Remnant II
Gunfire Games · Shooter, RPG, Action
Overview
Remnant II is the sequel to the best-selling game Remnant: From the Ashes that pits survivors of humanity against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses across terrifying worlds. Play solo or co-op with two other friends to explore the depths of the unknown to stop an evil from destroying reality itself. To succeed, players will need to rely on their own skills and those of their team to overcome the toughest challenges and to stave off humanity’s extinction.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,998 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players describe Remnant II as a third-person "Dark Souls with guns" and spend most of their words on its boss fights, its archetype-based build crafting, its drop-in co-op and the secrets hidden in its worlds. Reviewers call the combat weighty and responsive and the worlds striking, and long-time players say the randomized campaigns kept them coming back for hundreds of hours. Among those who compare it with Remnant: From the Ashes, more call it an improvement than prefer the first game, though that second group argues its case at length.
Players who are unhappy tend to name the same few things. The best gear and hidden classes sit behind obscure puzzles that send players to a wiki, and finding a specific item often means rerolling a whole world and hoping the right event appears. PC performance draws steady complaints about stutter, frame drops and reliance on upscaling, and some players report crashes and lost saves. The main story and dialogue draw heavy criticism, even from fans who love the lore inside each world, and players who reach the final boss are more often frustrated by it than impressed. Advice that recurs in the reviews: play it with friends, buy it on sale, and expect to grind and look things up.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Boss fightsHigh
Bosses come up in 41% of longer reviews, as often as builds, and positive descriptions (creative, memorable, fun, unique) outnumber negative ones (gimmicky, spongy, boring) by roughly three to one. Players single out encounters built around a mechanic rather than raw damage, such as the maze where blocks try to crush you, and several who played the first game say the bosses improved on it. A player who never enjoyed Souls games wrote, "There are no moments when I felt that my dead in the game was by bad design." Criticism targets a minority of fights: flying or teleporting bosses that punish melee builds, one-shot mechanics, and the final boss (covered under frustrations).
Build crafting and archetypesHigh
Builds, classes and archetypes appear in 40% of longer reviews, mostly in praise. Players like pairing two archetypes, swapping classes freely, and stacking rings, amulets, mods, mutators and relic fragments into builds that change how the game plays. "The build diversity is insane and well-balanced in my opinion," one reviewer wrote, and theorycrafters describe sinking hundreds of hours into chasing combinations. Some of the same players add that the best pieces are hard to obtain (see the RNG and secrets themes), and a few say the first campaign ends before a real build comes together.
Co-op with friendsHigh
Co-op is discussed in 30% of longer reviews, and phrases like "great co-op" or co-op being "a blast" outnumber reports of broken co-op about two to one. Reviewers like how easy it is to join each other's worlds, the shared loot pickups, and that a stronger friend can help without trivializing everything. "Every single piece of scrap, ring, amulet, and weapon material picked up by one player is instantly awarded to the entire team," one player explained. Some couples, siblings and parents playing with their children call it their go-to shared game. The limits players note are the three-player cap, the lack of any chat, and, for a few, story progress that only saves for the host.
Gunplay and combat feelHigh
Combat and shooting are discussed in 25% of longer reviews, mostly in praise: reviewers call the gunplay satisfying and weighty, like aiming for weak spots and having a proper dodge roll, and say the weapons feel distinct. "The gunplay is incredibly tight, and perfectly dodge-rolling through an alien boss's laser beam just to blast them in the face with a double-barrel shotgun feels incredible," wrote one long-time player. Dissent is smaller and specific: some find the controls clunky (sprint, vaulting, ladders, a dodge that sometimes vaults instead), and a handful report input delay or odd hitboxes.
Worlds, art and atmosphereHigh
Visuals, environments and atmosphere come up in 22% of longer reviews, mostly as a strength. Players call the realms gorgeous and unlike each other, and those who name a favorite pick different ones, Losomn, Yaesha and N'Erud among them. "I never saw anything about how visually stunning this game is until I played it," one reviewer wrote. A minority finds some areas bland or muddy, and a few complain that N'Erud's desert maps feel empty.
ReplayabilityMedium
Replay value comes up in 16% of longer reviews, usually as a selling point. Rerolling campaigns or individual worlds changes bosses, dungeons, quests and loot, and Adventure Mode, Boss Rush and higher difficulties give veterans reasons to keep going. Some players add that only a few worlds exist, so after many runs the same areas start repeating.
Music and sound designLow
A smaller group (6% of longer reviews) praises the soundtrack and audio. "And the sound track has absolutely NO RIGHT to be this good!" one player wrote, and others mention that sound cues matter for dodging. A few find the weapon sounds weak.
Where players are split
Difficulty and how it scalesHigh
Difficulty comes up in 34% of longer reviews, and players disagree about it in both directions. Some like the selectable difficulty levels and call the game challenging but fair, and more forgiving than a FromSoftware game because nothing is lost on death. Others hit walls: one-shot attacks, stunlocks, bullet-sponge enemies on higher settings, and level scaling that punishes upgrading the wrong things. A smaller group, some of them veterans of the first game, finds it too easy on Veteran. One player put the swing this way: "So either the enemies hardly pose a threat, or they one shot you."
The main story versus the worlds' own loreHigh
Story, writing and dialogue appear in 31% of longer reviews, and opinion depends on which story is meant. The main plot, the human characters and the player character's quips draw heavy criticism as cringeworthy, thin or confusing, and several reviewers call the ending abrupt. "Dialogue is cringe and the overarching story is non-existant, but DAMN is the gameplay good," one reviewer wrote. The stories inside each world, the item lore and the voice acting get real praise, and lore fans say the individual world storylines and DLC stories are the best writing in the game. Others say story isn't why they play.
Better or worse than Remnant: From the AshesHigh
Comparisons with the predecessor turn up in 29% of longer reviews, and those calling Remnant II an improvement outnumber those preferring the first game by close to two to one. Fans of the sequel point to archetypes, better bosses, fewer fights against waves of adds and better navigation: "Remnant 2 is everything Remnant from the Ashes was, but improved." The other camp misses armor set bonuses, uncapped trait points, the first game's Survival mode and its sense of place, and some tell readers to play the original instead.
Secrets, puzzles and the wikiHigh
Secrets and puzzles come up in 28% of longer reviews, and the same feature delights some players and drives others away. Fans love illusory walls, hidden archetypes and odd interactions, with one writing, "The amount and depth of secrets and hidden items in this game is baffling." Praise outnumbers complaints, but 11% of longer reviews mention needing a wiki, guide, YouTube or a save analyzer, and the critics argue that content like hidden classes is too obscure to find blind. "Exploration is just not rewarding when so many things require Einstein levels of IQ to uncover," wrote one. Even admirers ask for more in-game hints, and some advise going in blind once and then using the wiki.
Solo play versus co-opMedium
Solo play comes up in 14% of longer reviews. Some say the game is fully playable alone, often with the dog-companion Handler class for revives. Others call solo frustrating, describing bosses and spawns that feel tuned for groups and puzzles or rooms that need a second player. A few suggest keeping the world public so others can drop in and help.
Price, sales and DLCMedium
Price and sales come up in 11% of longer reviews. A recurring point is that the game is good value on sale or in a bundle, and a number of reviewers say they bought it cheaply with all the DLC and felt it was worth it. Others say it is not worth full price for a short campaign. The DLC itself splits players: some praise the added archetypes, weapons and storylines, while others call the packs short, note that they reuse existing worlds, and dislike DLC items showing up in the base game's inventory.
What frustrates players
RNG, rerolls and grinding for specific itemsMedium
RNG, rerolling and grind come up in 19% of longer reviews, mostly from players well into the game who are chasing particular items. Alternate boss rewards, rare events and world variants mean a wanted item may not appear in a run, so players reroll whole worlds and replay them. "You literally have to reroll the world and just pray the game actually spawns it this time," one player wrote. Some enjoy the hunt, while others call it a time sink that doesn't respect their time, and a few point to items that require waiting in real time.
PC performanceMedium
Performance comes up in 15.5% of longer reviews, and complaints far outnumber reports of a smooth experience. Players describe stutter, frame drops in combat and DLC areas, low GPU utilization, heavy CPU load and a game that needs DLSS, FSR or frame generation to hold frame rates, even on strong hardware. "Currently playing on potato settings with everything as low as it can get with a beast of a computer," one fan wrote. Several reviews written years after launch say performance never improved for them, while a few report that patches or new hardware fixed it.
Crashes, save loss and progression bugsMedium
Bugs and crashes appear in 11% of longer reviews. Reported problems include crashes on launch or mid-run, saves that reset to the end of the tutorial, characters lost after hours of progress, quest NPCs or key items that never spawn, and progression soft-locks. "We played for hours yesterday, came to a good stopping point, logged off, went to bed, hopped back on and one of our friends (the host) had their character and world reset," one group reported. Some say these are long-known issues that were never fixed.
Repetitive enemies, empty maps and getting lostLow
Repetition comes up in 8% of longer reviews and navigation in 5%. Players describe a small set of enemy types per world, large maps with long walks between fights, and trouble finding where to go. Navigation complaints skew toward newer players: 31% of the reviews raising them come from players with under 10 hours, compared with 18% of longer reviews overall. "Spent the first few hours wandering around not sure what to do or where to go," one wrote.
The final bossLow
The final boss is mentioned in 8% of longer reviews, mostly by players with 10 to 50 hours who had reached the end of the campaign, and negative takes outnumber positive ones about two to one. Complaints focus on a sudden difficulty spike, screen-filling effects and flashing lights, constant teleporting and a design that punishes melee and summoner builds. "Until the very end, it was a great game and I really liked it," one reviewer wrote before tearing into the fight. A smaller group calls it one of the best final bosses they have played.
Melee builds left behindLow
Melee comes up in 7% of longer reviews. Players who built melee tanks or summoners report hitting bosses that fly, teleport or sit out of reach, forcing them to respec into ranged builds. "Support and Melee-based builds especially get the short end of the stick on this one," one wrote. A few counter that melee is viable with the right gear.
Enemies spawning behind youLow
Spawning and horde complaints come up in 6% of longer reviews. Players describe elites and waves that appear out of nowhere or behind them, and bosses that summon adds. "This is a developer that confuses difficulty of execution with simply spawning platoons of trash mobs directly behind you," one reviewer wrote.
Balance nerfs and the prism systemLow
Nerfs and the prism system come up in 4% of longer reviews, mostly from veterans with 50 or more hours. They say balance passes broke builds they had farmed for, and some found the prism leveling an endless grind. "These people spend more time making nerfs than creating quality content," one wrote.
Co-op friction: no chat and crossplay problemsLow
Small groups raise the lack of any text or voice chat (2% of longer reviews) and crossplay that fails or requires linking an Epic account (1%). "Advertises as crossplay but it just doesn't work," one player wrote. Others report failed joins and losing items when playing across platforms.
Thin loot on a first runLow
A few players complain that exploration mostly yields rings, that scrap and upgrade materials are scarce, and that they finished the campaign with their starting weapons. "My friends and I played the whole game, 80% of all loot are rings, we got a single armor set and finished with the starter weapons mostly," one reviewer wrote. Armor lacking set bonuses adds to the sense that some finds don't matter.
3. The player conversation
Short reviews are mostly quick endorsements, while the detailed ones tend to praise the core and then list grievances, and some negative reviews still call the game fun before explaining what drove them away. Secrets, difficulty and the comparison with the first game divide players; bosses, builds and co-op draw mostly praise.
Who raises what follows playtime. Newer players are the ones who get lost and struggle with the opening hours, while performance problems and crashes come up at every playtime. Players who have just finished the campaign talk about the final boss and the abrupt ending. Players with dozens or hundreds of hours write most of the complaints about RNG, wiki dependence, balance nerfs and the prism grind.
Performance comes up in 27% of longer reviews written in 2023 and in 12% of those written in 2026: fewer reviewers raise it now, but it has not gone away. Reviewers in later years more often describe the game as complete with all three DLC, bought cheaply and played with friends, and some note that support ended after the third DLC and say they hope for a Remnant 3.
4. What the developers could do
- Fix PC performance across hardware, especially stutter, frame drops in combat and DLC areas, and the dependence on upscaling, since this is the most common technical complaint and players at every playtime raise it.
- Fix save loss and progression soft-locks such as saves resetting to the tutorial and quest NPCs or key items failing to spawn, because players who hit them lose hours of progress.
- Let players target specific items through a vendor or crafting route for alternate boss drops and rare events, as one reviewer proposed, since long-time players often complain about rerolling whole worlds to chase one item.
- Add in-game hints for secrets and hidden archetypes, such as journal clues after a first discovery, so blind players can find content that reviewers say otherwise requires a wiki or save analyzer.
- Rework the final boss's visual clarity and build coverage, with a flashing-light intensity option and openings for melee and summoner builds, since players reaching the end report a spike that undercuts the campaign.
- Add basic co-op communication and fix crossplay, such as quick-chat or text chat and crossplay that works without fragile Epic account linking, because co-op is a main selling point and some players call it hard to coordinate.
- Tone down surprise spawns behind the player and balance bosses for solo play, as some solo players describe ambushes and group-tuned fights as unfair rather than difficult.
- Be careful with nerfs in a PvE game and give farmed builds a path forward, since veterans with hundreds of hours say balance passes erased the builds they ground for.
