Normally I reserve the time to write a review until after I've completed the main campaign, but I will make an exception in this case, because even though I haven't completed the main campaign yet, I am still absolutely in love with this game, and there's basically nothing that could sour my opinion of this game in the remaining bits I have yet to see.

Remnant 2 takes everything that made Remnant 1 great, and expands upon it, and adds more things that elevate the experience to something greater. "Souls-like with guns" really only scratches the surface of what this game has to offer. It has challenging but fair combat, it has mind-twisting puzzles, it has lore for *days*, and potential endless replayability. It is basically everything I wanted in a sequel to Remnant: From the Ashes, and it's perfect in that regard.

I am particularly fond of how easy the game is to pick up, yet hard to master, and requires some good aim skill and reaction skill to be truly effective. The addition of the Archetype system is a very welcome chance from Remnant, as it effectively allows you to run more "mods" than before, as some of the weapon mods from the previous game are now just "skills" on a cooldown timer, making it possible to be more flexible in the builds you can make.

The addition of the Handler Archetype is also great, particularly for people who prefer to play these kinds of games in single player, as it gives you a Dog companion that can help you fight enemies and even revive you if you go down. And yes, you can pet the dog. "Who's a good doggie? Who's a good doggie? You are! Yes, you are!"

In terms of criticism I will definitely say that the game is suffering from some performance issues. With my 5900X, 6800XT, 32 GB RAM machine I can *only* get 70-100 FPS on 1080p if I've cranked everything to Ultra except Shadows, Motion Blur and DoF. Normally I can get much more than that from most games. Also, I refuse to use upscaling tech like FSR or DLSS because the image is never ever going to look as good as it would at a native resolution, AND it has a tendency to cause "ghosting", which is a very ugly side-effect of upscaling, but it should not matter on a beast machine like mine.

I've also experienced occasional connection issues between me and my friends, but they're usually solved by restarting the game, but it should still not be happening as frequently as it does.

But aside from the performance issues and the occasional connection issue, Remnant 2 is more or less the perfect sequel to an already great game, and Remnant 2 is already a personal GOTY contender.

Normally I reserve the time to write a review until after I've completed the main campaign, but I will make an exception in this case, because even though I haven't completed the main campaign yet, I am still absolutely in love with this game, and there's basically nothing that could sour my opinion of this game in the remaining bits I have yet to see. Remnant 2 takes everything that made Remnant 1 great, and expands upon it, and adds more things that elevate the experience to something greater. "Souls-like with guns" really only scratches the surface of what this game has to offer. It has challenging but fair combat, it has mind-twisting puzzles, it has lore for *days*, and potential endless replayability. It is basically everything I wanted in a sequel to Remnant: From the Ashes, and it's perfect in that regard. I am particularly fond of how easy the game is to pick up, yet hard to master, and requires some good aim skill and reaction skill to be truly effective. The addition of the Archetype system is a very welcome chance from Remnant, as it effectively allows you to run more "mods" than before, as some of the weapon mods from the previous game are now just "skills" on a cooldown timer, making it possible to be more flexible in the builds you can make. The addition of the Handler Archetype is also great, particularly for people who prefer to play these kinds of games in single player, as it gives you a Dog companion that can help you fight enemies and even revive you if you go down. [i]And yes, you can pet the dog.[/i] "Who's a good doggie? Who's a good doggie? You are! Yes, you are!" In terms of criticism I will definitely say that the game is suffering from some performance issues. With my 5900X, 6800XT, 32 GB RAM machine I can *only* get 70-100 FPS on 1080p if I've cranked everything to Ultra except Shadows, Motion Blur and DoF. Normally I can get much more than that from most games. Also, I refuse to use upscaling tech like FSR or DLSS because the image is never ever going to look as good as it would at a native resolution, AND it has a tendency to cause "ghosting", which is a very ugly side-effect of upscaling, but it should not matter on a beast machine like mine. I've also experienced occasional connection issues between me and my friends, but they're usually solved by restarting the game, but it should still not be happening as frequently as it does. But aside from the performance issues and the occasional connection issue, Remnant 2 is more or less the perfect sequel to an already great game, and Remnant 2 is already a personal GOTY contender.