Remnant: From the Ashes

Game Pass Game of the Week.

April 5, 2021

Remnant: From the Ashes

I have been kicking around the idea of a weekly Game Pass post for a couple months. The notion started while listening to a podcast where the hosts jokingly mentioned adding the "Game Pass Game of the Week" to their show. They laughed it off because theirs is not a gaming cast, but the idea resonated with me. So here it is, my first Game Pass Game of the week article.

I am writing this with the understanding that there may not be much of an audience for this content. I have to believe that Game Pass subscribers are well aware of the games that are available. And non-subscribers probably don't care. Add to that the fact that the web is cluttered with wikis and walkthroughs for virtually every game that has ever been produced.

Here's why you'll find this series interesting. First, I am not a gaming journalist nor am I in the gaming industry in any way. I am simply a guy who likes to play video games. It's one of my hobbies. I sometimes play on mobile devices or my PC, but usually when I am settling in to play, it's in front of my Xbox. I have an Xbox One and plan on upgrading to a Series X sometime this year.

These articles will be short and will give my impressions of the game. Game Pass games are played for the price of the subscription, so we are tempted to consider them "free". But each hour spent on a game can only be spent once, so your time is very limited. You don't want to waste it on a game that is not fun. My articles may help you discover fun games you might have overlooked, or may help you avoid something you would not enjoy.

Let's get started, then, with Remnant: From the Ashes.

I stumbled across Remnant almost by accident. The game was part of a recent Game Pass Quest, and since I use quests to earn points, I jumped in for what I thought would be a quick drop-in-then-done gameplay. But this game surprised me with the quality of the combat and gunplay. I like it.

Remnant is a third person shooter. Third person shooters emphasize gun combat with a perspective that is behind your character. It is also a "Souls" style game, which means it shares some mechanics with the popular Dark Souls series of games. In this case it means working from checkpoint to checkpoint fighting through enemies to a difficult boss. Dying in Souls games carries a tough penalty, sending you back to the checkpoint to slog through the enemies over again. 

Remnant gives the player a break in two ways; first, you will  not lose items picked up or experience points earned along the way. And second, if you lose to the boss, you are restarted at the boss battle.

What I like

It's all about the combat. Remnant's combat mechanics are very good. It does not suffer from aiming issues that often plague third person shooters, especially if the enemy is close. There is no blocking so defense is accomplished using dodge. The controls are simple with standard left trigger aiming and right trigger firing. Movement and camera use the left and right sticks in a standard manner as well.

I like that the game is challenging without feeling impossible. I'm not a great gamer, but have managed to progress on the normal difficultly without getting stuck. I had to repeat each boss battle several times before defeating the enemy, but I have trouble with bosses in most games.

What is just OK

Like a lot of games, the story line seems trite. It is another in a long line of post-apocalypse games where it is up to you to resolve the world's troubles and save the day. The introduction is particularly bland with may of the usual video game tropes. But the story is not center stage here, it's simply a means of setting things up for the dungeon crawling and combat.

What I am not crazy about

While I love the combat, the game begins to feel repetitive pretty early. The number of weapons and specials skills is fairly small, so there is not a lot of variety in the gameplay. Instead the game relies on unique and difficult bosses to keep things interesting. Also, I'm not a fan of the red color scheme and find there is not enough contrast to pick out enemies. Many modern games use a wide spectrum of vivid colors in the art style, but Remnant bucks that trend.

There is no true pause in the game. And you visit your inventory during combat at your own risk.

Things to be aware of

Remnant uses standard shooting and movement controls, but has a couple of quirks to learn too. For example, the A button, which is usually reserved for jumping or climbing, performs a dodge roll. The B button, which is typically a defense mechanism, is used to crouch. Pressing the right stick will send messages to your teammates in multiplayer.

It took me a while to get used to the melee controls. Melee is performed using the right trigger when the gun is not aimed. This means, of course, that there is no shooting from the hip. Once I got adjusted to performing melee with the trigger, I liked it. Melee, however, is the one area where third person aiming can get tricky.

All in all

I have been playing games on Xbox since early in the 360 generation. I watch a lot of videos on upcoming releases and keep a watch list of titles that I would like to play. Somehow, though, Remnant was released without landing on my radar. It's a great game that would have been unfortunate to pass over. If you like dungeon crawling and third person shooters, then by all means, check this one out.