REMNANT II® Review Summary

Excellent co-op, rewarding secrets, and beautiful visuals with challenging bosses are held back by a mediocre story and poor optimization.

Co-op gameplay is highly praised: Players consistently highlight the cooperative mode as a standout feature, noting that it is fun, rewarding, and works well both with friends and strangers. The integration of co-op is seamless, making difficult fights feel like teamwork and enhancing overall enjoyment.

Rich secrets and exploration: The game is praised for its abundance of hidden secrets, puzzles, and optional content that reward exploration. Players enjoy uncovering lore, items, and hidden mechanics, which adds depth and encourages thorough map exploration.

Beautiful and impressive visuals: Reviewers frequently describe the game as visually stunning, with great graphics, world design, and level detail. The aesthetic appeal contributes significantly to the immersive experience, making exploration and combat more enjoyable.

Memorable and challenging boss fights: Boss battles are singled out as impressive, creative, and memorable, providing a satisfying level of challenge. Each boss feels mechanically unique, with great designs that are visually stunning and fun to fight.

Satisfying and fun combat: Combat is broadly praised for being smooth, satisfying, and fair, with a good balance between gunplay and melee. Players find it rewarding, challenging, and a core highlight of the game, keeping encounters engaging throughout.

Story is mediocre and forgettable: Many reviews agree the story is underwhelming, generic, and forgettable. Some also find it poorly written with an unsatisfying ending.

Poor optimization and performance issues: Players report frequent frame drops, freezes, and low FPS, especially on lower-end hardware. DLSS is often needed to achieve playable performance, indicating poor optimization.

Difficulty overwhelming for new players: The game's difficulty can be punishing, especially for newcomers. Difficulty spikes and the overall challenge may deter some players or make the experience frustrating.

Lack of communication options: The game has no voice chat or text chat, severely hampering multiplayer coordination. Public co-op with random players becomes frustrating due to lack of communication.

Confusing maps and navigation: Map guidance is poor, lacking markers and making navigation tedious. Some maps are complex and easy to get lost in, while procedural generation can create illogical layouts.

Co-op multiplayer fully supported: The game supports cooperative play for up to three players, with drop-in/drop-out functionality, solo and co-op modes, and shared progression. This is a core feature mentioned frequently.

Procedurally generated worlds: Worlds, levels, dungeons, and enemies are procedurally generated, providing varied replays and randomized layouts, quests, bosses, and rewards. This enhances replayability.

Soulslike shooter hybrid: The game is often described as a co-op souls-like shooter, combining third-person shooting with souls-like combat mechanics. This unique blend is a major selling point.

Bosses with unique mechanics: Boss fights feature distinct mechanics, weak points, multiple phases, and gimmicks that require observation and strategy. This adds challenge and memorability.

Class system with variety: There are multiple distinct classes with unique bonuses, including hidden classes and archetypes, supporting different playstyles.

Poor optimization and low FPS: Many players report poor optimization leading to low frame rates, especially on mid-range and low-end hardware. The game requires significant tweaking or upscaling technologies to achieve acceptable performance.

DLSS/FSR nearly mandatory: Feedback indicates that DLSS, FSR, or XeSS are almost essential for smooth gameplay. Without these upscaling features, performance suffers drastically, even on capable systems.

Performance poor on high-end hardware: Even players with high-end GPUs and CPUs report subpar performance, often due to UE5 engine limitations. The game's high demands are not justified by its visual quality, and performance inconsistencies are common.

Frequent crashes and freezes: A significant number of players experience frequent crashes, freezes, and even system lockups. These issues occur randomly, in specific areas, or during multiplayer sessions, severely impacting the experience.

Stuttering and frame drops: Many players experience stuttering and frame drops, especially in busy areas, combat scenes, or when enemies spawn. These issues occur even on powerful systems, detracting from gameplay fluidity.

Best enjoyed in co-op: Many reviewers strongly recommend playing with friends or in co-op mode, stating the game shines that way, though solo play is still viable. This feedback appears across multiple clusters with high frequency and specific praise.

Buy on sale: Several reviewers advise waiting for a discount before purchasing, noting the game offers great value at a sale price but may not be worth full price. This practical purchasing advice appears in multiple clusters.

Great for Soulslike fans: Reviewers frequently recommend the game to fans of Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and similar titles, highlighting the soulslike mechanics and gunplay combination. This crossover appeal is a common theme.

Enjoyable solo play: While co-op is highlighted, solo play is confirmed as completely possible and sometimes even easier, making the game accessible to single players. This addresses a common concern among potential buyers.

Highly recommended overall: A large number of reviewers give unqualified recommendations, calling the game a must-buy and encouraging others to purchase it without hesitation. This sentiment is widespread and strongly positive.

Community fair range: $15.00 - $40.00.

Story completion: 23.0h.

The game is engaging and enjoyable from the very first moments, with players immediately drawn into its deep progression, build variety, and co-op gameplay.

Co-op Socialite: Cooperative, team-oriented, enjoys communication and emergent moments with friends or randoms. Motivation: Shared social experiences and camaraderie during co-op sessions. Stance: buy.

Build Theorist: Theorycrafting, experimenting with dual-class combos, seeking synergies, and min-maxing gear. Motivation: The joy of discovering and optimizing unique build combinations. Stance: buy.

Casual Struggler: Attempting to progress but frequently hitting walls due to steep difficulty and obtuse design. Motivation: Wants a relaxing or accessible experience, but finds the game punishing and frustrating. Stance: no buy.

Performance varies widely by hardware tier: low-end and mid-range systems suffer from poor optimization and instability, while even high-end configurations often underperform with crashes and FPS drops. The game is heavily reliant on upscaling and frame generation to reach acceptable frame rates.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: mixed. Reports are mixed: some players achieve decent performance after tinkering, while others suffer from inconsistent frame rates and stuttering even on 12GB VRAM cards.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM / 16-31GB RAM: mixed. Opinions are split; several players report smooth 60–120 fps with DLSS, but many others experience poorly optimized performance with severe FPS drops and crashes on high-end hardware.

Windows <8GB VRAM / <16GB RAM: negative. Negative experiences dominate: the game is widely described as poorly optimized, with blurry visuals, unstable frame rates, and a requirement for upscaling even at 1080p low settings.

Steam Deck: Remnant II suffers from frequent crashes, poor performance, and heavy reliance on upscaling and tinkering, particularly on Steam Deck. While a few users report a positive experience, the majority encounter stability and optimization issues that make the game broken or require significant workarounds.

Linux and Proton: Linux/Proton compatibility is mixed. Some users experience severe crashes and freezes requiring extensive tinkering with Proton versions and launch options, while others report the game works well with minimal or no issues. The overall experience is inconsistent but achievable with significant workarounds.

Monetization: The game has no microtransactions or in-game purchases. All extra content is offered as traditional DLC expansions. User feedback focuses on DLC value and perceived cut content, but these are not predatory monetization practices. The model is a standard one-time purchase with optional expansions.

External guides: The majority of user feedback highlights that Remnant 2's hidden secrets, puzzles, and missable content are so obscure that players are forced to rely on external resources like wikis and guides. This significantly impacts the gameplay experience for those seeking full content, representing a clear case of 'Wiki Tax' (External Data Dependency) classified under Tier 3: The Student, due to the need for instructional data on complex mechanics and hidden content.

Sequel improves upon first game: Many reviewers explicitly stated that the game enhances the first Remnant title, fixing issues and adding content, classes, and abilities. This made it feel like an expansion rather than a full sequel, but in a positive way.

Frequent comparisons to Dark Souls: The game is repeatedly compared to Dark Souls and similar titles, often described as 'Dark Souls with guns.' While some praise this formula, others note it might not appeal to everyone.

DLC adds story content: Reviewers note the DLCs provide additional world stories and campaigns, enhancing the game's narrative and variety. They appreciate the extra story arcs and alternative paths added to the existing worlds.

Game praised for high replayability: The procedural generation and unpredictability contribute to high replay value. Reviewers mention spending many hours due to the variety and content, making it a game that rewards long-term play.

Large amount of game content: The game is described as having an enormous amount of content, including rings, weapons, and customization options. It offers plenty to do and many items to collect, which is appreciated by players.