Stories were told of a savior that would destroy an ancient evil that came from another dimension to earth. An evil that exterminated most of the population and bent Earth to its will. Like all stories, generations pass and hope dissipates. Eventually the player comes along, hope is restored and you immediately venture off into the unknown to save the human race (and others) from the bad guys.

Remnant: From the Ashes is a third-person survival action shooter from Gunfire Games and published by Perfect World Entertainment. Gunfire games is made up of important roles from Vigil Games that crafted the world of the Darksiders series.

Plot?

After the player attempts to traverse the open seas, fails and washes ashore and is saved by a rag-tag group of human resistance fighters under the command of Ford. Ward 13 is the main hub in Remnant where vendors are located and story elements expand. After spending time in the research facility, the player can easily understand what the enemy is and what they want; total annihilation. “The Root” as they are called, are a tree-like race of demons that are bent on wiping out all life. There are a total of five realms that the player can enter to learn about the respective realms, the Founder’s research and of the Roots purpose. Each realm has tons to explore, in terms of: Lore, crafting materials, bosses and vendors. Each realm adds to the story of the Root while also exploring conflicts that reside within the realm. Gunfire Games did very well at crafting likable characters and worlds filled to the brim with lore.

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Gameplay

Dark-Souls with guns comes to mind when playing Remnant but is much more than that. WASD moves your character and apparently, for whatever reason, ALT is to crouch. Fastest and easiest re-mapping to CTRL in my life. Most of the time you will point your gun and common, mini-bosses and bosses and they eventually die. Enemies hit really hard so you need to make use of the dodge mechanic, and before you know it, it easily becomes your best friend. Enemies take on all kinds of tactics in attempt to obliterate you: Shooting weapons, throwing objects and slamming big ‘ol blunt weapons in attempts to disrupt your adventure.

The player has two slots for ranged weapons: a handgun (pistol or sub-machine gun) and a long-gun (sniper rifle, shotgun, etc). Each weapon has a mod slot that is activated when dealing the appropriate amount of damage. A plant that takes aggro, fire balls that apply burn and the ability to summon skulls to lay down fire on enemies are only a few mods in Remnant. Ranged weapons, though, are not your only outlet of destruction, there are also a wide range of melee weapons to choose from. Hammers, scythes, spears and battle axes hit with ferocity, making enemies stagger and applying different status effects.

Each character class is different: The hunter deals in critical hit chance and damage, the scrapper deals in melee damage, and the ex-cultist is the support. The game adheres to these classes and offers a wide range of different armor and rings that allow each character class play differently.

At the start of the game players are introduced to skill points and what they can apply to. Health, stamina, revive speed and class specific abilities are only some of the attributes players can spend trait points on. Having a wide range of traits allows players to dedicate to a build that maximizes damage, critical hit chance or even mod generation. My character, my third time around, was solely dedicated to reload speed and mod generation. Dumb but it worked, sometimes.

There is loot in Remnant but it is not like other looter-shooters. Guns, mods and armor crop up when defeated a boss, finding a secret dungeon or humoring NPC’s and generally, the weapons and mods you acquire are better than the what you have. Achieve at killing a certain boss? You are rewarded with a burst rifle that when the mod is full the player is revived when down. Give an NPC one-thousand scrap and listen to his boring ass stories? Armor that gives a max 30% more damage.

It is also good knowing that a lot of the essential traits, weapons and armor are secrets after the player achieves a certain criteria. It inspires more than just running through conversations with NPC’s, it makes you care a bit more about what they have to say.

Remnant plays with difficulty in a way that I dislike. Learning enemy behavior is key to succeeding in fights, a majority of the time, until the big baddy is introduced. Most of the time bosses just enemy spam, making the difficulty level rise significantly. Artificial difficulty does not ever sit well with me. During my first play through it felt good beating a world boss, but most of the time it was not just my skill or memorization of his move set that took the boss down, it was in fact luck. Luck plays a major role in most of the boss fights during the first play through. To this day I still have not beaten the Re-animator (who spawns an army of enemies consistently throughout the fight) and I’ve come to terms with that. No doubt the fights that you encounter are fun and difficult but sometimes it is incredibly maddening when faced with a boss that enemy spams while you fight him.

Remnant offers longevity in the form of “dynamically generated worlds.” This means that essentially every play through is different with different quest lines, maps and in world events. Personally, it is a good concept because I played for roughly forty hours and I’ve seen a lot of things that my game did not have. Also, I never had gotten the “Tale of Two Liz’s” quest yet. It is a unique way to apply longevity and I do personally like the idea because it works, I played a lot in other peoples games just to see what their game offered that mine did not.

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The Looks

Remnant is a decent looking game. The subway section on Earth is dark and tight, making fights difficult and spooky. The lush jungles of Yaesha are colored with different shades of greens and blues. There is not much on Rhom when it is introduced. Rhom has a handful of destroyed buildings that resemble the ones that are on Earth. Rhom just seems like it was scraped together quickly without much thought to the construction of the world. Overall the game looks nice, but with stretched, pix-elated images like the God damned trees in the backdrop of Earth, it does look like bad at certain points.

Final Thoughts

Remnant: From the Ashes is a very fun game. Either playing the game by yourself, with friends or even with people you never met before, the game never gets old. You can play the game and never bat an eye at the uninspiring plot. The gameplay works and is fun. You either pick up a weapon and you point at the spooky tree guy and he crumples onto the floor or you beat them in the ground with your melee weapon. Mods add depth to the game play and are also fun to play with. The weapons are unique and always a delight to shoot. The enemies come in small doses and do not overwhelm. The bosses are unique, intimidating and difficult. It sucks that bosses enemy spam but overall the game was well worth the $40 price tag.