Remnant: From the Ashes is a third-person action RPG that was created by Gunfire Games and published by Perfect World Entertainment. It was released in August of 2019, and by all accounts it was a game I really should have played when it first came out.
I’m not sure what exactly happened, or why I missed its release, but it is a crying shame that I did. The only reason I can actually give a review of this game is because it was one of the free games this month for Playstation Plus. I would, however, consider it worth the asking price of $39.99, or even the 49.99 for the complete edition which includes two full DLC’s that add some worthwhile content.
I’m going to jump right into what makes this game great, but first I offer a quick comparison that will likely grab the attention of a lot of early 2000’s gamers: Remnant is basically the third-person-shooter equivalent of Diablo II.
A Magical Apocalypse
The story of Remnant was largely inconsequential to my base enjoyment of the game. You can pick it up, play through the entire thing, and enjoy every minute of it without really seeing the story. However, if you do ignore the story, you are doing yourself a disservice. This is because Remnant actually has some pretty deep lore that is largely hidden in the computer terminals and occasional journals you can find strewn throughout the world.
Without getting into too much detail, there was basically an apocalypse in the late 1960’s which was linked to the discovery of — and experimentation on — several large crystals. An entity, or entities, known as “The Root” infiltrated our world, and thus, the extermination of all life began.
The game begins roughly eighty years after this catastrophic event. You are a survivor from a remote settlement of humans, tasked with traveling to a tower above an atoll and destroying the evil that lurks there.
That’s the gist of the info that the game spoon feeds to you. However, if you choose to read all the information provided throughout the game, you get a much more in depth understanding of exactly what happened after the discovery of the crystals, as well as how insidious the Root truly are.
While you don’t have to seek out this knowledge, I highly recommend that you do. It elevates an already great game to another level entirely.
Always to the East
Now, I’d like to get to my assertion that Remnant is basically a third person shooter version of Diablo II. While this is extremely true, keep in mind that Remnant is its own game and shines on its own merits.
The similarities are glaring. You traverse several worlds that are all largely procedurally generated with each new playthrough. There is, of course, the co-op element, which makes both games more enjoyable. And lastly is the immense replayability of both games.
Then come the differences.
The first, and foremost, of which is that Remnant is a third person shooter, and a solid one at that. The play action is smooth, responsive, and can be a chaotic sort of fun.
The second difference is that Remnant carries some elements of the Soulsborne genre within it. You can only save at checkpoints and, if you die, you will go back to the checkpoint and all of your enemies will have respawned. This can make the game almost controller-shatteringly hard on occasion, but ultimately makes your successes that much more rewarding.
The biggest, and most evident, difference was that every weapon or piece of armor in the game can be used at any level. Basically, if you acquire a weapon, it can always be used throughout the entire game.
Each weapon, or piece of armor, has a level ranging from one to twenty. So, you can take your starting weapon to the last boss and light him up if you so choose, as long as you’ve upgraded that weapon accordingly. This also means that you receive fewer weapons throughout your playthrough than you would with something like Diablo II, but when you do receive a weapon, it is ultimately more rewarding than the thousands of weapons you pick up and sell in a game like Diablo.
Please Stand By
While I do praise the world design, which is really quite good, there are some glaring flaws with this game that can be hard to overlook, depending on what’s important to you.
The character models of the people of Ward 13, your homebase, can be a little lacking. In fact, I felt like I was playing a PS3-era game when I first started out. I mean, the graphics aren’t stellar in general, but the puppet mouths of the vendors in the ward leave a lot to be desired.
The cutscenes also have some issues with artifacting, and the animations could have used a lot more TLC. This lead to every single cutscene looking off in ways that I find hard to describe.
For me, the biggest issue was with hair. It was… floaty, and seemed to leave behind a fuzzy sort of after-image. While this did not impact the gameplay at all, and the cutscenes were few and far between, it was still something that broke my immersion and made me question what the heck I was looking at.
I will say that one of the characters added for the Subject 2923 expansion had a solid design that looked commensurate with at least the PS4 era of gaming.
The most egregious issue with this game is the map. While it is servicable in many ways, there are some things about it that made me shake my head in confusion. For example, there is no way to view any other section of the map, other than the place where you are. So, you can’t ever see what areas connect to where you’re standing.
Another issue involving the map is that the only way to tell what area you’re actually in is by resting at a checkpoint. This is also the only way to tell that you are in a dungeon. This means that if your objective is to travel to “The Wasteland,” you would only know that you’re in “The Wasteland” if you actually go there and rest at a checkpoint. This can leave you backtracking more often than you would like.
Consequences of Death
I did mention earlier that Remnant is a bit Soulsbourne-ish. This means that there is an inherent level of difficulty that is not for all players. This can be curbed, or exacerbated, with a couple of friends, but ultimately, if you are playing alone, you might find yourself hitting a wall that cannot be surmounted.
The nice thing about Remnant, however, is that the only consequence of death is that you have to go back to the last checkpoint. You don’t lose money, experience, or items. In fact, you only gain those things in the process. Enemies will continue to drop money, and you will continue to get experience for killing them. This means you can get stronger by continuing to die.
The enemies also scale with you, so it can still be tough, but you can — sort of — dig yourself out of the hole.
There is, however, another option you could consider if you find yourself up against something you can’t seem to defeat…
The Re-Roll
Probably the game’s standout feature, at least to me, was the ability to re-roll your campaign. What this means is that you can reset the game to a zero status. It wipes out all of your progress through the story, but allows you to keep your character as-is. Now, this might sound like taking the nuclear option, but hear me out.
Remnant has multiple bosses, mini-bosses, and dungeons that do not manifest with every playthrough. I played through the opening world twice and got different dungeons each time, and at least two bosses in the second playthrough that I had not seen in the first playthrough. This makes a huge difference, because most of the weapons in the game come from specific bosses. So, re-rolling your game allows you to attempt to get new weapons with which to kill whatever was giving you trouble before…
Of course, it also means that you may not even encounter the thing that killed you a couple hundred times.
Along with the re-roll, you also have the option to enter Adventure Mode. While completely re-rolling your game wipes out any progress you have made so far, Adventure Mode does not. It allows you to keep your place in the story, and go off and have an adventure.
Basically, it allows you to play through one of the game’s available worlds from start to finish. This means that if you were looking for a specific boss to acquire a specific weapon, you don’t have to play through the whole game if you don’t want to. Simply go into Adventure Mode and lay waste until you get what you’re looking for.
Serenity Among Ashes
Overall, Remnant: From the Ashes is an amazing title that managed to walk a razor’s edge between a myriad of different games without being a clone of any of them. The combat is brutal and the bosses are completely unforgiving, but each piece of hard-won gear you acquire is that much more rewarding because of your struggle.
Even the story, which could be considered superfluous, is lovingly crafted, though largely relegated to journal entries and audio logs. Though there were some issues—looking at you, map—it is a game well worth playing.
I’m giving Remnant: From the Ashes a inspiring 8.5/10 because it managed to ignite nostalgia in me while also moving the genre forward in some remarkable ways.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and reset the whole of the cosmos because there is a pistol that I want to get. So, if you start to feel some déjà vu, that’s probably why.
Chewing through media so you don't have to 