Remnant: From the Ashes
A surprisingly nourishing mechanical soup.
This odd genre mash-up looks like it was coughed out by a game development algorithm. It’s equal parts a third-person looter-shooter and a Dark Souls-inspired boss rush, with a cooperative emphasis and a dynamically generated campaign. Stylistically it’s inspired by fantasy, science-fiction, Westerns, postapocalyptic worlds and various kinds of horror fiction. Even the title reads like it was generated by a Twitter bot.
While Remnant resembles a cover shooter, in practice it plays much more like Dark Souls from an over-theshoulder perspective. Basic enemies are aggressive and hit hard, so to stay alive for any length of time you need to evade their attacks. Gradually, you pick your way through the ruins, moving between glowing crystals analogous to Dark Souls’ bonfires and fighting creatively designed bosses. It’s fine, but nothing stands out about the design.
Then Remnant conjures a castle out of the sky, and the whole game becomes far more interesting. Suddenly, you’re no longer wandering the ruins of Earth. You’re on Rhom, a desert planet populated by spear-chucking cavemen, living in the shadow of ancient obsidian obelisks. It’s the beginning of a bonkers pan-dimensional adventure, and where the game’s systems begin to pay off.
Unlike The Division, which dripfeeds the player incrementally better guns, Remnant’s loot is less common and more tailored. The real treasures are dropped by bosses, powerful items which can be taken back to Ward 13 to craft new weapons and weapon mods. These weapons are as unique as the bosses used to make them. After defeating a fire-spitting demon called Singe, I craft a submachine gun that fires incendiary bullets as a default.
BOSS ENCOUNTERS
Remnant’s most unique feature is its dynamically generated campaign. Environments can be laid out in different ways and dungeons located in different places. Similarly, each boss encounter has several possible variants. I played through the first half of Remnant twice, and in the second run, Singe was replaced by the Ent, a giant tree with a face like Cthulhu. It’s a clever way of encouraging you to invest in other players’ campaigns, and arguably better design than having a massive, shared world you only explore once.
Elsewhere, although Remnant’s dimension-hopping makes for a fun adventure, the game struggles to tie its threads together narratively. Remnant borrows Dark Souls’ approach to storytelling, using item descriptions and fragmented conversations with NPCs to build its lore. But Dark Souls’ world is cogent, consistent, and painstakingly built. Remnant too often feels like it’s making things up as it goes along.
I’d happily play more of Remnant. Its strange worlds, robust challenge, and bespoke loot make it a refreshing alternative to the drab militarism of The Division.