Highlights
- Remnant 2 has serious balancing issues, especially in co-op multiplayer, that undermine its progression systems.
- Gunfire Games may be motivated to resolve these problems due to the game's popularity and critical acclaim.
- The scaling issues in Remnant 2, particularly with enemy health and damage, negatively impact gameplay and boss encounters.
Remnant 2 seems to have some serious balancing issues, according to some of the game's more experienced players, and the problems are severe enough that they undermine a huge chunk of its progression systems, especially in co-op multiplayer. A wildly popular sequel to developer Gunfire Games' first mainstream offering, Remnant 2 has been met with critical acclaim, but that's not to say it doesn't have its fair share of problems.
The good news, of course, is that Gunfire Games is going to be highly motivated to resolve the game's problems now that it's clear that Remnant 2 is a big hit with players. The game's combination of Soulslike combat with a ranged slant and procedurally generated exploration has cemented its spot on the Steam top charts, and both updates and expansion packs are already underway.
In the interim, however, fans have identified a massive problem with how Gunfire Games has implemented scaling into Remnant 2. According to BrainExtreme9235, who voiced their concerns on Reddit, "every single kind of scaling in the game" is an issue. Specifically, Remnant 2 scales up enemy health and damage based on a player's combined gear and class power level, which has resulted in a situation where the more a weapon is upgraded, the weaker the rest of a player's loadout gets unless they keep everything at the same level. Remnant 2's upgrade systems therefore end up punishing the player for experimentation and for not sticking with the same kit throughout the game, which runs in opposition to the game's loot systems and gear in general.
The problem is relatively manageable for solo players in Remnant 2, as they can deliberately cap their gear upgrades to a low enough level that enemy scaling stays in line, though that obviously takes away the thrill of looting and upgrading gear. For those joining up for co-op play, however, the problem is hugely exacerbated, as enemies' health and damage output are scaled to the host's power level. Newbies joining up with veteran hosts bring the scaling down a bit, but not enough to make a difference.
Certainly, Remnant 2 is loaded with quality-of-life features that its predecessor never had, and it even handles some features better than other genre competitors did. If Gunfire Games doesn't come up with a way to resolve the scaling problems, the game runs the risk of turning into an impossibly tricky slugfest for full fireteams of players. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that many players are hoping to see changes to the affected systems.
One of the biggest downsides of the game's current scaling approach is that Remnant 2's awesome boss encounters, specifically, can become punishingly hard when those systems are out of whack. And with the existing iteration of progression and upgrades, the game's finest features may get overshadowed as the community catches up on the issue.
Remnant 2 is now available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.