Characters get interrupted mid-conversation by combat and then complain that “I wasn’t finished yet,” as if it was your fault. In the first few hours you’ll bounce between running away from every combat encounter while scavenging to raise funs to having inane conversations with your annoying child. While the visual stylings work well, the tone of Elex II is absolutely all over the place. Your levels are also lost, although this is explained away as Jax having retired to a cabin due to his exasperation at the behaviour of the various faction leaders – a choice compounded by an altercation with an alien beast that bites him and gives him a debilitating infection. No matter which companion you favoured and who you romanced, the game begins with Jax having a child with Caja. The drawback to this is that your choices from the first game are thrown away. Jax returns as the payable character, and there is clearly an expectation that you are familiar with the events of the first game, either through playing or reading up on them. Is ELEX II going to bring meaningful change and improvement?Įlex was a massive game, and Elex II is more of the same in that regard. That being said, the usual Piranha Bytes issues were present, with a somewhat janky engine and sudden instadeath encounters lurking around almost every corner. Whether you chose to go in swinging a sword, wielding a shotgun, or sniping from afar with a plasma rifle, a dizzying array of approaches were possible. Expanding the scope of their worlds to include options for fantasy, modern, or science fiction builds and locations to survive side by side.

Going all the way back to the original Gothic, their titles have offered the challenging combat, customisation, and exploration, and the original ELEX was no exception.

Piranha Bytes games are a peculiar breed.

Elex 2 character creation