Remnant 2 (Remnant II) developed by Gunfire Games and published by Gearbox Publishing is proving to be a handful for consoles and handhelds like Steam Deck. The third-person, action-adventure, RPG shooter was released on July 25 and is available now on various platforms, including GeForce NOW, Steam, and Amazon.
“Remnant 2 pits survivors of humanity against new deadly creatures and god-like bosses across terrifying worlds,” explained the game’s official description. “Play solo or co-op with two other friends to explore the depths of the unknown to stop an evil from destroying reality itself.”
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Remnant II is one of the leading AAA games to utilize Unreal Engine 5. It is also one of the eight new cloud games that would debut on GeForce NOW. Remnant 2 is the sequel to the 2019 hit titled Remnant: From the Ashes.
Remnant II features terrifying new worlds, creatures, and items that distinguish it from the first game. However, the play mechanics and abilities remained fairly the same. Therefore, players that enjoyed the first game will face a shorter learning curve with the sequel.
Newer entrants to Remnant will face a bit of a challenge with finding and unlocking Archetypes—which endows the player with special abilities. In all regards, Remnant 2 is a fresh and exciting entrant into the growing world of cloud gaming.
Remnant 2 is Steam Deck verified, but…
If you play your games on handhelds, it would interest you to know that Remnant II is Steam Deck verified. However, some users have complained bitterly about the poor performance of the game on Steam Deck which makes them question its verification status.
A YouTuber that goes by the name Steam Deck Gaming shared a video of the game on the handheld. Although Remnant 2 was playable on Steam Deck, the performance was horrible. From illegible texts to loss of frame rates, the game was far from enjoyable—and will only get better when special settings are applied.
The effect of the poor graphics potentially spills over to the controls. Since Remnant II is mostly about dodging, players on Steam Deck will find it difficult to make timed evasions—eventually leading to multiple deaths. This happened with the default graphics settings which means that tuning up your graphics settings will likely make it worse.
Most players were able to get above 30fps using Intel XeSS upscaler which made the games a little more enjoyable. Also, players may have to remap their button configurations too. It is important to mention that Remnant II is not the first Steam ‘verified’ game with questionable performance.
Players also heavily criticized the Steam ‘verified’ status of The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam Deck because of similar performance issues. Interestingly, animes like Dragon Ball: Kakarot runs perfectly on Steam Deck but it is still listed as ‘unsupported’ on Steam. In simple words, Steam’s ‘verified’ badge is not to be trusted.
The problem with Remnant II on consoles
Digital Foundry played Remnant II on Xbox Series X|S and PS5. Although the visual fidelity was unquestionably good, the performance left doubts. The explanation was that Gunfire Games developed the game around upscaling technologies like FSR and DLSS.
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Xbox Series X and PS5 had three visual settings namely Performance mode, Balanced mode, and Quality mode. The first two offer 60fps while the third is locked at 30fps. All three modes are upscaled to 1440p. However, Performance will give you 720p, Balanced will give you 792p and Quality will give you 1296p.
Most players found frame rates dropping to mid-30s in Balanced mode while screen tearing was sometimes recorded in Performance mode. Interestingly, the Quality mode was able to give almost consisted 30fps. About the same outcome was recorded in Xbox Series X. Series S only had one mode that runs at 30fps (that often drops to mid-20s) and 900p.
Xbox Series X allows players to tweak their settings to 120hz mode which allows uncapped framerates. While that may seem like a good thing, it also leads to huge swings that may eventually seem worse that keeping the frames locked at 60fps—which PS5 does.
While the use of Unreal Engine 5 has led to a huge leap in visual fidelity, the cost can be seen in the struggling consoles and handhelds. Eventually, Microsoft and Sony may be forced to phase out the current consoles for a new generation of consoles that will overcome the limitations faced by the current generation.
Remnant II is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. If you have played the game, feel free to share your experience in the comment box below.
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