Table of Contents
The GlobalESportNews test is finally finished: Elex 2 is better than its predecessor, but took too much time to do so. This affects the rating.
Whoever starts playing Elex 2 feels: freedom, a sense of departure, a feeling like coming home and curling up on the sofa in your favourite warm blanket with a hot chocolate. But also: thrills. When you stop playing Elex 2, you feel: contentment, a sense of well-being, relief. And perhaps a little heartburn.
For as grandiose as the exploration of the open world in Piranha Byte’s new role-playing game is, the story wastes a lot of potential the more events come to a head. The result is a role-playing game divided into two halves that entertains for at least 40 hours, building sensibly on the foundations laid in the predecessor but starving its own ambitions of plot. Also because Elex 3 is apparently already firmly planned.
Update from 28 February: In the meantime, we have finalised our Elex 2 test and can give it a final rating. In the process, we have also slightly revised the conclusion on the last page and corrected an error: Those who join the Outlaws can use the powerful stims without the otherwise obligatory XP penalty of 50 percent.
Welcome to Wonderland
The first half of Elex 2 is almost a survival game: In the atmospherically dense world, you hop from one abandoned ruin to the next, always on the lookout for deadly enemies, scrape together what the remains of the fallen civilisation can offer, always on the go. Food, healing potions, crafting paraphernalia, all go into your never-ending bag of equipment, and when you finally stumble across a weapon with more damage than your initial bludgeon, you do a dance of joy. You only engage in combat when you’re sure of the outcome, and for everything else, the quick save and quick load buttons are maltreated.
Although Elex 2 always remains a role-playing game without excessive survival elements (food and drink are only used to restore vitality and mana), even if you tackle it on the highest of the four (well-balanced) difficulty levels. But the gameplay still resembles a walk through the dangerous open world of a DayZ.
If you survive, you get stronger over time, and at some point the moment comes when you get back at all the disgusting creatures who sent you into the dust with a few punches, bites and kicks in the hours before.
This happens so naturally, through steady investment in five character attributes and over 80 skills, that this progression mechanic is one of the biggest guarantees of fun in Elex 2. Piranha Bytes’ upgrade model rivals the best in the genre and may serve as a shining example for RPGs to come.
The crafting system is similar: You can use the right skills to assemble ammunition or refine damaged weapons at various workbenches. Three broken weapons become a new weapon with significantly better status values. Thanks to the preview function, you can always see what you will get for your crafting materials and what is worth saving up for.
With the raw material Elex and other materials, you can also brew potions that give you additional attribute or learning points. You’ll need the latter, along with substantial amounts of Elexit, to pay teachers for new skills. In the meantime, you can equip your hero with fresh items in the inventory, and you can pack up to nine weapons and potions into a circular menu for faster use. The various systems interlock intelligently and provide long-term motivation.
The urge to improve your own character and snatch everything useful you can from the world will almost force you to forget the main story in the first few hours. This is intentional.
The story comes later!
With Elex 2, the 30-odd developer studio Piranha Bytes is courting its fans like never before. Everything seems to be geared towards making connoisseurs of Gothic and Elex feel right at home. Also through the structure of the campaign: the story, divided into four acts, gives you a lot of freedom at the beginning to elicit as many secrets as possible from the large game world.
The decision for one of five factions (see box) can be delayed for a long time or even avoided altogether – for the first time in the history of games from the Ruhrpott you can also see the final sequence as a factionless hero. But only when you complete key dialogues and main quests that are clearly communicated as milestones does the story progress noticeably.
On the one hand, this is great because you determine the pace at which Elex 2 progresses. On the other hand, the main story only gets going in the second half of the game, when you have decided on a group and prioritise the fun exploration of the game world.
It is only from the third act onwards that the plot around the Skyands becomes more interesting. The latter is a new alien race that lands on the planet Magalan and the first thing they do is bury the house of Elex hero Jax under one of several ominous towers. Jax is severely injured and infected with a virus, which causes him problems for the rest of the game – but there are no gameplay consequences apart from a few visual effects and the odd unwanted teleport.
Rather, Piranha Bytes tries to give the player a personal motivation for the fight against the Skyands with the infection and the loss of his own hut. To this end, the developers also introduce Jax’s son. This is because Elex 2 takes place several years after the events of its predecessor. There are plenty of connecting points in the story, but the interspersed flashbacks are sometimes difficult to understand. Those who have not played the first part can follow the basic plot threads well, but miss a lot of allusions and details.
On an emotional level, Elex 2 presents a mixed picture. On the one hand, you can put yourself in the story thanks to the predefined hero Jax and his relationships established in the predecessor, but on the other hand, the dramatically conceived cutscenes towards the end often lack the appropriate staging to successfully convey an emotional impact.
The faces of the characters turn out to be an absolute mood killer, sometimes looking as if a couple of dolls had escaped from the waxworks. Time and again there are moments in the game that tear you away from the conversations, which are entirely in German. At least Piranha Bytes has slightly adjusted some of the worst aberrations in the preview version, for example mage Caja no longer looks like a walking corpse.
But if you don’t mind the occasionally makeshift animations and clunky cutscenes, as well as a few poorly chosen voice actors, you can take a lot of positives from Elex 2’s story. In the last two acts, events come to a head and exciting insights into the true nature of the Skyands come to light. This culminates in a showdown that paves the way for Elex 3.
The final sequence gives clear hints about the setting of the sequel and differs in details depending on the choices you have made before. Even though the big threat and the central conflict are resolved, Elex 2 suffers noticeably from the fact that it is the middle part of a planned trilogy. Several plot threads are not concluded, but the characters connected to them are put in place for a sequel without their development finding a conclusion. This might bother all those who do not want to wait another five years for the sequel after finishing the game.
The factions in Elex 2
Since the very first Gothic, Piranha Bytes has only made one game where you don’t choose one of three factions: Risen 2, there were actually only two. Elex 2, on the other hand, now delivers five for the first time – although, actually, there are six. And yet somehow only three. Sounds confusing? Don’t worry, we’ll shed some light on it.
The nature-loving berserkers have made themselves at home in the former outlaw fort of Tavar.
Even the clerics want you to do your basic training somewhere else, you have to serve your way up with the Albs first. In return, you’ll get the most modern equipment in the game and an ability to cheat death.
Also, as in Elex 1, the accumulation of mass battles towards the end is slightly tiring. You clear one Skyands tower after the other of alien beasts and fight in one tour against masses of foot soldiers, robots, giant spiders, renegade Alb troops, more robots … And so on. The combat-heavy second half of the game is in stark contrast to the opening phase, which focuses on exploration and the search for loot.
Pleasant, however, because unusual in video games: After the finale of Elex 2, you take another tour of the game world and talk to all the important factions about the effects of the finale. This is more credible than simply ending the game after playing the credits. Especially as you can then complete any side tasks that have been left behind. There are probably a lot of them, because Elex 2 is pretty big.
A lot of play for the money
Those who complete Elex 2 in under 40 hours should consider a career as a speedrunner. We ended up level 51 after 60 hours of play and had explored 99 percent of the game world. The progress can be easily tracked thanks to the ingenious map function. Because Piranha Bytes turns the principle behind the usual jumble of question marks in other open-world games inside out with an ingenious change: In Elex 2, you set the question marks yourself. Let’s demonstrate this:
At the beginning, only a few icons are displayed on the overview map, such as the quick travel points that can be discovered little by little or the quest markers that can be optionally activated. But if you come across a currently invincible monster or a locked chest for which you don’t yet have the right key or skill, you can stick one of several ready-made symbols on the map. You can then remove these stickers and get an overview of exciting places and destinations for future exploration tours. A feature we would like to see in every open-world game in the future!
Especially since this game world is not made up of repetitive building blocks in which the developers regularly repeat four or five activities according to a pattern. In Elex 2, there are no standardised outposts to liberate or predefined bounty hunting missions to complete. The world feels much more natural than in some AAA titles, everything has a purpose and is connected with quests and stories.
The huge map is about the same size as in the predecessor, but still shows a lot of changes. While on the one hand old areas around the berserk city of Golieth have been removed, on the other hand new regions in the south and east have been added. And the regions that were still sandy in Elex 1 blossom in all kinds of colours a few years later thanks to the World Hearts. Dense forests, snow-covered peaks, wastelands littered with rusty railway wagons – Elex 2 offers a colourful smorgasbord of post-apocalyptic scenery.
Thanks to pretty lighting effects, the hills and valleys are the visual star of the game, especially the sunrise in the forest is worth seeing. Looking down from a high cliff and seeing towering monsters below, slowly stalking through the grass, is a sublime sight. Until you realise that the choppy animations from a distance look richly antique, even up close.
If you expect the latest technology and buttery-smooth graphics, you’ve come to the wrong place with Elex 2. Instead, the role-playing game has other strengths. You can see some of them (and the graphical weak points) in our gallery with numerous self-made screenshots from the test version:
The performance is decent, but at times there were minor slowdowns on our test computer (Core i5-8600K, Geforce RTX 2070, 16 GB RAM). We provide you with the best settings for a smooth gaming experience in our technology guide.
Missions you remember (sometimes)
Elex 2 is roughly divided into three equal parts: Engaging in dialogue, fighting critters, exploring the world. In the latter, you’ll come across plenty of opportunities to indulge in the first two activities, often on behalf of NPCs who connect the quests with sometimes tragic, sometimes funny stories.
Once you entrust your money to a shady financial service provider who wants to start a Ponzi scheme with your help. Then again, you answer quiz questions under the threat of violence, help a berserker reconcile with his family, or follow three young detectives investigating a criminal case.
The missions are whimsical, but certain patterns repeat a tad too often (“Smash seven copies of monster type X!”). In contrast, there are often several possible solutions and decision-making moments to shape your own Jax, at least on a moral level. This is based on a simple black-and-white system; you collect “destruction” or dismantle it. Especially in the later course of the game, there are special conversation options for characters with one or the other character trait. Your skills are also regularly queried, but unlike in Elex 1, the minimum requirements are much better balanced, especially in the beginning.
Elex 2 thus achieves what has always distinguished good role-playing games: The player’s decisions have noticeable consequences, be it in terms of the character system, quest progressions or even just because the characters in the game comment on your actions. This is what happens again and again in Elex 2. NPCs thank you, you meet old acquaintances again, and the game goes the extra mile to present scenes that are strictly speaking superfluous but contribute to the credibility of the world.
For example, when you seek new recruits for the ore mine operator and complete a complicated, convoluted series of quests, you are rewarded at the end not only with experience points and Elexit. No, the next time you visit the city you will also see the client swearing his fresh recruits to the job and then actually marching off with them towards the mine. And not in some cutscene, but as an organic, almost incidental event in the open world.
However, you have to be patient, because dialogues take a lot of time; when you first come to the headquarters of one of the factions, everyone wants to tell you their life story. Not all the texts are great literature, much of it seems more like filler, quantity before quality. But at least the conversations convey the typical Piranha Bytes style well, here you talk freely – until you get a full pounding and … shut your mouth, you stupid alb!
Oh yes, there are companions too, of course, and their quest series run through the whole game. The characters are well written, and there is a companion for every type of player and every temperament – at the same time you are only allowed to take one with you anyway. The others, meanwhile, wait in a central camp that plays an important role in the story and is attacked several times by enemies. You also have all your crafting tools in one place.
Each of your companions sends you on a series of special missions, which unfortunately only amount to eliminating special groups of enemies at predetermined locations in the game world. The companions’ abilities automatically improve over time, and Jax is also allowed to exchange a fleeting kiss with one of three women in the game at the end, which passes for a love scene.
Dusted battles
Elex 2 does a lot better than its predecessor in terms of combat, but that doesn’t make it a grandiose polished AAA experience à la Batman: Arkham City. The controls are still a little awkward, and the timing isn’t always perfect. Especially when facing groups of enemies, you have a hard time. At least at the beginning, because the campaign’s division into two parts is also noticeable here.
Towards the end, the main game throws you into several large battles with up to 20 opponents. You slaughter without ceasing and, thanks to your superior armour at this point, are able to keep the many opponents at bay. This is a stark contrast to the first hours, where even two giant rats at the same time will make you sweat.
No matter how strong you are and how many enemies you face, Elex 2’s battles will never be a highlight. The example with Batman: Arkham City above stands for games in which, after the tutorial, something clicks and you begin to exploit the depth of the combat system. A Dark Souls rewards discipline, in The Witcher 3 there’s at least a certain amount of tactics to consider with swords, spells and potions. In Elex 2, on the other hand, the battles almost always play out the same way and are more a means to an end.
With a little getting used to, the melee fights go off routinely, also because the enemy AI has graduated from the “cheerful to death” academy. Only the long life bars and the high damage of enemy attacks pose a challenge, for the rest you have a powerful dodge function. Later in the game, there are also shields that absorb all damage when blocking. You learn spells and other special abilities almost exclusively from the factions, but they hardly bring any new elements into the game.
The stamina bar known from Elex is back, but this time it allows far more attacks in succession; the predecessor was very stingy here, and you were also forced to perform continuous combos in order to do reasonable damage with swords and axes. This is no longer the case in Elex 2 – a sensible improvement.
Kicks and shield blows prove useful for draining an opponent’s stamina – if their yellow bar lands at zero, they fall to the ground and are particularly vulnerable for a moment. Jax’s heavy attack is indispensable for maximum damage in this case, but otherwise almost useless.
Ranged combat complements the swordplay well, with shotguns proving especially deadly. In addition, there are grenades and rocket launchers, which throw enemies back when they explode, but otherwise don’t do much. Plasma rifles, bows and crossbows, on the other hand, are very effective at a distance, ideally from an elevated position. Getting there is easier than ever in Elex 2, because Jax gets several practical upgrades for his jetpack.
Flying is always more beautiful
Although much of Elex 2 looks like typical fantasy fare at first glance (thick armour, swords and magic), the scenario also contains numerous science fiction influences. One of these is the Boba Fett commemorative jetpack that Jax straps around his hips at the beginning of the game. In future, he will be able to ignite the rocket engine from a jump without transition and thus rise into the air.
The vertical ascent is nothing new for connoisseurs of the predecessor, even though Piranha Bytes has noticeably improved the controls – there is no longer an annoying delay, and the change between running, jumping and flying is now much smoother. And then there’s the matter of flying horizontally.
When Jax lies flat in the air like a human surfboard and is catapulted forward with the booster ignited, you can’t help but grin broadly. The fuel for this manoeuvre is limited, in the course of the game you mount a total of 50 canisters, which extend the flight time piece by piece. Only at the very end do you get an upgrade for unlimited flight.
In combat, the jetpack is more important than ever, with the melee weapon equipped, Jax flies towards the targeted enemy and strikes. Attacks are automatic, but dodging is tricky. If you have a firearm in your hand, Jax hovers in the air while aiming and can thus calmly aim at enemies on the ground. To make sure this isn’t too easy, almost all monsters and human adversaries now have a ranged attack.
The design of the game world is remarkably well adapted to the new functions of the jetpack, because certain monuments always stand out in the distance and catch your attention: Here a hut, there a group of monsters on the other side of the river, there a hole in the rock wall yawns and hints at a hidden cave.
Use the jetpack to bridge the walking distances between these hotspots, minimising waiting times and boring marching through the dirt. This turns the game into a seemingly never-ending sequence of exploration and combat, the next distraction just a button press and a few seconds away.
Finding a hidden shortcut, for example by flying over a valley or boosting yourself from rooftop to rooftop, triggers feelings of happiness. The message is clear: the world of Elex 2 is yours, and the jetpack is the key that opens the gates to exploration lock, stock and barrel. In the test, this works so fantastically that the limited range of functions of the rocket engine from the first Elex seems downright puny in retrospect.
The lack of a zoom function takes some getting used to: In Elex (and Gothic as well as Risen) you could change the perspective with the mouse wheel to increase the distance between the camera and the character. This created an additional overview if desired. In Elex 2, the zoom factor is predefined: The camera hangs very close over Jax’s shoulder when standing still, and automatically moves further away when running.
The technical condition of Elex 2 is worthy of all honour. During the test, the game ran smoothly on several different computer configurations. Occasionally there was some unsightly flickering of the textures when data was streamed in the background. We did not notice any quest bugs.
Overall, Elex 2 feels more rounded than any other Piranha Bytes game. The five-year development period has done the game noticeably good, especially when it comes to the core gameplay, this basic loop of exploring, taking loot and improving character. While the unbalanced story makes the two halves of the game feel very different, Elex 2 ultimately manages to marry the two into a gripping, if a little hip, role-playing game where the journey is always more important than the destination.
Better than its predecessor?
2017 was a fantastic year for open-world fans. With The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn and Assassin’s Creed Origins, three games were released at once, each of which conjured up a remarkable game world on small big screens in its own way. And then there was Elex, the antithesis of the well-designed modern open world. Made by Gothic fans for Gothic fans and just as unwieldy as one might expect from a 20-year-old game principle. The trip to the planet Magalan was worth 85 gameplay points to us back then. Five years later, this rating is now being avenged.
Because Elex 2, published in 2022, is better than its predecessor in many respects. The game start is fairer, the controls smoother, the jetpack more useful. There are more factions than ever before in a Piranha Bytes game. Everything seems a bit more rounded, a bit more polished. But that’s also the problem: “a bit” is not enough for a score beyond 85 after five years.
After all, time has not stood still between 2017 and 2022. Today’s open-world fans rightly expect more, and the standards for presentation and staging are much higher than they were back then. Also in the GlobalESportNews editorial team. The paradoxical result: the successor gets a worse rating than its predecessor, although it is actually better. But what does “worse” mean? Elex 2 is still a great recommendation for role-players. At least if you are prepared to make sacrifices.
Editor’s verdict
Elex 2 succeeds in doing something with its open world that few open world games manage these days: I immediately get a great desire to explore it. As in the first part, I spend most of my time just strolling and jetpacking through the area, collecting all sorts of bits and pieces (cheers to the unlimited inventory!) and soaking up all the little details and stories of the game world.
The role-playing game just lets me explore and try everything out for myself instead of always giving me the direct route. This time it doesn’t even want to force me into a faction! In its time, I had abandoned Elex after 18 hours because I had to choose one of the factions. And I can never decide! But if I don’t like all the factions in Elex 2, I simply form my own gang. It’s not quite up to the fantastic faction system of Fallout: New Vegas, but this is definitely one of my favourite changes in Elex 2.
On the other hand, I would have liked to see much more changes and improvements in the characters and the story staging. The conversations often lack dynamism for me, some speakers sound very emotionless and when it comes to facial animations, “The Polar Express” voluntarily relinquishes its Uncanny Valley crown. I find it difficult to relate to the characters, their fate and thus to the story itself, and I therefore find myself repeatedly preferring to raid alien toilets rather than care about the alien threat.
Ultimately, Elex 2 leaves me with similar feelings to its predecessor: Open world – yay! Story and characters – nay!
