Remnant sequel lives up to its promise

ORIGINALLY coined as “Dark Souls with guns”, the first Remnant was a scrappy, unusual Souls-like game that managed to punch above its weight through some intriguing use of procedurally generated levels and great combat.

That basic summation was fairly on the nose too, as Remnant borrowed heavily from Souls games while translating them to a planet-spanning, gun-heavy adventure that mixed all manner of stereotypes such as post-apocalyptic worlds, fantasy and sci-fi.

It was more interesting than that though as the developers brought their own level of weird to the proceedings.

With Remnant 2, the shift to the Unreal 5 engine has brought a new graphical flair to the series while the game doubles down on its premise, offering more worlds, more classes and more weird.

It actually launched last year but has just received cross-play support for consoles, which has meant I’ve finally been able to play it the way it’s meant to be – with friends.

The story is one of interdimensional portals and an infection that’s spread across realities but for the most part, you’ll be concerned with losing yourself in the deep systems of the game while battling living trees and promethean nightmares.

As a co-op shooter, it excels, with each player picking up to two classes to specialise in, offsetting each other’s weaknesses and reviving each other when downed.

Scriptwriting and voice acting are found a little lacking but then, most people aren’t here for nuanced deliveries when faced with pustulating blob monsters and holographic laser cubes.