Game News ELEX II Released

[Infinitron]

Tags: ELEX II; Piranha Bytes; THQ Nordic

ELEX II, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2017 cult hit science fantasy action-RPG from Piranha Bytes, was released today. Mainstream reviews of the game have been almost entirely negative, calling it janky and "unpleasant". We know better than that here on the Codex, but that doesn't mean we don't have questions. Will ELEX II be better than its predecessor? And will Darth Roxor finally upgrade to Windows 10 so he can review it? All these questions and more will be answered in the coming days. For now, here's the game's launch trailer, with the tonally inappropriate rock soundtrack we've come to expect.

​

And here's the obligatory review roundup. Shoutout to our man Hellion over at Ragequit.gr, the only one who gets it.

GameGrin 5.5/10
Gamepressure 7/10
GameSpace 7.5/10
GameWatcher 6.5/10
God is a Geek 5/10
New Game Network 60/100
Ragequit.gr 84/100
Rock Paper Shotgun
WellPlayed 3/10
​

ELEX II is available now on Steam and GOG for $50. It's time to get xenial.

 

[Gwendo]

I hope PB will add a FOV slider ASAP. The game feels off with such narrow and zoomed in FOV. At first I thought, since I'm playing with an ultrawide monitor, that PB was lazy and just zoomed in and cropped the image. But changing resolution to a 16:9 aspect didn't fix the problem.

Also, the camera that zooms in when we are still and zooms out when we walk, can be annoying.

 

[luj1]

cult hit

 

[tindrli]

 

[thesheeep]

They implemented an FOV change on walking so that you constantly have a changing FOV as you walk/stop?
That's just adorably janky

 

[Achiman]

This review sounds about right, will get it once I'm sated with Elden Ting.

 

[lightbane]

Now the Polish and German Codexers can play this already and stop shilling about the damn thing, which is pretty much the same game done over and over in decades.
Kinda like Dark Souls and Elden Rings, actually.

 

[Peachcurl]

Now the Polish and German Codexers can play this already and stop shilling about the damn thing, which is pretty much the same game done over and over in decades.
Kinda like Dark Souls and Elden Rings, actually.

But the jet pack!

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

Another shitty meme game. Face it goys, these devs can't churn out anything remotely similar to Gothic 2.

 

[Rincewind]

Couldn't help myself, just had to collect the best quotes from these outstanding little pieces of "gaming journalism". Emphasis mine.

While the world-building remains some of Piranha Bytes’ best work, the characters within and their interactions are often maddening. Everyone is an arsehole to everyone else. There are no characters to like in this game, because every one of them has the same wry, sarcastic, embittered personality. It doesn’t help that Jax looks like a football hooligan who’s lost his team strip, and has about the same level of charisma.

Elex 2 is, by far, the most unpleasant, mean-spirited and plain nasty game I’ve played in a very long time. Almost everyone you encounter is just a horrible person. They’re generally rude and abrasive, and even the friendlier ones are just annoying. One of your party characters, literally named Nasty, is flat out abusive. I’m assuming that this is supposed to be “mature” or “realistic” but it’s neither of those things. The game is like a twelve year old who thinks that being rude and swearing constantly makes him well ‘ard. These aren’t nuanced, well-rounded characters, they’re flat automatons who are unrelentingly awful instead of having any personality.

[...] the characters in Cyberpunk are compelling, well-rounded characters with depth and nuance. They’re frequently likeable, even caring, forcing us to deal with the contradictory aspects of human nature. Elex 2 has none of that, it’s just a game filled with deeply unpleasant people.

Quests always have an objective marker, though annoyingly you can only track one quest at a time. The radar is also totally lacking in detail, and custom placed markers don’t appear unless you are close to them.

While this is clearly a kleptomaniac’s wet dream with loot scattered all over the place ripe for the taking, the game refuses to allow any form of loot collecting while you have a weapon in your hand. Jax is standing there with a pipe in one hand, the other is clearly empty and unused, so why can I not use this spare empty hand to simply pick up a piece of rat that I’ve just killed? Why do I have to sheathe the pipe before being able to ransack something?

The biggest disappointment to the vast array of quests you can do is how they are tracked and displayed on the UI. For starters, the menu itself leaves much to be desired and looks rather plain and lackluster. Once you start a quest, you actually have to go to the menu, find the quest, and highlight it to activate it on your map to see where you need to go. The problem is that most quests are branching and contain multiple missions for you to complete to fully finish them. However, the game doesn’t think you would want to see a quest to the end so you need to back to the menu to highlight the next mission of a quest each time you finish a portion of it. This means you need to keep going back and forth multiple times just to complete a quest to gain some sort of direction of where to go next.

In comparison, here's an old pre-release review from December which is actually fair and non-retarded.

https://www.global-esports.news/general/30-hours-played-elex-2-declares-war-on-the-mass-market/

Question for the people who are playing this right now: how is the performance compared to the first game? I completed that on my old GTX 750 Ti that I still have (on lowish settings, if I remember correctly); FPS was around 20-30 which I'm fine with.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The reviews are mostly accurate.

 

[dacencora]

Tbh it’s a rare thing for a majority of NPCs in a game to treat you with disdain, so it’s always a memorable experience (SMT: Nocturne, Fallout 1, Gothic, etc)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The excuse they give for everyone forgetting Jax is paper thin as fuck and stupid.

 

[Diggfinger]

Ragequit.gr 84/100

This guy reviewed Serpent of the Staglands also

rusty_shackleford

SitS Wikipedia-article (written by me)

Καλαγκιάς, Νίκος (21 June 2015). "Serpent In The Staglands". Ragequit.gr. Retrieved 15 July 2015.

 

[Joyvankek]

Is it playable?
Or should I give it 3 months to a year?
Also how good/bad it's when compared to the first Elex?

 

[Peachcurl]

Is it playable?
Or should I give it 3 months to a year?

Support the question. Since my download speed is pretty horrid atm, I wouldn't mind waiting if people expect necessary frequent updates. Otherwise I'll start playing tomorrow.

So what is really going on? I'm getting pretty fed up with the constant anti-Russian propaganda and would like an alternate perspective.

This thread is now peacefully derailing.

 

[Roguey]

Is it playable?
Or should I give it 3 months to a year?
Also how good/bad it's when compared to the first Elex?

Piranha Bytes only ever supports their games for a few months at most. In three months it'll be as good as it will ever be.

 

[Maggot]

how is the performance compared to the first game?

Much worse.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Also how good/bad it's when compared to the first Elex?

If I was forced to continue playing elex 2 or play fallout 4 unmodded, I'd go with the latter.

 

[Tyranicon]

Also how good/bad it's when compared to the first Elex?

If I was forced to continue playing elex 2 or play fallout 4 unmodded, I'd go with the latter.

 

[dacencora]

Also how good/bad it's when compared to the first Elex?

If I was forced to continue playing elex 2 or play fallout 4 unmodded, I'd go with the latter.

It doesn’t count because Rusty likes Fallout 4

 

[damagedbrains]

I prefer Russia's "invasion" in Ukraine: I'm Russian, fags. Blame me!

So what is really going on? I'm getting pretty fed up with the constant anti-Russian propaganda and would like an alternate perspective.

Oliver Stone has a list of quick, introductory articles. The last one he cites seems a good run-down.

If I was forced to continue playing elex 2 or play fallout 4 unmodded, I'd go with the latter.

Sounds like something an Elex 2 npc would say.