Remnant 2

Remnant 2 was provided by Gearbox Publishing for review. Thank you!

Have you ever wanted a souls-like game with guns that is taking place in a dark fantasy world with aliens and gigantic bosses? Welcome to the Remnant series, where in third-person, you will run around terrifying worlds, fight dangerous creatures, loot new gear, upgrade your guns, and customize your skills as you survive the perils that Remnant throws at you. The first game did a fantastic job showing this concept at work and how addicting this kind of gameplay can be, especially when full 3-player co-op is possible. Remnant 2 decided to take those foundations and show the true potential of what this series can be.

Remnant 2 is a fantastic sequel that expands on the core concepts the original brought to the table and cranks them up to an 11. Each of the 5 worlds are unique and varied, ranging from dense jungles and old ruins to ornate castles to futuristic civilizations. All of these are filled with distinct, powerful enemies that can destroy you if you aren't careful enough. Thankfully, you can optimize and build out your character with different guns that you can buy or find, upgrading them to deal more damage and putting on modifiers to augment stats or give new abilities. As you play, you will also find trait points which can be used to upgrade your traits and give more health, stamina, and more as you unlock them.

You also have gear that can increase your armor and amulets and rings that can augment your stats further. Then we head into Archetypes, which can give you specific skills, traits, and passive bonuses. Playing around with all of these can help you create the build you choose that best satisfies your playstyle. The system feels increasingly rewarding the more you play. I can't describe how great it is finding the perfect gear to complement your archetype, it can make you feel much more powerful.

With this being a souls-like game, you can expect some aggravating bosses and moments. I am personally terrible at souls-like games, despite enjoying them. I remember taking 5-6 hours to finally beat the Labyrinth Sentinels and it put me on edge. I had to take a small break here and there just to make sure I didn't start getting mad.

Regardless, I can't recommend Remnant 2 enough as a game. Gunfire Games has crushed it, making a fantastic gameplay loop that is complemented by a rewarding customization system to build your character the way you want. I was blown away with the game, though, I can't say the same about its performance on the Steam Deck.

Remnant 2 - Steam Deck Performance

Remnant 2 is a fantastic game that is not optimized well. This isn't an issue just on the Steam Deck, it is one that spans across all PCs. The game needs an upscaler to run well for the most part, which is a bit disheartening, and hitting 60 FPS on even the beefiest of PCs seem to be difficult. On the Deck, this trend continues and will need a lot of compromises to get close to playable. The game is also rated Verified on Steam, though this is a prime example of how the Verified system has failed.

By setting resolution to 960x600, FSR to Performance, and keeping the quality settings on low, we can get a decent image that will stick to 30 FPS most of the time. It is nowhere near ideal to play a game like this, but it is playable. With these settings, and no TDP limit, I went through multiple bosses and areas without much issue. There are still some compromises to make though. The game will sometimes drop to 22 FPS when zooming in or running around (boss battles stuck to 30), the game is blurry to some degre, and the battery drain will usually stick to the 21W - 24W drain area for around 1.5 hours of battery.

The game does have 16:10 resolution support, cloud saves, and full controller support though, which is fantastic. But be warned, there is a chunk of very small text in the game. Even at native resolution, I would consider it too small, but with the resolution turned down, some of it is almost completely unreadable. This will mostly affect archetype skill descriptions text, most other text is readable.

Conclusion

Giving Remnant 2 a rating is proving to be an extremely difficult choice. On one hand, the game is amazing and I really recommend it as one people should invest their time into. On the other, the performance requires so many compromises to just get to a playable state. The game looks blurry and still has drops here and there in some spots to 22 - 27 FPS, but it is do-able. I was able to play the game and beat bosses all on the Steam Deck at these settings and, even with the changes, I did enjoy it.

This is a perfect game to give a 2.5 stars to, considering how much needs to change for it, but because of how good the game is overall and that I was still able to play it without much issue, I am bumping it up to a 3. Remnant 2 is the case of an extremely good game that needs optimization...a lot of it. I have hope Gunfire Games will optimize the game to at least run 30 FPS at native resolution with FSR on, but until that day, be warned that you will need to compromise to play this on the Steam Deck.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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