Remnant: From the Ashes

Disclaimer: I received Remnant for free through Epic Games, but I would've paid full price for it. 

Remnant is a "third-person shooter rogue-lite souls-like". I initially dismissed that amalgamation of buzzwords as just that: buzz words riding the latest trend to get more buyers interested. I was very wrong. 

Remnant has the gunplay of Gears of War. Every shot from every gun sounds and feels impactful, unique, and GOOD. I was initially hesitant of adding guns into the gameplay of Dark Souls, but I don't think it could've been done better. Melee weapons are pretty basic, with a fairly small moveset on each weapon. The gameplay, however, is much faster and more hectic than Dark Souls and Gears of War, thanks to stamina being used only for running and dodging. 

There's a good amount of build variety. You can go for melee, run-and-gun, sniper, mid-range, battle medic, tanky, or any combination of these. I never felt like my playstyle wasn't supported. I didn't find very much in the way of armor on my first playthrough, but after doing a couple additional dungeons, I found several sets I missed the first time around. 

Difficulty is at just the right place. I started on Hard, which provided an appropriate challenge all the way through to the end. Co-op was scaled appropriately to make every encounter exciting. 

The story itself is told through notes, environments, and some sparse cutscenes and dialogue. The world, however, is beautiful and interesting, and I can't get enough of it. Everything from creature design to environments to costumes is eye candy. The game is "short" by some people's standards (it technically can be beaten in about 5-6 hours), but my thorough playthrough took about 20 hours. 

Since the game is somewhat randomly generated, you won't see everything it has to offer on the first playthrough, even if you're thoroughly exploring every map and dungeon. In a single playthrough, you might never see some bosses and dungeons, never encounter some NPC's, or never see some weapons and armor. And that's okay, because the game offers a system for you to generate new random dungeons (seperate from the campaign) and find new items and encounters. 

Remnant has its fair share of bugs and performance issues. Load screens can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, seemingly randomly. I easily spent an hour or more of my 20 hour playthrough JUST in loading screens. When things get really busy on screen, the audio sometimes cuts out. One time a boss got stuck on a wall (making for an easy kill). Another, the boss got stuck behind a wall (prompting a restart). 

Finally, there's just a few Quality of Life things I would like to see. The main base (Ward 13) is too spread out, with long walks between each merchant and the teleporter. If you find the game too easy or hard, you can't change it without restarting the entire game. The UI and controls were obviously designed for console. They're passable, but buggy. 

Overall, this is a great buy for anyone wanting a mixup to the souls-like genre, or fans of third-person shooters. It's actually a bit difficult to assign Remnant to any one genre, so if you're fans of any of these, give it a shot.