2019's Remnant: From the Ashes didn't go unappreciated—the co-op looter shooter has accrued almost 40,000 positive Steam reviews—but it never quite felt like a genuine hit, either. Its just-released sequel, however, probably qualifies: Remnant 2 has jumped into the number two top seller spot on Steam (based on revenue), just under CS:GO, and number 18 on Steam's list of most-played games by daily players.
Remnant 2 hasn't yet had time to build up the same volume of Steam user reviews as its predecessor, but our review is positive, and its current peak concurrent player count of 83,792 is well above the first game's peak of 48,194. At the moment, it's among the top 10 most played Steam games by current player count.
Remnant: From the Ashes was one of the more fun co-op experiences I've had, and the sequel is generally more of the same: a third-person shooter set in alien dimensions, with an emphasis on weapon upgrading, ammo conservation, big, weird bosses, randomization, and surprises. Except, as I've gathered from our review and others, everything is just a bit better in Remnant 2.
I've only played the intro so far myself. It's a nice, brief setup: Earth is all messed up and you're just tryin' to get by, but then an old guy tells you not to mess with a stone that teleports you to other dimensions, so of course you mess with it, and uh oh, now you're in Myst-but-with-scary-monsters.
Two other players can join you in co-op once you've completed that intro. I've heard that the first Remnant was less successful as a solo game, so if you're interested in Remnant 2, I might suggest checking with the Discord crew to see if anyone's down to join in. I'm not sure how much further I want to go without assembling a posse.
It might be helping Remnant 2 that live service fatigue seems to be at an all-time high. It wouldn't have been surprising for developer Gunfire Games to go that direction after the fairly successful first game, but instead it's produced another old-fashioned co-op shooter with a beginning and end. There's DLC planned and Remnant 2 is designed to be replayed—procedural generation makes each run different, and you won't see everything in one go—but there's no endless endgame grind or in-game cosmetics shop. You can get some fancy armor in the special editions, but that's all, and it's also nice to see a $50 standard edition, especially when some publishers default to $70 these days.
Our Remnant 2 review has more about what makes it cool. I've only just started, but I can already say that the jank-levels seem to be reduced from the first game, and making big damage numbers pop out of monster blisters via critical rifle shots is as satisfying as ever.
