It's not as good as the first game but it's still worth playing.

PW2 is to Quake what PW1 is to Doom. You can jump! Enemies are 3D models instead of sprites! Secrets are more about finding buttons and breakable walls than sliding your face along every surface mashing the interact key!

The biggest difference is that each of the 3 episodes has a different protagonist, who plays in a different way. Palmer is the most normal and straightforward. Urd is a glass cannon. Kirsten is tanky but has the most trouble with crowds. Each of these characters has their own set of weapons, with their own upgrade paths, as well as their own unique abilities and damage types. These range from game-breaking in the good way (Palmer's ice powers are ridiculously overpowered if you invest enough into it) to game-breaking in the bad way (Kirsten's void powers are actively detrimental to you and have a memory leak that can bring the game into 'seconds per frame' levels of crawl after just a few levels - don't use them).

And there are other bugs too that are bringing it down. Some are minor, like visual glitches, being able to load 1 extra shell into most shotguns, or the plethora of typos in the text and especially the loading screen tips. Some are nastier, like the aforementioned memory leak, or Urd's multishot crossbow upgrade not working, or scoped weapons having trouble snap-firing for some reason. The game only recently came out of Early Access, so hopefully these will be fixed.

Although there are only 3 episodes, the levels are generally much bigger and sprawling than in the first game, so it balances out in terms of content. The ending is unsatisfying plot-wise, but you don't really play a boomer shooter for the story. The gameplay is the main draw and, when it works, is fun. Like the first game there's tons of ways you can build a character - though not quite as many, since your progression only lasts one episode instead of the entire game, and you have fewer spells and weapons to choose from per-character. Mana isn't gone, per se, but it's just an ammo type now that requires a different stat than Capacity to increase. This is disappointing as having a separate mana pool for your spells made the first game stand out; now, all your spells just use cooldowns instead.

Still, it's not bad, and has plenty of replayability. There's not only multiple difficulties and possible builds, but Realmshift mode lets you play any character in any episode. To accommodate this it turns every ammo drop into "universal ammo" that partly fills up all your guns - it's very hard to run out of ammo in the base game already, so in Realmshift it's basically impossible.

Ultimately, it could do with a bit more polish, but the core is solid.

It's not as good as the first game but it's still worth playing. PW2 is to Quake what PW1 is to Doom. You can jump! Enemies are 3D models instead of sprites! Secrets are more about finding buttons and breakable walls than sliding your face along every surface mashing the interact key! The biggest difference is that each of the 3 episodes has a different protagonist, who plays in a different way. Palmer is the most normal and straightforward. Urd is a glass cannon. Kirsten is tanky but has the most trouble with crowds. Each of these characters has their own set of weapons, with their own upgrade paths, as well as their own unique abilities and damage types. These range from game-breaking in the good way (Palmer's ice powers are ridiculously overpowered if you invest enough into it) to game-breaking in the bad way (Kirsten's void powers are actively detrimental to you and have a memory leak that can bring the game into 'seconds per frame' levels of crawl after just a few levels - don't use them). And there are other bugs too that are bringing it down. Some are minor, like visual glitches, being able to load 1 extra shell into most shotguns, or the plethora of typos in the text and especially the loading screen tips. Some are nastier, like the aforementioned memory leak, or Urd's multishot crossbow upgrade not working, or scoped weapons having trouble snap-firing for some reason. The game only recently came out of Early Access, so hopefully these will be fixed. Although there are only 3 episodes, the levels are generally much bigger and sprawling than in the first game, so it balances out in terms of content. The ending is unsatisfying plot-wise, but you don't really play a boomer shooter for the story. The gameplay is the main draw and, when it works, is fun. Like the first game there's tons of ways you can build a character - though not quite as many, since your progression only lasts one episode instead of the entire game, and you have fewer spells and weapons to choose from per-character. Mana isn't gone, per se, but it's just an ammo type now that requires a different stat than Capacity to increase. This is disappointing as having a separate mana pool for your spells made the first game stand out; now, all your spells just use cooldowns instead. Still, it's not bad, and has plenty of replayability. There's not only multiple difficulties and possible builds, but Realmshift mode lets you play any character in any episode. To accommodate this it turns every ammo drop into "universal ammo" that partly fills up all your guns - it's very hard to run out of ammo in the base game already, so in Realmshift it's basically impossible. Ultimately, it could do with a bit more polish, but the core is solid.