Summary
Remnant 2, while being known as a ‘Dark Soulswith guns’ type of game franchise, isn’t overwhelmingly difficult in all categories. Sure, the combat itself can be pretty challenging, especially on the harder difficulties, but the game itself offers players all sorts of options and quality-of-life features so they can tailor the game to suit their needs.
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These features can range from just small conveniences to things that can make a huge impact on a player’s experience with the game overall. So, let’s take a look at some of the best quality-of-life features and mechanics thatRemnant 2has to offer.
8Giving Players Unlimited Stamina Outside Of Combat
First up has to be the most impactful changeGunfire Games has made betweenRemnant: From the AshesandRemnant 2, even if it may seem like a minuscule change, and that’s the addition of players having unlimited stamina whenever they’re not in combat.
While many may not remember something as small as this when thinking back on their first playthrough inR: FtA,having to constantly manage stamina while re-exploring a map or backtracking can be so tedious, and eliminating that tedium adds a lot to the overall experience. And, considering how much more complex and well-hidden the secrets are in this sequel game, players are going to be running around the maps a lot, making this feature even more of a godsend.
7Auto Dismiss Item Prompts
Next up is something most players probably didn’t even realize bothered them inRemnant: From the Ashes, but now that it’s an option in the second game they’ll almost assuredly appreciate the convenience or will at least be thankful for the ability to choose. By default, the Item Pickup Prompt is manual in this game, meaning every Trait Book, Ring, Boss Material, and so on that players pick up will all have their ‘obtained’ prompt stay on screen until players press the input that closes the popup.
Some players may be confused as to why this was even necessary in the first place. Well, too often inRemnant: From the Ashesplayers would grab some item while running through an area or get multiple itemsafter defeating one of the many bosses, only to miss the name of said item in the split second it was on screen because they had to focus on dodging or running to stay alive. When this happens, players then have to scroll through their inventory until they find whatever the new item they picked up was, which may be even more difficult depending on how many new items they picked up recently without checking them out.
6Making Fashion Over Function A Reality
Anyone who has played a lot of Soulslikes is likely familiar with the term ‘Fashion Souls’, which is where players wear certain combinations of armor sets in these types of games that prioritize appearance over function. The less importance the in-game systems put on armor sets, the more freedom players have to wear whatever armor they think looks the coolest while playing.
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And, though it may be obvious, the more a person likes how their player character looks, the more they’ll feel ‘attached’ to said character, which by extension makes them feel more attached toRemnant 2overall. Granted, each armor piece inRemnant 2still has weight, resistances, and so on to keep track of, but for the most part, players look a lot more individual in this game compared to the first where almost everyone was wearing either the Elder or Slayer Set for their overpowered Set Bonuses.
5The Ability To Roll-Cancel Out Of Any Action
There’s nothing worse than being locked into an animation when a big attack is coming and just watching as death approaches with no way to escape. In some games, this is very intentionally done to make players ‘feel’ the weight of each action choice.
And while that’s fair, it’s not a mechanic that generally tends to go over well as a whole with newcomers to the Soulslike subgenre. However,Remnant 2is just a bit kinder than most, as players have the ability to use their dodge roll (or even backstep) to cancel out of just about every Consumable animation. This comes in handy most often during boss fights when players start to use their Relic to heal, only to realize they picked the wrong moment for this, and dodge roll again to stay alive, while also not wasting a Relic usage.
4The ‘Inspect’ Model Viewer
People don’t realize how much they miss having a nice model viewer in-game until they’re playing a game that looks gorgeous but doesn’t have one. But thankfully,Remant 2’smodel viewer is one of the higher-quality ones.With all the unique amulets, rings, guns, armor sets, key items, and more players can collect as well as all the modifications they can make to their guns using weapon mods, it’s great that they can see those models in beautiful high-resolution using the Inspect feature. The rings especially have such an intense amount of detail put into them, and the way that Weapon Mods from different worlds all change the look of the guns they’re applied to in unique ways is really something else, consideringthe overall visual style of the game.
3The ‘Favorite’ Feature
This next one is both a bit of a downside and a nice upside, and it has to do with inventory management inRemnant 2. Currently, at the time of writing this, there’s no real way to ‘sort’ items in the player’s inventory, because it’s not really needed until players start really collecting tons of rings and guns. However, with items like Relic Fragments, rings, and armor not being able to sort them can make switching items a pain, especially given how fast players tend to jump from 0 items to 20+.
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Thankfully, players can use the ‘Favorite’ feature as a pseudo-method of supplementing this, though it doesn’t work with Relic Fragments in particular. Additionally, this only separates each item slot by putting the favorited items before the unfavorited ones, it doesn’t allow players to modify the order which these items appear in, or filter out items when they’re looking for something in particular to equip.
2Auto-Equipping Unslotted Or Upgraded
Let’s be honest, anyone who often feels the burden of choice in games with a lot of items or options is going to be struggling inRemnant 2. Players are constantly having to make choices between equipping different guns, rings, amulets, mutators, weapon mods, gear, archetypes, concoctions, melee weapons, relics, and even relic fragments. It can be a lot, and managing all this involves having to constantly open the Inventory and comprehend the descriptions of each and every item.
Thankfully, however,Remnant 2does have a feature in it that auto-equips items into any slots that are currently empty, so players can always intentionally leave a Ring Slot empty if they feel fine without it to immediately equip the next one they pick up. Additionally, the game also auto-equips upgraded versions of currently-equipped gear. This is most noticeable with Relic Fragments, and it makes dealing with parsing the large amount of Fragments players will quickly collect all the better.
1New Characters As Hidden Archetypes
This last quality-of-life convenience is primarily focused on one of the new aspects ofRemnant 2compared to the originalRemnant: From the Ashes, Archetypes. Archetypes essentially function as the ‘class’ system in any other game, and each one comes with a variety of passive Perks, Traits, and Abilities that players will steadily unlock as they level it up. And, outside of the Starting 5 Classes (including Gunslinger), there are also a couple of hidden Archetypes found throughoutRemnant 2that aretypically references to specific builds or playstyles in the last game. The best part is, when players do eventually unlock any of these hidden Archetypes, the next time they create a brand new character, they’ll be able to choose that Archetype as their Starting Class.
The reason this is such a huge convenience is that otherwise, if players wanted to get that Archetype on a new character (or a Hardcore character) they’d have to go through the unlocking process again to do so, which really depends on either skill or luck, depending on how the Archetype is unlocked. Also, it should be mentioned that, because this game gives everyone a copy of the item any one player picks up (except for Ammo Pickups), players can join their friendswho are about to get an Archetype from beating a boss or somethingand unlock them that way without having to switch off one character to a brand new one.
Remnant 2is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
