Into the Radius 2

As someone who loved the first game, Into the Radius 2 has turned out to be pretty disappointing for me. While I’m a fan of the coop and customization, everything else feels like a departure from the game I liked. The vibe is less stalker with an emphasis on more modern/tactical gear. (more NATO less Russian) It feels like not as much effort was put into enemy design in this game. In the first game enemies scared you, snuck up on you, patrolled around. In this game it feels like they just walk at you or shoot you from afar, and are generally less fun to fight (*cough* spawns). I like how enemies hide in houses but other than that they aren’t really scary in the way that the first games hunters and sliders were scary. Anomalies are essentially just different kinds of landmines you have to avoid stepping on. You don’t really need probes, you just need to walk around them unless the linear nature of the maps forces you through. The other systems I liked about the first game like ammo types, food, and looting have been neglected, poorly tuned, and basically ruined. Other than +P for 9x18 there is no indication that the devs intend to make ammo types like AP, SS, or CHP a reality. Food isn’t really found in the radius anymore and is really expensive in the shop so if you’re trying to save money you better get used to the noise of your stomach growling. The point of food isn’t to add another drain on the player budget, it’s that it’s immersive to eat a can of pineapple with a knife. And gone are the days of finding useful items in the radius, now all you find are things that you can sell for money and things that are worthless (they look the same but one flashes a black texture). No more loot crates, now you just occasionally see a statue holding half a gun. If you asked me what the worst part of this game was I would tell you without hesitation that it is the story. I don’t know why this game got so high off it’s own supply on the lore but what used to be a subtle, unobtrusive story in the first game is now told to you and your friends faces while you wait in a box for the NPC’s dialogue to be over before, during and after every single mission. It’s comparable to Subnautica Below Zero, except at least in that game you could skip the story and just explore the map. In ITR1 you didn’t need to do any missions to explore the map. In ITR2 you cannot enter a new zone until you have done enough missions that the game lets you (along with another mission where you walk around and light lanterns while an npc talks to you). As someone who was in the ITR discord before this game came out, I can confidently say that nearly every single feature added to this game was something I saw in a suggestion post. Everything from multiplayer and gun building to night vision and npcs was a suggestion that people made. While I think feedback is a good thing I also wish CMI used more of their own ideas. This game feels like a list of cool features with none of the design and purpose of the original. It feels like little thought has been put into things like immersion, progression, and enemy/anomaly design, and that really affects how it feels to play the game. Theres so many things that just take you out of the game and ruin whatever atmosphere the game was trying to build. It’s like if the first game overlayed your screen with **YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEOGAME** every ten minutes. I think this game is fun but it just feels like its moving further and further away from what I liked about the first one, and that sucks.

This game should've stayed Early Access for much longer because it doesn't function super well as a 1.0 release, bugs everywhere and constant crashing. The co-op was my main seller and even I can't hardly enjoy that with my friends.

[Before I begin I would like to say that I have written this review in a fit of rage after a sort of "final straw" situation while playing the game. You can probably tell it is emotionally charged, so if some information isn't 100% accurate, I do apologize. With that out of the way-] I don't think I've had a worst first impression with a game in awhile. Somehow, someway, everything is worse than the original game. Nerfs to things that didn't require it and mechanics that did not need to be added or were made too in-depth. I understand wanting customization but understand that some people (Myself included!!) would like to just buy a better gun and better attachments. Don't get me wrong, I love the ability to mix-match things, but with how LITTLE money you have in the first place, how are you supposed to anyway? By the time you can afford to, you will have beaten the game and there's no point. Not to mention that 90% of the gear is locked behind high-security clearance, which ALSO is end-game. Where there's no point. Speaking of which, the economy? In the first game it was bad enough, you BARELY had enough money for meds and whatnot after a run. It was acceptable, though, because this fit the tone of the game. You lived in a shipping container, times were tough. And before you call it a skill issue, I would min-max the hell out of my days. The second the sun was up I was out there, I'd be over encumbered by at least 50 pounds and both hands full and all slots filled, walking back to my place once the sun was down. I like to consider myself decently skilled at VR combat, so I don't waste that much ammo or meds either! And yet after all of it, the money to repair my stuff, heal myself, buy back what I used, I BARELY have enough to buy new stuff. And it's even worse in the sequel, because now you have EVEN MORE that you have to focus on buying, like INDIVIDUAL ARMOR PLATES as opposed to just armor, different tiers of medicine, the insane amount of different gun parts. It's genuinely shocking. Also the probes! You have to buy probes ALL THE TIME because they decided to limit how many you have as opposed to only making you buy them if you died / lost yours. I get that it's more realistic, but this isn't exactly a realistic game. There's floating trees. Let me have a never-ending probe box, please. The amount of changes feel so unnecessary. I'm okay with the modernization of everything given that it takes place AFTER the first game, but some things changed for the worse and it makes 0 sense. The tablet holding ALL the information on it in a (somehow) unorganized organized way rather than having a map and a journal separately threw me off as well. I get that it's nice for convenience but not when it's inconvenient to look at. Also, inconsistency. Lets talk about that. For example, how many times I've loaded into a game and all my weapons are completely empty? My mags are all empty? Nothing has bullets except the ammo box in my bag, so I'm just down 800 dollars in ammo for no apparent reason. Inconsistent anomalies on top of that! In the first game, anomalies reset after each tide. Some would change places to somewhere else. Now they reset DAILY, with no way to learn exactly where the anomalies are. The tutorial doesn't teach you how to do anything except the basic controls, which is fine! The first game was similar! Except the first game taught you how the Radius worked OUTSIDE OF THE TUTORIAL, you could infer a lot of information or figure it out yourself through trial and error! But when I die to a spark anomaly and have NO WAY to learn how to avoid it, do you expect me to be happy about that? My probes do nothing, walking slowly does nothing, not crouching, standing up, sprinting, jumping, flashlight does nothing, shooting does nothing, everything you'd think to try does nothing. Look it up? Says to throw a probe. So what the hell. Watch a video, it's exactly what I've already tried. But it just does nothing. Works on other traps of the exact same type (yes I understand the different types, this isn't that) but not the one I NEED TO GET PAST to continue the story. Speaking of the story, The dialogue? If you can call it that? Or any of this actually- The first game was super compelling, had me hooked within seconds. Nothing was given, you had to look around and pry. It was interesting. The notes changes as you progressed, you got a feel for what the Radius actually was. And for some reason we've decided to ditch that and go the AAA approach. Literally the first ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cutscene tells you to "Go Into The Radius" and it cuts to the title. Most of the dialogue so far is corny and really feels like either Sony or Vivienne Medrano wrote it. I played hours upon hours upon hours of the first game and still haven't fully completed it, I've loved every second of it. The developers GENUINELY cooked so hard with that game, it's one of my all time favorites. I have no idea where the story picks up from where I left off because there's no way to guess! It's so in depth! And yet in this game, I was able to correctly guess the entire plot within the first two missions based on the dialogue alone. Only AAA dialogue or terrible writing will do that to you, and I know the devs aren't bad at writing because the first game was amazing. And lastly, the fact that it doesn't even feel like we're in full release. They need to re-mark it as early access because if this is what a 1.0 release looks like then I am truly appalled. Requires better hardware than the first game and yet runs worse with that better hardware. Looks worse, too. Just because you've updated to a better engine with cooler shadows and lighting doesn't mean the game looks good. Visually the style has changed SO MUCH that it feels like they were sitting in the office thinking "What CAN we change" instead of "What SHOULD we change". Some of the designs, mechanics, visuals, it all just was unnecessary. For example, the style in general. The models. All of it. The rustic "S.T.A.L.K.E.R adjacent" feel that the first game had has been completely stripped for a colorful apocalypse. It's not rustic anymore, it's way too modernized. It's kinda like the difference in vibe between Battlefield V and Battlefield 2042, where they went from "War is hell" to "Omg guys we're going to war x3". We've moved from "The radius is dangerous, people die. I am afraid for my life, despite the fact that I can respawn. I do not know who or where I am, or who I can trust" to "And Explorer? You just be Explorer. Together, we ARE the Radius!" It just ruins the vibe that the first game was pushing us towards. I watched as the game progressed, I thought we'd just get an updated engine and models in terms of feel, but instead we got.. this. I can't even equate this to anything. This is a brand new low when it comes to modernization. (Edit; I would also like to point out that the devs admitted that they knew most of us wouldn't like the tonal shift, yet they did it anyway. Cmon man :/ ) Overall it's just.. disappointing. I REALLY wanted to like this game. I still do! I'm still going to give it a chance once I've calmed down. Despite how much I dislike it, I have faith that there's SOMETHING that can keep me going, surely! So I'm going to keep trying. And I suggest anyone that is dead set on playing to do the same! But if you've played the first game, you might not like this one. It is worse than the first. Might be a good game on it's own, as a standalone, but right now it fails as a sequel. Other reviews have worded it way better than I, so you probably check those out. Like I said, my review is emotionally charged. While there are good points that I've made, and I stand by most of what I've said, I am still angry at the exact time of review. Don't let my one negative review sway your decision on whether or not to buy the game, however. You should make your own decision.

Maybe fix the online coop issues and bugs before releasing paid cosmetic dlc thats being advertised both in mission control and the shop.

This game has been great and the first ITR is one of my favorite VR games of all time. HOWEVER. Now that they felt the need to drop paid DLC for a throwback cosmetic that should be free to anyone who owns the first game while many base issues still persist I feel I can't in good faith recommend this. Since Beta it feels like it has been one step forward and 3 steps back. Many of the bugs that plagued the game in the beginning are still preset, especially in coop: -Enemies glitching through the ground -Items like NVGs and flashlights sometimes decide to no longer toggle. -anomalies are sometimes invisible which makes missions that need them extra difficult for no reason. -if you drop your gun too fast out of the holster you better hope the host is nearby so they can pick it up cause you cannot. -pop in if you're not host can sometimes be incredibly bad, got killed cause I walked into a distortion zone that I couldn't see till it was too late Altered items were changed from interesting items morphed by the radius (3 forks smushed together, multiple rubicks cubes fused) to every day items that you can only tell are altered by staring at them for multiple seconds to watch the texture change. Why they felt the need to changed altered items and swap the anomalies (which were neat) with the interesting altered item designs, leaving you to stare at a shelf waiting to see a texture change is beyond me. The ambience and atmosphere of this game can be tremendous but in a second you can be taken out and frustrated by a ton of annoying bugs. Pulling out of Beta/EA and having a 1.0 release when almost nothing that should've been in the base game was present or fixed was the first slap but paid DLC for a game people are clearly enjoying but frustrated with your choices/lack of fixes is abhorrent.

The script is written by redditors and the tutorial it's forcing me and my homeboy into is terrible now

New update makes the screen shake violently for no reason, it's completely unplayable and didn't do that before. besides that, the game keeps shoving annoying voiced npcs down my throat that I could not give less of a ♥♥♥♥ about. Katya in the first game was nice because you only heard from her once in a while when you were out exploring, and you didn't have to wait for her to finish blabbing for 5 minutes everytime you wanted to go out into the radius. The anomalies are also ridiculous and make the game not fun, idk why they're all modeled after the lightning anomaly when one of the most popular mods for the first game was to remove it completely. Even playing with anomaly damage and spawn on very low they are still everywhere. They also limited the probes so unlike the first game you cant throw them around and see where the anomalies are. There's just so much about this that's a huge step back from the first game, so just go play that because it's incredible.

[h1] Satisfying VR shooting experience but lacking much beyond that [/h1] The shooting feels good, the action is intense, the gun customization feels great. The gear progression vs the difficulty progression of the enemies feels fair and enjoyable. I highly recommend this game to people who want a VR shooter. However, I do have some personal gripes with the game. I'm gonna ramble below, as far as the Steam review character limit lets me. You don't need to read further if you are just looking for a VR shooter, this game is likely for you. I haven't touched the Co-Op, some of my complaints maybe are more or less relevant when viewing it through a Co-Op lens. [h2] Gripes. [/h2] [h3] The Story [/h3] The theme of the story is about [spoiler] personal autonomy. Bereft of your own previous life you're thrust into a situation where you're lacking rights and ability to live as a normal person. [/spoiler] Other stories have done this theme to great success, [spoiler] maybe not a great success, but an example could be the RoboCop movie starring Joel Kinnaman, [/spoiler] but I don't feel like the experience of going through ITR2's story delivers a satisfying progression or conclusion of that theme. While playing, you may not even consider that [spoiler] you lack autonomy, that you're under an organizations thumb, because it really doesn't feel like it. If you stop and think about it, you're in a messed up situation, but it doesn't naturally emerge that way as you play. I think the main reason for this is that the main narrative device is Louis, who says a lot of stuff about how the UNPSC are exploiting you and sending you off to die for them over and over, but it's mostly "tell" instead of "showing". I think a great addition to try and drive this home a little bit was added to the end of the tutorial where they send you to activate a Terminal Evacuation Device, which is just a claymore on a tripod facing you that goes off and sends you back to the facility. But while this does show the UNPSC's callousness towards us, it ends there. It doesn't feel like there's any exploitation beyond this in how missions are conducted, it's merely told to us through Louis without anything to really back it up. He is right, you are being exploited and not treated fairly as a human. You're in a messed up situation, unable to survive outside of the hostile Radius. The UNPSC uses this fact to further their goals and use you as an unwilling (or maybe willing, I ain't your dad) mercenary to do their dirty work. But while playing I never thought or felt this. I felt more annoyed at Louis that he kept harping on about how they're the bad guys. Yes, I could live myself a little into being angry at them for the TED incident, but ultimately it felt like something was missing from the narrative to make it strike home and make me actually distrust the UNPSC. It felt like the narrative of the main missions, the lackluster living accommodations the UNPSC provide, and Louis hatred of them felt disconnected. Like they are separate pieces that try to fit together, but didn't quite make it. Personally, I think this has to do with Louis as a character. He's presented to us as an old friend, that we knew before the Radius appeared. Maybe others enjoyed this, but I think I would've been able to get more attached to a narrative with a character that we don't have history with instead of this one with a character we can't remember because of the player character having amnesia to facilitate the meta problem of the players themselves not having lived the player character's life. If there was more building trust and relationship with Louis as part of the narrative instead of trying to rekindle something with Louis, I think it'd have a bigger impact and we'd be able to sympathise better with the situation we're in with him. Currently it just lacks punch and it made my final decision in the final mission not feel like it really mattered or had any weight. [/spoiler] I apologise for any inconsistencies in my reasoning on this, I am merely human and I tried to cram 100 hours of playing this game from beta 0.13 to the end of the main story in 1.1.1, so give me some grace. Beyond this, the story is serviceable. It's fine. It feels like merely a vehicle for the gameplay, and that is perfectly satisfactory for me in a game where the gameplay is the main reason I am playing. It would've been nice if it was better realised, but as it is it does what it needs to. [h3] Survival [/h3] The game has a small survival mechanic in that you need to keep track of your food intake to keep up your stamina. I don't think you can die of starvation, I haven't tried, haven't seen any indication of it, so I don't think it does more than manage Stamina. To me, it just feels a little half-baked. It's not like it isn't a strong incentive, don't get me wrong, not having a full stamina bar is a pain, so I make sure to eat my power bars regularly. But ultimately it just feels like a very small, almost insignificant money sink. It doesn't feel like I'm taking care of an actual need, it just feels like every hour or so I have to take off my backpack, pretend to crack open a can of beef, and fake eat then I'm good for the next hour. I suppose I wish there was something more involved going into food choice and the consumption other than a timer telling me to consume something. Maybe some greater benefit for taking care of your calorie intake and greater penalty for failing. Basically, the current incentive to keep up with the system is enough to actually make sure I engage with the system, actually engaging with it just isn't satisfying or meaningful. [h3] The Maps [/h3] The three maps, three "in-between" areas, [spoiler] plus a final mission area [/spoiler] are just not quite enough. Only around half the time I've spent (so 50 hours at the time of writing) is in the actual released version of the game with all the areas available, the other half was with only two maps available. 50 hours might sound like a lot, but with that time I've been through every nook and cranny of the locations over and over again, and I take things very slow. Now the world feels empty and tiny. Classic human behaviour to always want more of something good, maybe it's my own failing, but I feel like three maps just wasn't enough, especially with the first one basically serving as merely a tutorial area that you don't even receive missions to go to for the remainder of the game as early as one third through. [h3] The Anomalies [/h3] One of the highlights but also biggest annoyances with the game. They feel like mostly random obstacles rather than something challenging to deal with. These things are just in the way most of the time, there's not interesting ways to deal with them, just different versions of "don't go near them". Maybe they're not significant enough in the sense you can just walk into them, realise your mistake and move on. I personally don't know how to remedy this. All I know is that they're great for setting an aesthetic mood and show that things are kinda out of whack in the Radius, but after that they just feel in the way. Where I do enjoy them are in the labyrinthine areas where they are the main puzzle, where there's a path through that you have to find, where there's a dedicated reason for them to be there. When they're just a random repulsor field that I hear too late and run into and then have to walk around, it's just not that satisfying. [h2] End [/h2] Despite all of that text above, I love the game. I have had to cut quite a bit of my reasonings and context due to character limit, too, initially this was 3000 characters longer. Thanks for reading if you got this far, get the game and have fun.

As of now, the 1.0 release is a huge letdown I've been playing this game since first beta came out, and the direction it took is nothing short of huge dissapointment The story is nearly non-existent despite hundreds of lines of dialogue, Lauri talks the whole time about nothing Lauri is completely unnecessary, boring, cringy and immersion breaking, waste of time and resources to make this american sitcom reject Exploration is non-existent, nothing to find besides guns that are obselete after security level 2 and way too many sources of credits Enemies besides mimics suck, way too tanky and annoying for their roles they were supposed to fill Performance still is just awful, you can see my specs and I should absolutely never drop to 40FPS with my setup Overall just a game worse in every single aspect than it's previous entry, only thing it can save it is 2.0 overhaul Edit: To the dev that responded: I think you continue to missunderstand the points me and other people keep making Lauri was a *mistake* He should not be made at all, you made every single mistake you could do with him, his implementation is bad, his dialogue despite being miles better than in beta still tells us nothing of substance, his mannerism is wrong for his age and culture, he would be better as a shadow in the distance, barely able to communicate, something like Katia from the previous game Yes I did mean that there are no artefacts that do anything, all the items that are sources of credits serve nothing but a performance hungry clutter, no unique guns that are worth anything in the zone, no stashes as far as I am aware, just look at your previous game, you took a huge step back in that regard And no, this is simply a strawman argument, you seem to not understand that the healthpoints and balance you set as base difficulty is taken as the INTENDED WAY TO PLAY, it's not just their health, fragments and creeps mixed with mimics automaticaly make combat annoying, and there is no resource free way of desposing of them like knives from previous game (I am aware that you added the knives, however they are BEYOND useless, like they got me killed thrice because I was testing them) All of this seems to be caused by severe missunderstanding about what made the previous game so great And I did everything you listed about performance LONG AGO this is far from the first time I'm complaining about this, for some ungodly reason this game does not like my setup at all

Compared to the previous game this is 2 steps forward ... and two steps backward. a lot of new features are great, but some things that were fine got changed for the worse (looking at you Spawn attack pattern). a lot of situations are also rather unfair, with enemies waiting behind couches to one shot you. But all of this pales in comparison to the abysmal performances. Directx11 straight up crashes the game on map change without fail, and directx 12 is a straight journey to stutter country. Me and a friend managed to barely enjoy ourselves on the first and second map, upon reaching the third map performance tanked so hard and the picture started glitching like crazy making it impossible to play any further.