Remnant: From The Ashes
Review By Tyler Petrosino.
High Concept wise western Dark Souls made by Gunfire Games. Developers of the Darksiders series an action-adventure hack and slash game. Remnant is a departure from Darksiders which is faster paced and focused on flashy combos. Remnant is a slower darker game it’s a mashup of great adventure games borrowing things from Dark Souls, Zelda, maybe some Monster Hunter. Puzzles from Zelda locked in animations from Monster Hunter, Fog Walls from dark souls. It borrows a lot while also making it unique and interesting.
I’ve played 30+ in the game and plan to at least double that. The multiplayer aspect is interesting up to 4 players can join a game, all loot is shared, But the campaign progression isn’t shared between everyone just the person hosting gets that. Its standard drop in drop out multiplayer anyone can join your game at any time. There is an offline mode and friends only mode for the campaign if that’s more your cup of tea. The only thing to criticize on this front is the lack of social features in the game. There isn’t a local chat or emotes nothing to communicate. With the other players, it’s like playing with mutes crouching can only communicate so much in-game. While it would be nice to have more options for communication it doesn’t hurt the experience overall.
The gameplay loop is one of fun third-person action combat with guns. The crux of it is travers an area get to the dungeon clear that out and face the boss at the end. Where the game gets interesting is the procedural generation of those areas. Made up of handcrafted tiles leading to a unique layout of those tiles every time you play. There are some that are story tiles that will always show up and special quest tiles that spawn randomly in different locations.
What the gameplay leads to is an RPG-Esque trait and leveling system that unlocks traits special to how you play. An example of this is would be reviving people a lot can lead to a unique trait that allows you to revive quicker. Or defeating a boss that can lead to a special trait unlocking. The number of traits you’re able to unlock is a lot I got something like 26 I believe. Im, sure there are more unlock as you play and those stay with you.
While the story and the campaign isn’t anything to write home about its servable. The replayability of the game is immensely allowing you to reroll the campaign to story beat one while keeping your gear and level. This also reshapes the world so you will encounter different enemy’s, and different a layout of the map and quests, and bosses.
The problems with the game are more technical in nature it struggles to maintain a steady frame rate. Their audio bugs a plenty one bug I had was enemy’s spawning in the ground a lot. I didn’t have any game breaking bugs but some people are reporting those. Sometimes the environments while pretty can seem ugly the next second. Theirs some tiles that will always spawn and that can give the sense of sameness to it all. but the gameplay loop is strong and fun enough to carry you through the game.
