Remnant 2has received three outstanding expansion packs. Each adds even more variety to one of the game’s main worlds, and yet I cannot help but feel like Gunfire Games has missed out on something crucial here.
Remnant 2is still one of my favorite games and one of the finest shooters we’ve had in years. The Forgotten Kingdom and The Awakened King expansion packs were both excellent and while I’m writing this ahead of The Dark Horizon’s release, I have no doubt it will be great as well. It’s a matter of track record at this point.
I fully understand that this will come off a tad whiny and annoying in the grand scheme of things, then, but I genuinely believe thatRemnant 2would’ve been an even better game had Gunfire Games looked beyond its three base worlds.
Remnant 2 will remain stuck on its three main worlds for good
By default, without any DLC whatsoever,Remnant 2takes place across several different worlds, dimensions, or universes, whatever you want to call them. The main narrative, however, focuses specifically on three distinctive worlds: the Victorian-esque Losomn, the forests of Yaesha, and the sci-fi horrors of N’Erud.
Each playthrough rolls a randomized selection of maps, bosses, and progression opportunities. The game comes with two full playthroughs’ worth of unique content, and each new campaign rolls from this selection, so you never quite know what you’re getting. Due to this formula, Gunfire Games could quite easily insert all-new expansions of existing tilesets, and so each of the three DLCs adds a massive chunk of new goodies into its respective world.
The Awakened Kingadded one new playthrough’s worth of stuff to Losomn,The Forgotten Kingdomdid the same for Yaesha, andThe Dark Horizonwill do the same for N’Erud. It’s quite phenomenal, really! In the grand scheme of things, the issue I have is that this feels like the setup formore. More worlds, more dimensions, more goodies to chase and puzzles to solve.
I can’t shake the feeling that this really was the plan at one point in time because the originalRemnant: From the Ashesdid introduce whole new worlds to its content roster.Swamps of Corsusadded, uh, the swampy regions of Corsus, whileSubject 2933took us into the mountainous regions of Reisum. These DLCs weren’t outright phenomenal, mind, but they sure did up the ante in terms of variety.Remnant 2isn’t going to have this same opportunity afforded to it, sadly.
Why is Remnant 2 not getting any more DLC?
After Gunfire Games announced thatThe Dark Horizonwould be the finalRemnant 2DLC, I was taken aback. Sure, its heyday has passed by now, and I’m all but certain that the expansions weren’t nearly as successful as the base game, but the principal designer of Remnant 2 specifically said there was a “very good chance” more DLC would be coming after the three originally planned ones. With each essentially doubling a given world’s content, Gunfire should have had free reign to redirect the game’s next chapter into any direction it chose.
Yet, that’s not happening at all. With no word from the developers on the matter, we can only hypothesize as to what happened in the background. Given the quality ofRemnant 2‘s post-launch content, I feel bad that I’m disappointed with Gunfire Games choosing to drop the game before exploring a genuinely new world. Yet, at the same time, isn’t this more than enough content for dozens of hours of gameplay?
More Remnant is absolutely coming, but who knows when?
There’s no way Gunfire Games is going to dropRemnantfor good, not givenjust how successfulRemnant 2was early on. Remember, the game absolutely capturedthe zeitgeist of its launch window, and everyone and their mum was playing it.
The fact is, though, that Gunfire Games is billingThe Dark Horizonsas the definitive and finalRemnant 2DLC despite the studio heads’ claims that there’d be more content coming down the line. IsRemnant 3that far along that it makes no sense for developers to stick around working on this entry in the series? I find that hard to believe. Even optimistically, sequels take three to four years to produce in the current industry climate.
While the game’s not a live-service title, Gunfire successfully pushed out three massive expansions for each of Remnant 2’s main worlds. Why stop there unless something’s going on? And, you know, somethinghasgone down:Darksiders 4. Is this a good thing? We’ll just have to wait and see. As for myself, though, I feel thatRemnant 2deserved one more year of content.
Remnant 2 is left in a good state, but it could’ve been even better
It’s funny that my only real complaint about Remnant 2, about a year after it first came out, is that it won’t get even more content than initially planned. The crux of Remnant 2 is not genuinely novel and unique: it’s a gun-fighting Soulslike. OrSouls-lite, if you will. Yet, the execution of the game leaves virtually nothing to be desired, with engaging combat and progression loops, oodles of content, and a better take on exploration and puzzle-solving than I had seen in years.
For what it’s worth, I’m hoping that this franchise is, at the very least, thoroughly done with the world of Yaesha for good. We’ve seen it in the firstRemnant, we went back inRemnant 2, and then went back again as part of the sequel’sForgotten KingdomDLC. N’Erud is infinitely more interesting in my opinion, and I’m happy that we are going back toitas part ofRemnant 2‘s grand and final expansion pack. That’s a win, at least.
