Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon DLC review

Remnant 2 isn’t a game lauded for its story. In fact, most of its praise comes from the gameplay, the mechanics, the inventive bosses and clever mysteries that kept the community guessing and working together for months after release. The two previous expansions had a strange approach to their campaigns as a result, with The Awakened King feeling like a disjointed continuation and The Forgotten Kingdom a straight up new mini-adventure. In Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon, Gunfire Games have aimed for a middle ground between the two, but largely due to N’Erud’s lore and history, struggles to stick the landing in terms of story.

The one thing N’Erud lacks that the other worlds have is a clear villain character. The Imposters in Losomn tie in perfectly with the Awakened King, while in Yaesha the Stone Goddess Lydusa feels like another eldritch foe akin to the Ravager. In The Dark Horizon, the overarching villain is the huge AI entity that controls Alepsis Taura, but even after finishing the campaign I couldn’t work out why it needed stopping, or what the consequences would be either way. The lack of any kind of intro or outro cutscenes created a real sense of disconnect and I found I just didn’t really care why I was doing anything in the narrative. The Custodian kind of returns (now called the Gardener), but that’s all. Compared to the previous Remnant 2 expansions, especially The Awakened King, it’s a little disappointing.

But as I said, story has never been the draw. The search for Clementine wasn’t exactly compelling, and Gunfire seem to have largely forgotten about Andrew Ford altogether (though he is mentioned briefly in Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon). It’s not the narrative we’re playing for; it’s the sense of exploration and discovery that keeps bringing us back.

Devoid Quietus, the new biome, is physically massive, though this size is something of an illusion. It’s such a vast area that you’re given access to glider drones to get around easier, but this conveniently disguises the fact that you can’t actually walk on most of what you see. The bottom area is covered in lakes of bubbling oil that instantly kill you, so you’ll be hopping from landmass to landmass to move around. The overworld is pretty enough, though, replacing barren deserts with fields of alien crops overseen by huge spider-like Harvesters and sentry drones. The new enemies are all great, particularly the floating robots that “stomp” through the air at you with movement reminiscent of the Nightweaver.

New dungeons abound, with some fairly inventive ideas that we haven’t seen in the game so far. One sees you climbing to the top of a huge tower using raising platforms, battling waves of enemies on each level. Another requires you to jump across railway platforms while avoiding speeding trains. There’s even a stealth-based injectable in one of them where you’ll need to avoid patrolling robots to snag a new ring. New boss fights are thin on the ground, though, the highlight being the final boss itself, but there’s plenty of Aberrations to drop new Mutators for your weapons.

As in previous instalments there are many, many secrets hidden around the new area. I managed to find the new Archetype and its armour and melee weapon in my first One Shot, but never found the ranged Repair Tool and still don’t know where it is. Altogether there are around 45 new rings and amulets to find, at least two new Trait Cards, and a few more weapons – so plenty to dig into. Also, as before, you can’t solve everything in just one playthrough of the area. All in all I spent almost 10 hours digging around in just the One Shot, which is pretty good value time-wise, especially as I’ll go back many more times in the future. If you’re coming at this with endgame builds though, play at least on Veteran. I chose Veteran and a lot of it was simply too easy to smash through with my tasty Ritualist-Invoker build.

The new Archetype, though, is a doozy. The Warden is simply superb, bringing passive perks that boost damage and defence, can buff allies, and strengthen things like the Engineer’s turret. It’s primary skillset revolves around the Drone, which comes in three types: Shield, Heal, and Combat. The Shield Drone is likely to get a nerf though. I actively tried to die to an Aberration at one point, but because I had activated the Drone and the Invoker’s Way of Kueala together, even standing still and not fighting meant the enemy couldn’t kill me before my green lightning wiped it out. Finding the Warden isn’t as outright silly as the Invoker was, but you will require some luck to stumble upon it – or just make sure you explore everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) with the gliders.

Although some other changes aren’t exclusive to the expansion, The Dark Horizon benefits massively from a few key new features. The Prism system overhauls the previous Relic Fragment system and gives you constant stat boosts as you level up like the Paragon system in Diablo. Once you’ve slotted three Fragments into your Prism, you’ll be able to select one of three buffs each time you level up until you’ve slotted a total of eight. After that, you can level up those five added stats ten times until you hit level 50 and unlock an Elite buff. You can eventually get seven Prisms, which can be swapped out to boost specific loadouts giving even more build diversity and allowing you to tackle tougher difficulties and, of course, the Boss Rush Mode.

To make the endgame Prism grind worth it, Gunfire Games has added Boss Rush Mode, a randomised gauntlet of three, seven, or nineteen boss fights interspersed with compact overworld skirmishes against standard enemies and Aberrations. Between each round you can earn up to two roguelike buffs to take through to the end. You’re rewarded based on time, difficulty, and overall performance, and can receive anything from Corrupted Shards and Fragments to world-drop rings and amulets not currently in your collection. You’ll also receive boss materials if there are any you’re missing. While Boss Rush isn’t strictly a part of The Dark Horizon, it ties in well with the new quality of life changes throughout.

Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon is a solid final offering for the three promised expansions, even if it fails to capture the magic of The Awakened King. With a largely forgettable villain, the star of the show is the Devoid Quietus biome itself, filled with mysteries and secrets, expanding the lore of N’Erud and peppering in some very cool new Dungeons. With the other expansions, Boss Rush, and the base game, it rounds off a huge, varied, and wonderfully inventive experience that genuinely makes me excited for the possible future of the franchise, whether in this game or a potential follow-up. Story-wise, The Dark Horizon is the weakest of the three expansions, but taking into account the Warden and the multiple quality of life improvements, it’s still absolutely worth your time.