Remnant II® - The Awakened King Review Summary

Adds fresh enemies, bosses, weapons, and the Ritualist archetype, but frustrating unbalanced fights, poor performance, and heavy asset reuse hold it back.

New enemies and bosses: The DLC adds several new enemy types, including elites and basic mobs, as well as multiple new bosses. Players find these additions enjoyable and well-designed.

Weapons and equipment additions: The DLC introduces a variety of new weapons, armor sets, rings, amulets, and mutators. Players enjoy the new gear, especially those that synergize with status effects and enable new builds.

New archetype Ritualist: The new Ritualist archetype focuses on status effects and crowd control, offering fun and powerful gameplay. Many players praise its synergy with other archetypes and its effectiveness in combat.

High-quality DLC overall: Players consistently praise the DLC for its high quality, fun factor, and value for money. Many consider it a must-buy for fans of Remnant 2.

Excellent level design: The new maps and dungeons feature improved design, with creative layouts, verticality, and attention to detail. Players appreciate the fresh environments and the departure from base game repetition.

New enemies are frustrating and unbalanced: Several new enemies, such as the toad monster, green explosive enemies, and spitball enemies, are considered overpowered, annoying, and poorly designed. They often have excessive HP, high damage, and unfair mechanics that lead to frustrating combat experiences.

Poor optimization and performance issues: The DLC suffers from significant performance problems, including low FPS, stuttering, and crashes, which are often worse than the base game. These issues persist even months after release and affect overall playability.

Excessive asset reuse and copy-paste content: Many reviews criticize the DLC for reusing over half of its assets from the base game's Losomn region, including enemies, environments, and dungeons. This leads to a strong sense of déjà vu and makes the expansion feel like cut content rather than a fresh experience.

Secrets and puzzles are overly obscure: The DLC's secrets and puzzles are often criticized for being too obscure, requiring external guides or wikis to solve. This includes hidden items behind complex steps and misleading clues, which detracts from the sense of discovery.

Lack of meaningful new content: Overall, the DLC is criticized for adding very little new content beyond a few new items, one archetype, and a small map. Many feel it is not worth the price and does not expand the game in a significant way.

DLC expands Losomn story: The DLC adds a new campaign and storyline set in the Losomn world from the main game. It continues the narrative of Losomn with new areas and content.

New areas, NPCs, and rewards: The DLC introduces new areas to explore, new NPCs to interact with, and new rewards to earn. It also includes unlockables and new items.

Co-op and oneshot mode: The DLC supports co-op play with a friend and can be played in oneshot adventure mode. It is integrated into adventure mode rather than the main campaign.

Randomly generated dungeons: Dungeons in the DLC are randomly generated, with a chance to include old dungeons from Losomn. This adds replayability to the new content.

Apocalypse difficulty available: The DLC includes an Apocalypse difficulty setting for players seeking a greater challenge. This difficulty exists in the expansion.

DLC optimization worse than base: Multiple reviews report that the DLC's optimization is significantly worse than the base game, with poor performance and non-existent optimization. Some describe it as the worst-performing area compared to any in the base game.

FPS drops in specific areas: Performance degrades in certain locations, such as rainy areas, huge locations that load entirely, and especially Forsaken Coast. Low frame rates and large fluctuations occur on all maps.

Crashes and server disconnections: The game crashes during gameplay, and there are server disconnections in quickplay. Some crashes are tied to a specific perk that destroys many objects at once.

Stuttering during combat and freezes: Players experience stuttering when enemies appear, during combat start and end, and freezing that can last almost a second. These issues disrupt gameplay flow.

Performance worsened after patches: Updates have caused crashes and FPS drops, and optimization seems to have reverted from past months. The new area's performance is rough and undermines previous improvements.

Positive for Remnant 2 fans: Many reviewers state that if you enjoyed Remnant 2, you will also enjoy this DLC. This is the most frequent sentiment across clusters 1, 3, and 18.

Fair $10 price: Numerous reviewers find the $10 price tag to be fair or worth it. Clusters 2, 4, 33, and 50 highlight this value proposition.

More of the same: The DLC is often described as providing more content in the same formula as the base game. This is a common theme across several clusters.

Buy on sale: Several reviewers recommend waiting for a sale before purchasing. Clusters 6, 32, 35, and 40 mention this.

Positive but with caveats: Some reviewers give positive ratings but have qualms or do not recommend design choices. Clusters 21, 34, 44, 48, and 49 reflect this.

Community fair range: $30.00 - $50.00.

Game completion: 7.0h.

Story completion: 4.0h.

Reviewers largely report that this expansion never becomes fun, citing reused areas, confusing progression, weak enemies and weapons, and a cut-content feel. A few positive comments about the Ritualist, dual-classing, a new gun, and one non-repetitive experience conflict with the dominant negative reports but do not establish a later fun anchor.

Friction: Large, convoluted, static overworld map; Tedious repeat playthroughs; Confusing area progression; Horrendous enemy designs; Disappointing weapon options; Reused Losomn areas feel copy-pasted or like cut content.

Hardcore Veteran Completionist: Repeated campaign runs, Hardcore attempts, Adventure clears, and high-difficulty build optimization. Motivation: Mastering the game's hardest content and earning new rewards without being forced into repetitive full-game grinds. Stance: no buy.

Build-Crafting Status Effect Enthusiast: Theorycrafting status-effect builds, stacking equipment synergies, and optimizing for Apocalypse difficulty. Motivation: Experimenting with new classes, equipment synergies, and status-effect builds that expand character power and options. Stance: buy.

Value-Conscious DLC Shopper: Playing the base game and considering DLC as an optional content purchase rather than an instant buy. Motivation: Getting more Remnant 2 content at a fair price and with acceptable polish. Stance: sale.

Monetization: The reviewed feedback centers on Remnant II's paid DLC, including debates over whether the $10 price is fair, mentions of DLC Pack/Ultimate Edition access, and one pay-to-win comment that is immediately negated by the absence of PvP. There is no direct evidence of real-money gacha, loot boxes, battle passes, paid power, paid convenience, currency obfuscation, or an in-game cash shop. The only monetization discussed is traditional paid DLC, so the score stays in the fair range.

DLC priced around $10: The Awakened King DLC costs about $10 or equivalent, which most reviewers consider cheap or acceptable. Several note it offers roughly 4 hours of content, making the price reasonable for the amount of gameplay.

Quality and content depth praised: Many reviewers describe the DLC as a solid, high-quality addition that adds longevity and a nice amount of content. Some consider it better than any area in the base game and worth more than the asking price.

Part of three-DLC plan: The Awakened King is the first of three planned DLCs for Remnant 2, with two more upcoming packs expected before the one-year anniversary. Future DLCs may visit Yaesha and N'Erud, and a return to Reisum is desired by some.

Variable completion time reported: Reviewers report a wide range of playtimes, from as little as 2-3 hours to as much as 10 hours, depending on how much side content they explore. This variability may affect perceived value for money.

Adds new equipment and Ritualist: The DLC introduces a new class called the Ritualist, along with dozens of new equipment items including weapons, rings, amulets, armor sets, mutators, and a new trait. This adds significant build variety for players.