ELEX II is the sequel to ELEX, the vintage open-world role-playing experience from the award-winning creators of the Gothic and Risen series, Piranha Bytes. ELEX II returns to the post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy world of Magalan – with massive environments that can be explored with unrivaled freedom via jetpack, you will be able to move through the epic story any way you want. Does this game improve over its predecessor? We dive into a huge, hand-crafted, completely unique world with multiple factions and diverse environments set in a post-apocalyptic science fantasy universe to find out. The Story: Several years after Jax defeated the Hybrid, a new threat arrives from the sky, unleashing the dangerous powers of dark Elex and endangering all life on the planet. In order to defend the peace on Magalan and the safety of his own family, Jax has to go on a mission to convince the factions to unite against the invaders and find his own son, Dex, who got separated from him…
The Features:
explore the planet of Magalan with unprecedented freedom, using your trusted jetpack to traverse the map and even fly!
interact with a lived-in world, full of unique NPCs, who
will remember what you’ve done and react accordingly
will join or leave your group depending on how you behave
are able to be killed, which will have an effect on the story
engage in fluid close and ranged combat with a massively improved control system
experience a story where your actions have consequences, immersing you in a world of moral decisions
Our Thoughts: ELEX II is an improvement over the original game in pretty much every way. The graphics look so much better and the main story is much more interesting and sets up for a future sequel in the franchise. The plots not perfect and it starts much stronger than it finishes but its still a vast improvement over the originals.
This definitely plays like a much deeper RPG than I was expecting when looking at the trailers, I was under the assumption it would be more of an action based game but thankfully I was way off base. There are a variety of factions across its great open world, as well as a selection of companion characters that join you throughout the story. What's great is that all these companions have their own stories and quests too.
I highly recommend playing the first game before starting this one as the plot follows on from the original - with you once again playing as Commander Jax, you could just jump straight in but you would be missing out alot of key information. Overall the game isn't perfect, it has a fair bit of jank to it, but if you can look past it you will find a deep RPG with tons of content to sink 50+ hours of your time into. It's not going to rival games like Skyrim for content, but it's a solid effort from THQ and Piranha Bytes plus if you ever played Gothic/Gothic 2 and enjoyed it then you will most likely enjoy this as well!
TOTAL SCORE: 8/10
ELEX II was released on the 1st March 2022. Playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S consoles and supports Smart Delivery. The game is priced at £49.99 and can be purchased HERE. A copy of the game was provided for this review.
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