Remnant: From the Ashes Reviews

Exceedingly fun mix of souls-like gameplay and third-person shooter. If you're into that and up for some interesting boss fights I highly recommend jumping in with a friend or two and giving this a go. Can't speak for the solo experience (yet). The only thing that would make this perfect would be a loadout quick-swap system and a couple of bug fixes for the obvious ones.

It was an enjoyable run. I imagine it's more fun with friends, but was perfectly solo-able on Normal. I found the animation-locking to be annoying, often getting me killed because I'd over-commit, be stuck in an animation, and get gutted. But aside from that, I found the combat fun and engaging, the dungeons and bosses interesting.

its a soulslike but shooter, but it felt more like a looter shooter it is a 9/10 game that is until i play the subject 2923 DLC and play through the ward prime section and i just want to kms of how bad of a slog to get through that whole level is, so overall 8/10

A pretty incredible game, optimized for single and multiplayer well. A must play for gamers who enjoy Fromsoftware games as well as 3rd person shooters. IMPORTANT: the ps4 version is still bugged, you will most likely crash multiple times per hour. Unless you think you're great at aiming, i'd recommend starting on normal difficulty for a first play through. Starting on harder difficulties requires a lot of farming to sustain enough ammo to get through boss fights, (no matter how good you are.) There are 4 difficulties to date, iv'e been able to entertain all of them. The procedural regeneration of maps is quite impressive and leaves nearly infinite replay-ability, you'll get new maps and bosses per play-through. The adventure mode is a great way of going back through area's to get alternate RNG. This game will test your mobility and evasion skills. A lot of the time, running, run strafing is the best way to avoid taking damage over rolling constantly. Some area's of the game will appear more or less ugly if you're running shadow quality at low. Playing with shadows on low will increase your performance drastically. CORSUS & SUBJECT 2923: These DLC's run amazingly as well, they have some of the hardest and coolest bosses to tackle. Everything else positive about the DLC's will be found in the base game review above. Conclusion: I've obtained every achievement on Steam and Ps4. If you're not a fan of farming for resources or RNG, this may not a a game for you. These things can be considered a downside to some players. You're required to farm WAY more in Remnant 2.

It is ok coop for couple of evenings with your friends. There is nothing special in it. Game is not bad.

slow start if you're used to triple a experiences but damn its worth it. looks amazing on steam deck even better than remnant 2. great bosses, lore, and secrets tons of different weapon types

I was shocked to see how badly designed the levels were in this game. It is utterly horrible and unacceptable for a game that was published in 2019. All the levels I played in my short time were nothing more than long corridors, with enemies spawning randomly here and there. When I realized that the only thing you do throughout the game is to move straight ahead, I began to think that the game devs were lacking in the concept of verticality. Moreover, the setting doesn't affect the gameplay in any way.;no tactics, no strategy, just weapons. Every once in a while you have the option to investigate left or right, but going to these places does not reward the player in any way. The loot you get is the same as what you find on the road. The enemies are the same. There is nothing artistically appealing about the place either. “So, why did I come here?” the player asks. It's so obvious that the developers didn't care about level design in any way that after a certain point I started to feel like I was playing a cheesy map in Garry's Mod. The gameplay is fun, but it is overall mundane just like the other parts of the game. The enemy variety isn't bad, but you fight the same enemies too many times and most enemies don't add any depth to the gameplay as they don't cause you to change your playstyle. Since the game lacks the wit to design a meaningful level and position enemies in a tactical fashion, it can't do anything but throw hordes of the same enemies in your face to change the tempo and increase the difficulty. This kind of approach, which was already tested in DS2: The Scholar of the First Sin, is unfortunately not fun for the player. Although somewhat interesting and aesthetic, the art design lacks depth. For this reason, the game fails to immerse you in its world.

[h1]I'll be blunt. If this game is on a big sale, then get it. But if not, it's just not worth it.[/h1] [h2]Why it succeeds[/h2] This game nailed its core small gameplay loop (which is combat). It is visceral. I would dare even say that the sole reason it worked and got popular in the first place, is because it got that (which is essential) right. Think of this combat gameplay loop as an efficient love child of Destiny and Dark Souls. Player expression through gameplay is present, and so your build choices consistently change the way you're playing during combat, which makes things interesting for longer and allow theorycrafting to an extent. [h2]Why it fails[/h2] However, what is essential is not enough, because there are a lot of other games that provide the same core gameplay experience as Remnant: From the Ashes, but also manage to be better in secondary areas: overall amount of content and replayability, artistic direction (story and worldbuilding, visuals, audio), narrative exposition (the way the story is delivered), player expression (customization), and overall quality of life and polish (optimization, user interface, bug fixing). There is also a massive issue regarding gameplay design that cannot be overlooked: in multiplayer, non‑host players have the same level of authority regarding story progression than you do, meaning that they can destroy your campaign and/or adventure session if they want to by triggering whatever progression event they want to. There is pretty much nothing you can do to prevent it besides becoming paranoïd and not playing with strangers, which kills the social emphasis of the game. [h2]In fine details[/h2] Coincidentally, Remnant: From the Ashes either is mixed and/or straight up sucks in the delivery of those secondary elements: [h3]→ Mixed:[/h3] [list] [*][b]Artistic direction[/b] [list][*]What is present is good, but a little bland, lacking complexity, engagement, emotional and/or philosophical and/or ideological weight, depth and diversity. It just works, but it's not moving your guts in any way.[/list] [*][b]Player expression[/b] [list][*]Whilst gameplay expression is there, visual expression is very scarce; which for a game that motivates players to build their character for multiplayer interactions, is pretty sad. The communication wheel is also not great, requiring cumbersome control combinations to be used. And so, nobody uses it; it's a shame because there are cool emotes available.[/list] [/list] [h3]→ Straight up bad:[/h3] [list] [*][b]Content and replayability[/b] [list][*]The game's replayability factor comes solely from a gimmick that is praised much to my surprise: pretty much half of the available content is rolled randomly to be available in a playthrough. It does not add anything to your experience at all, it just forces you through re‑rolls to endure the same loops again in the hopes of experiencing what you previously didn't, and to acquire specific items that aren't even necessarily going to change much about your gameplay experience anyways (because they might not fit your desired playstyle, so unless you do it for completionism and curiosity, it's mostly pointless). What makes this an absolute pain is that all non‑boss fights encounters in the combat gameplay loop are extremely repetitive, making subsequent re‑rolls very painfully boring (you can check how much players complain about re‑rolling campaigns or adventures when they have to on the Web to see for yourself). The overall quantity of itemization options is also relatively low for a dungeon crawling game, all things considered.[/list] [*][b]Narrative exposition[/b] [list][*]The game consistently manages to present worldbuilding ideas and narratives to you each time you start exploring a world, including Earth. But everytime (and by that I really, really mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME) things ought be interesting and excite you for consequences, they drop the ball by never reaching for any significant development following initial exposition.[/list] [*][b]Quality of life and polish[/b] [list][*]On this game DESIGNED FOR CONTROLLERS IN MIND, YOU CANNOT REMAP ANYTHING and what makes this an issue is that the default layout is honestly not great; it wouldn't be a major issue if the game's built‑in controller detection didn't constantly come into conflict with keyboard and mouse inputs (and thus does for Steam Input controller to KB/M remapping), but it does, and when it does it resets your selected position in the UI, among other things; it's absolutely horrible and I've spent entire hours in Steam Input to offset most of these conflicts just for simple control remapping. The game is also littered with small but annoying bugs, mostly pertaining to collision, unresponsive inputs, hitboxes, combat frame data and movement mechanics (mostly vaulting) and that is unacceptable because it affects the main gameplay loop greatly. Enemy spawning mechanics during combat is often too permissive, resulting in absurd situations where you feel like having schizophrenic episodes and constant panoptical insecurity due to enemies spawning all around you all of the time. It is also one of the most terribly unoptimized game I've played in the last few years, mainly and seemingly due to poor technique in mapping and shader management. UI design is good generally, but it does not allow you to scroll in lists if you're not using the mouse wheel, which gets old really quick when you have a lot of items.[/list] [/list] Also, on a last note: do not trust the store page screenshots at all. They hardly represent real gameplay. NPCs are hardly relevant, combat is not as dynamic as the images make it to be, stealth is not an option, and the game doesn't nearly look as good as that.

combat and movement feel very clunky, the souls-like tag left me disappointed

Good game, shooting feels very satisfying, exploration is always rewarding and fun, locations look great but the reused chunks in some areas make them look uninspired sometimes, the way co-op works is actually perfect, its seamless throughout the entire game and loot is always shared between the players. DLC project 2923 added an entire new campaign that might just be better than the main game especially with the boss designs, killing Harsgaard hitless on Nightmare difficulty felt incredibly good. only negative thing i would say is this game focuses on replayability way too much and for that it doesn't have nearly enough content, not that many weapons and armor sets, maps are pretty straight forward to the point where it feels impossible to miss the optional content.