ELEX II

I've played now 60-70h. It's a typical Piranha Bytes game: Hard combats, unfair enemies, harsh NPCs, an open world which you can *theoretically* explore from the beginning. It's great to have this experience again and you can see how hard they worked at the combat system. They also re-worked the thief/stealth system and as a little burglar I really appreciate this! However, my main concern is: There could be more. A part of the world is already known from Elex 1, just different in regards of vegetation and population. The same with skills. I don't understand why they re-designed all faces and armors from Elex 1 - it already was great and now the faces of old companions are barely recognizable and the new armors are not as great as in the prequel. I have not finished the game yet, but my girlfriend already told me (no spoiler) that the story is not very coherent when you are coming from Elex 1. I also noticed some inconsistences when it comes to your relationship to Caya or to Dex - I mean, what is even the point of having a kid in this game? If you are expecting a "masterpiece of storytelling" you are not on the right track. Decisions you make are considered, but it's like the rest, there could be more. This being said, yes it has its flaws but these flaws also make this game unique. PB is loyal to their understanding of creating an atmospheric and living world where every NPC has its purpose and routine. You are a hero in this world, yes, but most of the time you don't notice that because you are trying to not die. Some quests really surprised me, or made me laugh. PB: I think you are on the right track - but please, can you give your story in the hands of an author. I appreciate you attempt, but honestly it would be so much more believable if the story was coherent, understanding and immersive.

Nice gameplay

The exploration and world building in Elex 2 is excellent. Let down only by performance issues. I am running the game on a AMD 5800 X and RX 6700 XT and it should not be holding at a average 27 FPS. Adjusting the settings to medium/low does not have bring any improvements. People with much higher and much lower setups than mine have been reporting similar performance issues with both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs so it seems it is not a machine specific problem and more about optimization. Since it;s launch they have addressed the issue with the Vega GPUs and added in a static alt camera mode. I am confident given time that they will address the performance issues and bugs. As it stands right now it might be a mixed bag for some as far as performance and impacted game play goes. As far as the story, writing, acting, and sound, well, it is a PB game. It has the jank that they are known for. And yet, there is something enduring about their game design. Despite it's many flaws the world building draws the player in. Exploring the interesting ruins, seeing the changes of the first game and the attention to detail with the games geography and structures over the time between the first and second game. It is something to behold. PD excels at environmental story telling and world building. This is their strong suit. Go into the game keeping that in mind. The story continues the first game with the signal sent out by the Hybrid reaching its source as a new menace reaches Magellan. The writing and story beats are pretty average and it follows the same progression as the first game. They improved on the faction system by not rail roading you along to join one nearly as much but like the first game I dont really feel any great connection with any of them as much as I would like. The effects are nice with birds flying around, trees blowing in the wind, and there is a day night cycle but some of the textures are rough. 4 stars for the game it could be . 3 for what it is.

I really like the way they changed the pacing to be a bit more palpable early on, the battle system ins now snappier than in the first title, questing and upgrading stats, the jetpack and weapons is moer intuitive and fun, the world is now looking even better than in the first Elex title, foliage is more detlailed and the far distance viewing is amazing. You can actually fly in this game. Questing and world building is well done as expected from Piranha Bytes. The lip sync in this game is perfect. Many settings can be adjusted. Performance is fine on my system using DX12 and is being improved upon. After playing over 100 hours of the first Elex title and finishing it, I am now having fun playing through Elex II. I can recommend the game.

You need patience a s things don't happen in a hurry but good to play