Remnant 2

Would recommend the whole game except for the cube mission. Whoever designed that, I wish steps on a pile of legos everyday.

Bought this game to play with my GF, she ended up cheating on me but I ended up still playing, so thats gotta count for something.

There are very few games that have left as strong of an impression on me as Remnant II.
In essence, this is "Dark Souls with Guns", but it's just a rather lazy (albeit accurate) attempt to describe key combat gameplay.
I'd say there are three things that make this game as loved as it is: exploration, builds and replayability.
Exploration is the name of the game. This game has so many little secret rooms, puzzles and hidden mechanics for you to figure out, you can scour each inch of a location, find two amazing items, then look up a guide and realize you missed three or four more in that very place. Being attentive is key, and curiosity is rewarded.
Builds in Remnant 2 are much more varied than in the first game. You can build your character as a melee or ranged tank, as an ability or weapon mod "caster" or just go for the plain old pew-pew build (ok, to be fair, there are several ways to do a good pew-pew build as well). The amount of traits, items and mods in this game is impressive, and the ability to combine any two of the existing classes really gives you an impression that your build is limited by only your imagination. Some of those classes are hidden by rather obscure puzzles, but my is it a treat to finally find them! Oh, and you can respec at anytime and even save several builds and change those on the fly.
Finally, replayability. The game is built around randomly generating locations and no two playthroughs will be the same. First, there are two (three with DLC) versions of each of the three worlds, often showing you a different side to some conflict or conundrum this world is facing. Each world will feature random locations and there are often multiple ways to finish an event or kill a boss. One of the bosses has four different ways you can play out his fight, each yielding you a different reward. You would think playing through the same campaign will become boring, but you can actually at any time create a separate single-world "adventure" for you to try and see everything this game has to offer.
The game isn't perfect, sure.
If there is one weak part in this game, it's the plot of the main campaign. It's... lackluster,
But the plots of each world more than make up for it, especially when you visit each of the nine world versions.
In short, grab two of your friends, get this game and play through one of the most amazing co-op experiences in your life. And if you don't have friends, playing solo is completely possible (if not easier in some ways).
It's extremely fun, varied and well-crafted!

Played the game
finished it, thought it's kind of short but still good
friend wants to play the game
say less i'm in
game starts some place i've never been to before
fast forward i get Youtube shorts about hidden items and what not
"Did you know in Remnant2..."
95 hours later we got all the Achivements
what a game 11/10
cant wait for Remnant 3

I proudly watched my Wife become great at this game, her first souls-like. We beat it together, through thick and thin.

this game is cool n all
loving it and all
good game 10/10 mostly
but like
the secret weapons and items in it leads me to believe the developer was not loved as a child and wants us to suffer the same
one of them goes "TALK TO THIS OBSCURE NPC AND TALK AGAIN 3 TIMES THEN HAVE THIS SPECIFIC ITEM IN UR INVENTORY THEN GO BACK TO THAT OTHER WORLD ANDB AKC AGAIN AND THEN THEY ARE GONNA BE LIKE THERE TALK TO THEM A FEW MORE TIMES ? OK NOW LEAVE TO THAT OTHER WORLD UR NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO GO BACK TO AND WALK TOWARDS THIS LOCATION AND THEN INTERACT WITH THIS WITH THAT ONE ITEM THAT HAS NO REAL USE AND THEN GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME TALK TO THAT GHOST THAT WILL APPEAR FOR A SECOND THEN GO BACK TO THE PLACE U FOUND UR HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH AND FIND THE EXACT COORDINATIONS AND THEN GO BACK TO THE MAIN PLACE AND THEN TALK TO THE GHOST ENTER A CUTSCENE SKIP IT EXACTLY AFTER 35.5 SECONDS AND THEN REINSTALL MARIO 64 ON UR EMULATOR IT HAS TO BE THE DOLPHIN ONE AND THEN GO BACK AND GET UR WEAPON WHICH ACTUALLY IS SUPER SUPER WEAK BUT LOOKS KINDA COOL"
So yeah game is good but the secrets and requirement to getting them are insane

Tldr, get it full price or on discount, it'll be worth the hours you put into it (this is my 2nd playthru, first on xbox now on steam). It's not a revolutionary new approach to a 'souls-like' game but doesnt have to be. It’s well made, great artistically, and confident in its design. Worth the purchase for the world building alone.
The environments are an obvious homage to H RGiger, Alien, The Matrix, and other visual dystopias. The game uses familiar visual cues to ground you, then twists them into something distinct. Each world is coherent, oppressive, and deliberate. Art direction is really cool to see and the gameplay matches the artistic height.
Combat is where Remnant 2 separates itself from the Soulslike comparisons people lazily throw at it. The difficulty is not arbitrary or punishing—it scales with the player. You grow stronger, the world responds in kind. The more you level the more the challenge escalates. If you're really running into challenging roadblocks then you can either run it in co-op with others (having a healer changes a lot) or you can reroll campaigns.
Weapon systems have more depth than they first appear. At a glance, it’s a third-person shooter with some loot mechanics. But once you begin switching weapons and mods, you realize that every choice subtly reshapes your approach to fights. Some guns have pretty wild game-changing mods and you'll soon learn they are far better than the crafted mods you can get in town.
Procedural map generation often means “bland and forgettable” in most games. Here, it means variance in a way that matters. Bosses rotate slightly just in a way to make a memorized map feel fresh. Layouts reconfigure. There’s just enough familiarity to orient you, but not enough to make replaying feel redundant. The puzzles are well-placed—some clever, some opaque. Occasionally you’ll think them through; occasionally you cbf and look them up. Either way, they serve a purpose: to interrupt the rhythm of combat and force you to engage with the world on different terms.