![]() If Studio 369 is to make this version of the game “glorious”, a revamp or serious update to the combat mechanics is needed. The controls also don’t feel as tight and responsible as they do in games like The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Dark Souls, to name a few titles that share elements with Rune II. With all these options in terms of weapons, you’d expect it to make a difference in how you approach and win fights, but it rarely does. The combat itself still needs work though, because as much as I enjoyed the button mashing approach of Diablo II back in the day we now (in the 3D era) have far superior combat mechanics in RPG titles, and if you’re coming from something like The Witcher 3 then Rune II’s combat feels too mindless and ultimately unrewarding. ![]() Your weapons change and upgrade frequently because of this, and you can alternate between different loadouts on the fly if you want to. The loot dynamic in the game also helps with this, and it’s as bountiful here as it was in the days of Diablo II. Missing at worst and broken at best last year, there’s now a full story to play through, and even though it’s a fairly generic tale it helps a lot in providing the player with an incentive to push forward. ![]() One area that’s a vast improvement over last year’s version is that the story campaign and its (side)quests. You can (fairly early on in the game) also align yourself with one of the Norse gods, which grants access to unique abilities and the opportunity to adopt different playstyles. It’s an easy to manage upgrade system that’s more similar to action RPGs than Diablo than it is to the intricate progression system in some of this year’s best RPG titles, but with an emphasis on loot and action that’s hardly a surprise. When you level up in Rune II, you do so along four axes – strength being an obvious one that’s joined by dexterity, constitution and wisdom. The core plot is still your typical “prevent Loki’s ambitions to unleash Ragnarok upon Midgard” though, and it’s up to you and your (user generated) character to make sure it doesn’t happen.Īs I always do, I went with whatever visual appearance the game threw at me, but did spend time looking into my stats. Though I’m quite familiar with the first Rune (which is 20 years old already!), I had only briefly played last year’s sequel as I quickly lost interest due to bugs and a lack of post-release updates to fix them. They go on to talk about their own take on Rune II as a glorious Viking adventure full of betrayal, rebirth and revenge, so at least they’re not afraid to push off against the past and set the bar high for their own work. They describe the previous version as abandoned and sabotaged by the original developers (Human Head Studios, who were also behind the first Rune as well as the first Prey game), and are keen to point out that “the human head has been severed” – hence the title. Reading up on Rune II’s Steam release, it’s hard to escape that the new developers, Studio 369, are keen to point out this is a very different game from what was released on the Epic storefront last year. ![]() Rune II is filled with the same undead draugr that populate the world of the PS4 award-winner, its world also traversed by boat and conquered with an axe (or hammer or sword). It's difficult not to compare the two games, and because of that, Rune II suffers.About a year after the launch of Rune II on the Epic Store, the game is launching on Steam as the ‘Decapitation Edition’ – and there’s more to that title than you might think. Like the recent God of War, its setting is the Ragnarok, an apocalyptic event in the world of Midgar. Rune II proves that some games - and their gods - are better left dead.Ī long-awaited sequel to the 2000 PC game, Rune, the RPG-lite hack'n'slash is set in the fascinating and rich world of Norse mythology. And though a game (or in this case, franchise) may seem to be long gone, gestated and left to obscurity, it can always be brought back. While Loki may die to a swing from Mjolnir, he can be born again a teenager, for someone with that level of power never truly perishes. ![]() Games and gods of Norse mythology have a commonality: both are often resurrected. Rune II is a slog of a hack'n'slash-RPG with repetitive combat and mechanics, dated graphics, and an overall lack of polish. ![]()
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