Concluse 2 is the sequel to a free game that itself was based on a series of YouTube videos by the creator, Jon Martin, about a playthrough of a fake PS1 game. Until of course they actually made it into a real game. The sequel maintains various links to the original series, but also takes massive strides to create its own identity and deeper storyline.
This game continues the fate of protagonist Michael Benson whom searches for his missing wife in a dark and haunted reality. This game features a lot of combat with a variety of weapons and items to use. The player receives an axe early on, and then a supernatural handgun which serves as the primary game's weapon, plus other gadgets to help with puzzles and exploration. The enemy variety is enormous, with some appearing only once, so there are always new spooks to experience. The game features around 19 boss battles which feature their own mechanics and difficulties. Accompanying them are fantastic scenarios, voice acting, and cutscenes.
The voice talent used is of a very high standard. They all carry the game's story to a level beyond its writing with great emotional range. The music is superb also, and they all go together ever so well. There are some great introductions to the characters, such as Ducky the evil singing TV show presenter, and the long-awaited appearance of Daisy from the original YouTube series.
A big thing to note is that Concluse 2 is sort of 2 games bundled together. About half of the game concerns Michael's search through the Edison Hotel, but the other half is about a ruined East Asian-cultured floating city called the Drifting Prefecture which go into the consequences of what the substance "concluse" is, and the disaster it has bestowed. When the player arrives in the Prefecture game introduces character portraits to match the Prefecture's environments, the amount of voice acting and story ramps up massively, and there are RPG-light elements such as shop keepers and upgrades. The game maintains its horror throughout the Prefecture sections, and at rare moments ramps up the explosion factor to an anime-esque level.
Concluse 2 has tons of mystery, with me liking the story that the game told, and I would have enjoyed more resolutions and explanations to what was happening. There are several threads which develop without a definitive conclusion, and by the very end of the game far more questions are asked than are answered. Some of the objectives can be hard at times to figure out where to go to next, but pressing escape does show what the current goal should be, and this is updated regularly as you progress.
The game took me roughly 20 hours to complete, and there are both save slots plus the ability to start a new game from 1 of 3 key moments upon reaching them. Pressing escape pauses the cutscenes, which cannot be skipped, though the conversation dialogue can for those who want to go through repeated runs.
In the end it was a very good experience. I've completed the game several times over and still enjoy the high amount of charm within.

Wait before playing this game. It is unfortunately broken and not ready. It has been back to back game breaking issues that I've encountered causing repeat reloading of saves just to get through certain areas and this is JUST in the first chapter. I have faith that it'll get better but if you're on the fence, hold off for updates.

The other issue that I have is that certain very obvious things are explained directly to you, while things that should be explained are unbelievably vague and left for you to figure out. This combined with interactable objects breaking, tiny interact boxes, and the player losing the ability to change weapons or move or interact at seemingly random times is enough to frustrate even a shaolin monk.

Just be aware of this if you plan to be one of the first to purchase.

Will update this review after a week of updates.

There's a level of uniqueness and joy that came from our 2 and a half hours with Concluse 2.

It's a game that tricks you into thinking it's going to be another modernized PSX graphics Silent Hill clone. That it's going to rely on genre stereotypes and provide the minimum. But it's not. It's a game that, as soon as the facade breaks, becomes it's own uniquely dark, twisted, and truly fun survival horror experience.

What the game lacks in clear direction (for the most part, I'll get back to that in a second) it makes up for in double by having levels quite worth exploring, if not for the atmosphere but for the subtle visual story telling. For many dots to be connected, and for a beauty in the soft yet gritty textures of the world of Concluse 2.

With that being said, my only actual issue with the game...bugs aside, I don't touch bug discussions I don't fault any team of this size for bugs or anything, but yeah my only ACTUAL issue is the game has a bit of a hard time deciding how difficult it wants to be at times. Some puzzles and levels are grossly simple while others are so out of the box that it creates a sense of being lost in the sauce.

Let's make a hypothetical here. One puzzle might be "A Guest in the hotel needs a glass of water at room 420!" and you find next to that note a glass of water. Cool, simple, right? Now another puzzle might be having to use an item you picked up 20 minutes or so prior and was told had a single purpose to interact with a physical entity in a manor that's only subtly hinted at in an entirely missable note with no "use" or interact prompt....yeah I mean...yeah...you know what boss fight I'm talking about.

But yeah, at the end of the day I'd fully recommend checking out Concluse 2, and probably Concluse 1, I know I'm going to pick it up today to see how far the team has come since their first rodeo, but for what it's worth I think they have an incredibly fantastic little gem to be proud of here.

I don't do number reviews or anything, just go play it. It's fun.

I don't normally review games but this game deserves it.

I was a big fan of the first game, despite it's faults and lack luster endgame.
I was a little worried that this game would be the same.
But I was pleasantly surprised in only the first hour of the game.
The voice acting, while a bit hammy, really enhances the games. It's kinda like Silent Hill 2's acting.
The puzzles were good like I expected them to be, but the fishing rod really does stand out as a highlight, in both as a "weapon" and as a puzzle solving device.
The biggest moment for me was during the first boss fight. I won't spoil anything here but the look on my face when what I thought would be a joke of an idea lead to me actually beating the boss was unmatched.
I hope this game continues to surprise me as I play more.

If it keeps up, this is certainly my indie game of the year.

Even though the review is "positive", i'm gonna be honest and say that this game has a lot of bugs/glitches and other problems.
I lked the story and the gameplay, and for a game made only by 2 devs it took me 25 hours to finish it, they worked hard and with love for their product, you can see that when you play the game.
They already released tons of hotfixes and 6 patches to improve the quality of the game,they respond to the community very quickly.
They are working non-stop and this behaviour honors them.
Tons of different enemies , puzzles and a very original gameplay and story-telling style.
But this is still far from a "perfect" product, if you play it now you will encounter many bugs and some possible softlock, but if you have patience and manage to get past these defects you will have a good time.

I am having a very hard time trying to find the words to describe CONCLUSE 2 in a way that isn't the most off-putting combination of descriptors possible.

I love it though.

CONCLUSE 2 is bizarre, almost outsider survival horror in the way that Clock Tower 3 is - combining harsh tonal shifts and seemingly incompatible genres to make something far more interesting and effective than the sum of its parts. It's also pretty janky and amateurish, but these just add to its alien charm.

I didn't expect anything out of this game. What I got was a 20 hour psychological body-horror isekai, containing themes and instances of: love, viral outbreaks, romantic regret, sexual abuse, metaphysics, reality shifting, talking weapons, evil duck, prostitution, explicit on-screen child murder, explicit on-screen simulated intercourse, 3D printing, ritual sacrifice, parenthood, xenophobia, genetic cloning, artificial intelligence, the ku klux klan, game development, kaiju, workplace violence, political bureaucracy, ghosts, and fishing. Does CONCLUSE 2 handle most of these things with subtlety or care? No. But I have to respect a game that chooses to go in every direction possible, even if none of those directions are all that relevant or explored.

CONCLUSE 2 is an inimitable experience. It's already a GOTY contender for me, just for sheer audaciousness alone. If you want a solid, traditional survival horror game, play literally anything other than CONCLUSE 2. If you instead want a psychotic and uncategorizable game that is really 3 or maybe even 4 games, or a game that changes genre and stakes every twenty minutes and that lets you grind on rails with SOAP shoes like Sonic Adventure 2, then CONCLUSE 2 is prefect for you.

Edit: 6+ hours into the game now and I will say the good thing is that the dev is patching the game like crazy to fix things that are going wrong. But before that happened, I spent hours in one level with a never-ending ringing telephone that drove me completely insane to the point where I couldn't concentrate on anything because the phone rang all over the map no matter where I was and at a loud volume as if it was right next to me. When I finally managed to escape the living hell that was this level (after a patch fixed the phone for me) I arrived at an airport where suddenly several enemies were now invincible (or at least if they weren't, I couldn't figure out how to take them out). Bullets did nothing, the axe would sort of appear to hurt them but they never died or slowed down in any way. There were 2 of these enemies following me all over the very, very short map so I just kept taking damage that I couldn't help while trying to solve a puzzle I can't solve because these enemies won't leave me alone. I mean I don't know what else to add to this but if you could put yourself in my shoes after the hell I went through the previous level to then be thrust into a level where I can't do anything - that was just the final nail in the coffin. I can't give it a negative review because it's a super creative game and they're patching it like crazy but I have lost all desire to continue playing it and that's a shame. It's very creative but I can't keep going right now.

I'm only an hour in but I'm really enjoying this so far. It improves on the first game in just about every way imaginable. I did experience 1 small issue when I was interacting with the plaque in front of the first boss. I heard an enemy behind me so I closed out of the screen without choosing one of the two options it presented (Look Up or Wait) and doing this caused the game to break. I was no longer able to interact with anything, I had to reload my save so I could do it again.

But other than that small issue everything from the story to the cutscenes to the puzzles to the combat is improved from the first game or welcome additions. I'm very excited to see where this goes. The first game is one of my favorite free to play horror games of all time and this one, although not free, from what I understand has an insane amount of content for the $15 price tag. I can definitely recommend it at this point in my gameplay.

This game is an experiance to say the least and a loving tribute to silent hill. The unique concepts and ideas at play here are honestly impressive and while some parts of the game are better than others its still a fun and thrilling ride into the world inspired heavily by silent hill, Worth it at full price easily. 10/10

Concluse 2 is what happens when you have so much intense creative energy to put into a project that you just keep pushing on it instead of stopping. It is a game that pauses only briefly to say "can we do this better?" but never stops long enough to worry about its jank. It is confident in what it is delivering upon in a way that can only be induced by lightning, divine inspiration, and the sort of cockiness that more creatives should possess.

The best summary I can give of Concluse 2, as I have given again and again to my friends, is "what if a guy made a Homestuck out of Silent Hill 2." What if the mind-twisting feeling of watching 360p videos of a 19 year old play through Silent Hill on their PSone via YouTube was piped directly into the cosmic planar Original Charactersphere of Homestuck-likes.

Was it Silent Hill 2? Or 3? Or 4? Or the first? Though the planting of Michael's missing wife is the most evocative of 2, the character development plays more straightforwardly ala 3, while maintaining many of the vibes of the first, and some of the surrealist monster designs of 4, and i could name a dozen other media properties off the back of my hand that i'm 95% were direct inspiration. I wish I had this clarity of vision, for I too wish that every time I saw a cool piece on inspiration I *immediately* knew how to expand my magnum opus.

Like an evolving conclusion, the inspirations coalesce into a multi-armed narrative that touches not only parallel, distant worlds; but parallel, alternate paths. Realities played elsewhere, in other times. Should you play Concluse? Should you watch the YouTube series all this is based on? Should you jump directly into Concluse 2? Okay you should definitely jump directly into Concluse 2, and if Chapter 2 title drop of The Drifting Prefecture and the unlocks of the secret mirror universe idol band music videos make your head roll 190° in enthralled confusion *then* proceed to immerse yourself in the rest of the sprawling heap.

I think the thing that surprised me the most about Concluse 2 was two elements: First, the sincerely wonderful scenery design, especially in the titular Drifting Prefecture. The tight city scenery is so deeply evocative, feeling truly like an infested delapitated place, and even on the easiest difficulty settings gave a haunting feeling that I reveled in. Second, the strict adherance to constantly being the coolest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game I've ever played.

This game has such a small team working on it and it's 30 hours long. Do you know how much of it is *cutscenes*? I cannot even begin to describe how many cool things are in this game. So here's a list of some of them:
- You perform mortal combat finishers with a fishing rod in a boss fight
- Fight a giant baby in a tank
- 3D print The New Flesh with the help of a carnivorous eyeball robot
- Arson
- Surprising amounts of regicide
- Michael learns HYPERBEAM
- Throbbing Cronenbergian guns
- Apocalyptic family collapse
- Evil airport
- Fight the evil Grand Wizard. Yeah, that one. No no, yeah. Yeah that one. With the hoods and everything. Kill them. Super dead by the time you're done with them. They try to summon a big worm and it goes horribly for them. It whips.
- Anime Visual Novel portraits
- Duck Dynasty Dad Fight
- Evil Goo
- Evil Goo Drugs
- Thomas Edison sucks ♥♥♥♥ once again

You might at this point say "*what are you talking about*?" and I would tell you that it's a fair point for you to ask me that. Look. I can't say you'll necessarily enjoy this game. You may not even find it particularly playable. There's a lot of jank in here. But there's also a LOT of incredible storytelling that is delivered with such earnest panache that I thoroughly loved every second of it. Do you know when the last time I was hooting and hollering at a video game before this was? I don't remember either, honestly. My brain was basically entirely consumed by Concluse 2 from December 2023 to April 2024. I could not stop talking about it. I will not stop talking about it. I NEED Concluse 3 to be real one day, or I might sincerely evaporate from anticipation.

One final note for my fellow queers: T4T Michael / Caroline is my headcanon. Look how clocky she is in Chapter 3. I know that's the PSX graphics, but I can believe.

CONCLUSE 2 is a game that is difficult to categorize exactly. And that's good. I don't want to say much about the story, it would be difficult to do in a short review! :)

I like the weird style of the game because every time you think you have a little idea what's going on, you're surprised!
Despite minor bugs and glitches, I am very impressed with what this little studio has achieved!
It's definitely worth the price because in return you get a good 20-25 hours of playing time! You can also tell that a lot of heart and soul has gone into this!

Thank you for the wonderful Strange Trip and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next with the Stratum from Concluse!