Synthetik 2 is a super fun game, and one of its biggest strengths is the massive variety of weapons, items, attachments, perks, and character builds. It constantly encourages experimentation, and no two runs feel exactly the same. The gunplay is incredibly satisfying, and the game has an excellent foundation.
That said, there are several areas where I think the game could be improved.
While there are a ton of weapons, many of them end up feeling too similar in practice. A lot either don't deal enough damage to justify using them or suffer from quality-of-life issues, such as very small magazine sizes that make them feel clunky compared to other options. It would be great if more weapons had stronger identities and felt more rewarding to use.
The game's RNG also feels a bit too extreme. With so many weapons, items, variants, attachments, and perks in the loot pool, finding the combination you're actually looking for becomes incredibly unlikely. Even Supply Tokens don't seem to noticeably improve the odds. I've gone eight runs without seeing the specific weapon or item I wanted, making the system feel more frustrating than exciting. Adjusting the drop rates or giving players a bit more control over what appears would make progression feel much less dependent on luck.
On top of that, some weapons, items, attachments, and perks seem to appear far more frequently than others, while certain ones feel disproportionately rare. Whether that's intentional or not, the distribution doesn't feel balanced and can make build variety seem more limited than it actually is.
Another area that could use improvement is the game's meta-progression. Right now, there isn't much of it, and what's available can be maxed out fairly quickly. It would be great to have additional long-term progression systems that give players more goals to work toward after dozens or even hundreds of runs.
The attachment system could also use some quality-of-life improvements. If you have extra Upgrade Kits after filling all attachment slots, it would be nice to have the option to replace an existing attachment instead of being locked into your earlier choices. Alternatively, allowing players to spend additional Upgrade Kits to unlock extra attachment slots beyond the normal limit would add another layer of build customization.
If effects like the Golden Boy Package allow a weapon to exceed its normal attachment limit, the UI should also let players scroll down and view every attachment currently equipped. If this functionality already exists, it isn't very clear, and any hidden upgrades can be difficult to keep track of.
The Armory could also provide much more useful information. It would be incredibly helpful if every weapon, item, attachment, and perk displayed its full stats, modifiers, and effects so players can compare equipment and better understand how everything works outside of a run.
Similarly, when hovering over weapons, items, attachments, and perks during a run, the game should consistently display their rarity just as it does in the Armory. Sometimes the rarity isn't shown at all, and other times it appears inconsistent with what's listed in the Armory, making it confusing when deciding what to pick.
The rerun mode after beating the game also feels overtuned. Enemy damage becomes extremely high, and the sheer number of enemies quickly overwhelms you before your weapon damage, reload speed, or magazine size can keep pace. Instead of feeling like a difficult but fair endgame challenge, it often feels nearly impossible regardless of how strong your build is.
Overall, Synthetik 2 has some of the best gunplay and build variety in the roguelite shooter genre, and it's a game I've had a lot of fun with. However, it would greatly benefit from a comprehensive quality-of-life update. Better weapon balance, less punishing RNG, expanded meta-progression, improved UI with complete item information, more flexible attachment management, and better rerun scaling would make the experience significantly more enjoyable. The game is already great, and with improvements in these areas, I think it has the potential to be one of the best roguelite shooters available.
Update:
Yep, I did a bunch of testing by rushing through runs and collecting as many weapons and items as possible. From what I found, some items and weapons labeled as Common don't actually seem to be common at all. Even with their Supply Token enabled, some of them only showed up once every 40+ runs. Meanwhile, other items and weapons with the same Common rarity—but without a Supply Token enabled—were showing up every 1-3 runs.
This makes me think one of three things is happening: either some rarities are mislabeled, the drop rates are heavily skewed toward certain items, or the backend weighting isn't working as intended. Whatever the cause, the current distribution doesn't feel consistent with the displayed rarities and could probably use another look.
The worst offenders of this right now is Twin Gatling, Unstable Current, Shield Dome, Heavy Mortar Barrage, Mil-Grade Attack Drones, Disc of Justicia. Even with the Engineer with Recycler and Gambling Kit, at high terror levels, on loop 2-3, with supply tokens enabled, they still only pop up once in a blue moon.
The ones that are so common it's insane are Bizon, SG Thundercat, MP70 Maro, CRX High Explosive Crossbow, Stoner Carbine, Stim Pack, M54 Plating Printer, Tear Gas Grenade, P7 Concussion Mines, Sticky Bomb AD/2, Crowd Control Gear, Shock Conductor, Tungstun Core, Dog Whistle, Power Shot, Flare Gun, Twin Link, Taser Drones, PAT W2 Wheels, Magic Mag, Threat Detector, Fusion Mines, Ghost Spawner, Hyperfeed.
Seems like the weapons are very skewed for the uncommons. And for weapons at higher rarities, it seems that supply tokens work, but if you've never encountered the weapon before and dont' have a supply token for it, good luck ever finding it in a run. For the items, most of the commons seem to be working as intended, but there are a few standouts that are absolutely skewed against it appearing even if it's lower rarity. For items...supply tokens don't seem to work at all...if anything it seems to make it appear even less.
