campaign multiple times, even offering a Diablo 3-style ‘Adventure Mode’ where you run through a randomized version of each zone. Within each zone are hidden dungeon entrances and strange NPCs with questlines and items to purchase or find.

jtran Remnant 2

A ‘not so subtle’ Metroid reference. Taken from my Twitch stream.

Remnant II offers three difficulties to start and a ‘hardcore’ mode where death is permanent. I started on the highest available difficulty, thinking “How bad could it be?” The game even warns you that it’s not a good starting point without at least some gear, upgrades, or talent points. While it’s certainly possible for someone with impeccable aim and ‘LetMeSoloHer‘ dodge timing to get through the initial learning curve of the game, the Survivor difficulty is absolutely fine as a starting point, especially if you happen to be a solo player. If you’re playing in a group, I’d recommend the Veteran difficulty depending on how adept your fire team happens to be. There’s a fourth difficulty, ‘Apocalypse’ and the only description is ‘good luck.’

I quickly designed my character with the limited options available and I was on my way – storywise, initial impressions of the game felt as if my character was the protagonist of an ‘isekai’ anime, constantly asking questions right down to the dialogue options the game provides. What Gunfire Games achieves here with Remnant II is great to see, especially for fans of FromSoftware games where most of the lore is contextual and done through environmental storytelling with an additional 2-hour video essay for research.

If I were to nitpick, I think that our character talks too much in between enemy encounters. The constant quips make the typical ‘souls’ enemy jump scare a little less so or when you’re backtracking through a level after a silly deathtrap gets you. It’s only more obvious because, on the current patch, the voice audio is mixed heavily into the left channel – ironically giving me a jump scare.

At the time of writing, the game’s optimization isn’t fantastic, particularly the transitions between the map menu and loading. Textures and geometry pop-in are noticeable but the experience has been smooth otherwise. Thankfully Gunfire Games has already addressed this issue and should have a fix by the official release date.

[Update: a 587 MB update was pushed out as of 7/24/23 and it seems to have fixed the menu transition stutter and other issues mentioned here.]

Regarding controls, I stuck to mouse and keyboard for most of my playthrough. It looks like controller seems to be the preferred option because I couldn’t find any mouse-specific controls, but tuning most of the options down – including the ‘deadzone’ setting can get the camera controlling close to your preferred DPI input.

Remnant 2 jtran

Otherwise, what Remnant II does as a third-person action game feels nice, aiming feels snappy, and enemies are varied and have their weakpoints to hit. Transitioning between melee hits, dodging, and using skills make for an engaging moment-to-moment experience.

In one instance of my playthrough, I saw an opened coffin a floor below me, and a section of the retaining wall was missing. Zelda: A Link to the Past is one of my favorite games so by instinct, I threw my character into the coffin and found a hidden tunnel.

Link to the past

The hidden tunnel led to a flooded catacomb, filled with tree rot mummies. After clearing the area and making my way toward the stairs, a giant red health bar appeared at the top of my screen, “The Rot.” An amorphous blob barreled at me from the top rope and threw a bunch of lightning spells all around me in that flooded aqueduct. I died and was spit back out of the bonfire-esque checkpoint. Determined as I was, it took me another try going up the stairs and fighting on higher (and drier) grounds.

Oh and on my current run, I found a sweet one-handed crossbow from completing a questline which had me killing a specific dungeon boss, finding a ring, and giving that ring to another character in exchange for the crossbow. The unique ability it has recalls the crossbow bolts, over-refills the magazine, and heals me for a small percentage. I’ve got to say that finding weapons like these in Remnant II have felt extremely rewarding rather than random. Like playing shooting pool instead of pulling slots, is that a bad analogy? And this has all just been running through the campaign solo.

Now that I’ve gotten more into my build, I’ve joined other ‘adventure mode’ lobbies, and running through dungeons with two others is really where the gameplay of Remnant II shines. I’m excited to dive in more and see what other secrets Remnant II has to offer.

Remnant II is out now on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X

Minimum Specs:

-CPU: Intel Core i5-7600 / AMD Ryzen 5 2600

-Memory: 16GB RAM

-GPU: GeForce GTX 1650 / AMD Radeon RX 590

-80 GB available space

Recommended Specs:

-CPU: Intel i5-10600k / AMD Ryzen 5 3600

-Memory: 16GB RAM

-GPU: GeForce RTX 2060 / AMD Radeon RX 5700

-80 GB available space

System used for testing: