Red Solstice 2 is a fantastic and successful iteration upon Red Solstice. It is spiritually and mechanically the same game, with the rough parts sanded/smoothed/insert appropriate metaphor here. If you liked the first one, stop reading here and just buy it and play it.

Red Solstice 2 is still something of a "slow start" game. There's a distinct learning curve and options at the beginning are fairly limited. A lot of the negative reviews have less than 2 hours of playtime in a game that takes at least 4 to really get rolling. RS2 doesn't really spend any time holding your hand and keeping you safe from the bad things (ammo mismanagement, explosively happy teammates, bad choices, bad loadout design, etc). The flipside of this coin is that, as a player, you have a huge amount of freedom to dictate how you interact with the game.

Where RS2 shines is in the freedom for the player to dictate how they interact with the game through their loadout choices. There are several roles that need to be filled on a squad to see success, and the devs let players decide how to fill those roles (Medic is probably the only real pigeon holed class). In an attempt to avoid overloading the player with choice and information, the initial choices presented to the player are fairly limited.

An important thing to understand about Red Solstice 2 is that it is a multiplayer game that can be played single player (but is infinitely better and more fun by dragging more people into it), but because there's a "campaign mode" people are expecting that to be basically stand alone (it can be, but its missing the magic of what makes RS2 good).

Waxing on, the campaign brings a delightful amount of variation to the content experienced in the skirmish multiplayer. The missions are shorter (one of the big issues from RS1 is that games are typically 40-90 minutes long) and more varied. One mission involved pushing across an infested dam in a tight, intense experience.

As a final point, the devs are extremely active and responsive to the community. Most of the day one reviews (with playtimes under 2 hours) were complaining about bugs that were fixed within 24 hours of launch. They chat with the community, offer personal tech support, discuss design and ideas, it's everything you could ask from a dev team.

Overall, RS2 is just a better game than RS1. I struggle to pick a specific area where the first one outshines its successor, maybe just the price tag?

Red Solstice 2 is a fantastic and successful iteration upon Red Solstice. It is spiritually and mechanically the same game, with the rough parts sanded/smoothed/insert appropriate metaphor here. If you liked the first one, stop reading here and just buy it and play it. Red Solstice 2 is still something of a "slow start" game. There's a distinct learning curve and options at the beginning are fairly limited. A lot of the negative reviews have less than 2 hours of playtime in a game that takes at least 4 to really get rolling. RS2 doesn't really spend any time holding your hand and keeping you safe from the bad things (ammo mismanagement, explosively happy teammates, bad choices, bad loadout design, etc). The flipside of this coin is that, as a player, you have a huge amount of freedom to dictate how you interact with the game. Where RS2 shines is in the freedom for the player to dictate how they interact with the game through their loadout choices. There are several roles that need to be filled on a squad to see success, and the devs let players decide how to fill those roles (Medic is probably the only real pigeon holed class). In an attempt to avoid overloading the player with choice and information, the initial choices presented to the player are fairly limited. An important thing to understand about Red Solstice 2 is that it is a multiplayer game that can be played single player (but is infinitely better and more fun by dragging more people into it), but because there's a "campaign mode" people are expecting that to be basically stand alone (it can be, but its missing the magic of what makes RS2 good). Waxing on, the campaign brings a delightful amount of variation to the content experienced in the skirmish multiplayer. The missions are shorter (one of the big issues from RS1 is that games are typically 40-90 minutes long) and more varied. One mission involved pushing across an infested dam in a tight, intense experience. As a final point, the devs are extremely active and responsive to the community. Most of the day one reviews (with playtimes under 2 hours) were complaining about bugs that were fixed within 24 hours of launch. They chat with the community, offer personal tech support, discuss design and ideas, it's everything you could ask from a dev team. Overall, RS2 is just a better game than RS1. I struggle to pick a specific area where the first one outshines its successor, maybe just the price tag?