Remnant 2
80
★ /10
PC, 
PS5, 
Xbox Series X/S
THQ Nordic
Where to buy
Remnant II is a 2023 third-person shooter developed by Gunfire Games and published by Gearbox Publishing, released July 25, 2023 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. It holds Metacritic scores of 80 (PC), 81 (PS5), and 83 (Xbox) with an OpenCritic recommendation rate of 86% — the franchise’s best reviews — and sold 1 million copies in its first week, passing 2 million by that September.
The consensus was unusually uniform: a sequel that keeps everything that worked in Remnant: From the Ashes — the co-op Souls-shooter loop, the rerolling worlds — and fixes most of what didn’t.
Technical Specifications
| Attribute | Details |
|---|---|
| Developer | Gunfire Games |
| Publisher | Gearbox Publishing |
| Release | July 25, 2023 (PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S) |
| Metacritic | 80 (PC) · 81 (PS5) · 83 (Xbox) · OpenCritic 86% |
| Sales | 1M in first week · 2M+ by Sept 2023 |
| DLC | The Awakened King (2023) · The Forgotten Kingdom (2024) · The Dark Horizon (2024) |
| Genre | Third-person shooter, Soulslike |
| Mode(s) | Single-player · 3-player co-op |
Archetypes and Buried Secrets
The headline system is Archetypes — proper classes (Gunslinger, Handler with its dog companion, Challenger, and more) that can eventually be dual-equipped for hybrid builds. The sequel’s real signature, though, is secrecy: entire Archetypes are hidden in the world, including one famously datamined rather than found, and the community’s collective unpuzzling of them became the game’s best marketing. World generation goes deeper too — storylines, dungeons, and boss pools differ per roll across worlds like the dying space-station intelligence of N’Erud — making rerolls a feature players actually chase.
Reception
IGN’s 9/10 led a warm field, with Metacritic’s pull-quotes converging on “marked improvement — fat trimmed”: tighter boss design with far fewer add-swarms, meaningful buildcraft, and the same best-in-class three-player loop. Recurring criticisms were a subpar connective story, technical wobble at launch on PC, and solo balance still trailing co-op. Three DLCs — The Awakened King, The Forgotten Kingdom, and The Dark Horizon — closed out support by late 2024, each adding a world, storyline, and Archetype.
Where to Play It Today
Remnant II is on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with the DLC-complete edition regularly discounted below half price; it also had a run on PS Plus. Co-op is active, and the community’s standing advice holds: bring two friends, and let the world reroll.
