It’s rare for a dev team to decide that every next game in a franchise should be totally different. Teams almost always stick to what they’ve already built and somehow keep the story going, veering one way or the other, but there’s always that connection to the original. That’s exactly why, when Code Vein II was announced, it struck me as super weird that I couldn’t recognise the game at all from the trailer. Honestly, I thought it looked more like a Scarlet Nexus sequel than Code Vein II, but I gotta admit, once I saw the title, I got pretty damn excited.
Code Vein was a fantastic game, a soulslike that nailed the formula from start to finish, just set in a world of vampires and humans teaming up to stop some cataclysm. It had charm, but there were issues, mainly that the game was just plain forgettable, no matter how fun the gameplay was. I played Code Vein right after launch, and I remember absolutely nothing about the story except the vampires, Revenants in this case, and that’s it. We’ve talked about it a lot in our community: the story was so skippable that every cutscene went straight to skip. That’s why I was kinda hoping the story and whole setup for the sequel would be better than the first one.
As I mentioned already, Code Vein II has zero connection to the original in terms of story, events, or characters. Basically, we’ve still got Revenants, vampires who teamed up with humans at some point to help stop a cataclysm, but that’s about it. No characters from the original, no events, no locations from the first game show up in the sequel. Which might actually be for the best here, ’cause I needed something totally fresh without any preconceptions, without having to dig around online to remind myself what the hell happened in the first one. I bet it’ll be a relief for others, too.
Code Vein II takes place in a new world, with new characters and new events. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, in a post-apocalyptic world where vampires and humans live together, a cataclysm called The Resurgence hits. This mysterious object in the sky, Luna Rapacis, turns all Revenants into Horrors, some kind of monsters, that just wreck everything in sight. Unfortunately, Luna Rapacis appeared because about 100 years earlier, the heroes who fought to prevent a cataclysm decided to seal away the evil for good by sacrificing their five heroes, so their power would stop another one from happening. Sadly, that ritual failed. That ritual is exactly why Luna Rapacis showed up in the sky and why they lost the five greatest heroes ever. Without heroes, without the best fighters, the world slowly started crumbling in every way imaginable.
You take on the role of a Revenant Hunter, a horror hunter in this world who, unfortunately, died in battle. A Revenant girl named Lou gives you half her heart to revive you, ’cause she senses you’re something special, and it’s up to you to try and stop the new apocalypse that’d wipe out the world and everything on it. The fact that Lou gave you part of her heart, which you carry on your back, by the way, is a really cool detail, gives you Revenant powers even though you’re just a regular human warrior. The whole setup is pretty solid right from the start, and it develops even better. Over time, you’ll meet other Revenant fighters and form special connections with them. Each connection lets you take a piece of their heart, basically making them part of you. That piece means you can use their powers (as I mentioned) or summon them to travel with you. Which is highly recommended, at least for the first few hours, maybe the first five or six hours, until you learn all the tricks and get used to the mechanics.
That said, you as the Revenant Hunter and your new pal Lou aren’t just fighting in the present. To stop the apocalypse again, you have to travel back about 100 years to right before The Resurgence, find clues, and try to prevent it and restore the whole world in the present. But everything you do in the past has some kind of consequence in the present that directly affects the story. So over time, you’ll have choices to make, and you’ll have to live with them, at least until you start a new playthrough and see what happens if you picked something else. Pretty cool gimmick, but it’s not just that; it ties really well into the events, gameplay, and everything else.
It’s interesting to see how all those heroes fought against something they didn’t fully understand in the best way they could. Even more intriguing is that you’ll be the tool to help them solve some problems, and that’s how you’ll, well, befriend them. Then, after you’re done with what you had to do in the past, you have to go back to the present, and I gotta say, that emotional side is handled really well. ‘Cause the characters are believable, likeable, and you bond with them on your journey to the past, but then comes the moment to return, and it’s tough, not everything’s the same, since you know you might never see that character again until the end of the game.
That said, it doesn’t have to be true, ’cause, for example, if you make a connection with a Revenant in the past, become part of their story, help them with their issues, they’ll give you a piece of their heart, so you can summon them to fight by your side. But not always, like not in the future if they don’t exist there, just when you’re finishing missions in the past.
The past and present are set in a massive open-world, unlike the first game. If the original Code Vein borrowed stuff from the Dark Souls series, you could say the Code Vein II team took a peek at Elden Ring and decided to cram their events into a huge, gorgeous open world. Since there are basically two worlds, the past, where things kinda survived that war somewhat, and the future, which is ruined because of The Resurgence, you get that element of two worlds that are really one, similar but still different. Places you can access in the present will be inaccessible in the past, and vice versa. So in both realities, there’s tons to see, do, help people with, and help Revenants with. Basically, it’s up to you how long you wanna stay in the past or present, how much time you wanna spend in these worlds, ’cause even though they’re similar, they’re still their own worlds.
I mentioned the story is way better than the first, hell, it’s excellent, but that wouldn’t be possible without the awesome characters. Whether you’re in the past or present, the characters you meet have such strong personalities. So you’ll appreciate the time spent with them, love them, and get attached. The whole story is fantastically conceived and executed, and the characters contribute to absolutely everything happening in the world. Yeah, there are some cheesy moments here and there, but overall, it’s all top-notch. That emotional thread in this game is perfectly done. It’ll hit you hard, and you’ll get invested in at least one of those five heroes’ stories. Loss, regret, time that’s passed, and they couldn’t do what they wanted, missed chances, all the things that’ve bugged us in real life, are here, told through awesome events, with even better voice acting and writing.
I think I’ve rambled on quite a bit about the story, characters, and world, but rightfully so, ’cause it’s all fantastically done. What they say, a solid 10/10! But let’s dive into the meat of this game, what it’s actually like to play and what Code Vein II is from a gameplay mechanics perspective.
Like the first one, Code Vein II is a soulslike title, but with redefined systems from the original. You still have the vibes and mechanics, renamed and presented in their own style, ’cause this is still about vampires in a future ruined world. And of course, about you as a regular human warrior finding ways to harness those vampiric powers to fight evil. Before I jump into progression, just a quick word on the feel.
Combat is tactical, often slow, but sometimes it forces you to be aggressive. Like in other soulslikes, it’s key to learn enemy patterns and adapt to them. The game is tougher than the first one in some moments, even merciless. It doesn’t forgive mistakes or go easy on you. If you don’t learn to handle the challenge in the first five or six hours, it’ll definitely get hard as you keep playing. Attention and patience are crucial, ’cause without them, you won’t get far. You gotta watch every move and pay attention to what you can do in that moment to win. Since it’s an open world, regular enemies fill it up. They’re not hard, but there are some units wandering this dark world that are just way too big a bite for you. Massive enemies that seem to guard roads and lost settlements, they can’t be taken down easily, aren’t bosses, but they’ll terrorize you until you’re strong enough to clear them out.
Bosses, on the other hand, are really, really interesting. You’ve got a few types, some insanely aggressive ones that force you to dynamically adapt to everything they do. They won’t wait for you to get up from the floor after knocking you down before hitting again; they’ll try to finish you off even while you’re down. Then there are others that are more passive, where you gotta learn their patterns, but aggression still pays off. Every boss is unique in its own way, and you need to adapt to it, or you’ll spend a ton of time loading from the last Resurrection Point. That said, the good thing is there’s a Resurrection Point right before every boss, so you don’t have to trek huge distances to get back to them.
And yeah, the whole save system is straight soulslike. You’ve got key points on the map where you can rest, level up with Haze, or “souls” you collect, chat with Lou in your private space between worlds, and take a breather from it all.
All the customization and gameplay mechanics tie into what’s available to you in the game, weapons and abilities. Weapons are pretty standard like before. You’ve got swords, bayonets, dual swords, big bastards, anime-style swords that are comical but hit insanely hard, and so on. But the most important things to pay attention to are the Blood Codes.
Blood Codes are basically classes you can swap “on-the-fly.” So, at the start, you don’t pick a class when creating your character, you change classes as needed, which means weapons that fit the class, magic, or Jails in this case, Formae, which is the name for special attacks in this game. But for all those “magics” and special attacks, you need Ichor, basically mana like in other games, determined by which Blood Code you pick.
Blood Codes have a huge impact on your stats, what you’re resistant to, what you’re not, your strengths and weaknesses. Is your dodge faster or slower? Can you use two-handed weapons or not? The cool part is you can swap them as needed, along with weapons, pretty much even mid-fight if it lets you. So swapping Blood Codes is mandatory to adapt to different bosses. It’s so important that, for example, I couldn’t beat some bosses until I tried a few different ones.
You can collect Blood Codes throughout the world, get them from Revenants when you help them or when your connection gets stronger, your relationship deepens, and you become real partners. Blood Codes can also be upgraded, but only through constant use, not with Haze, just by playing. For weapon upgrades, besides Haze, you need materials you’ll find in the open world, and you can obviously upgrade how many times you can heal and how many times you can be revived from death with special items you find on the map.
There are a few systems in the game for how you can play, depending on Blood Cores, of course. If you like Sekiro, you can go with the Parry system; if you’re more of a Dark Souls fan, there’s the shield you can use. That said, the parry system was kinda inconsistent for me, so I went with shield defence, ’cause something like that’s essential in some boss fights, hell, mandatory. Then there’s the super-dodge, I’d call it that, but it takes time to get used to, but once you do, it’s super fun and dynamic.
Overall, the combat mechanics and systems in this game might sound complicated, but more because of the names and their own systems in this title. Once you get used to the names and how everything works, it feels like any other game you’ve played, maybe even more interesting, ’cause that Blood Code uniqueness is only in Code Vein games, and in the sequel, it works even better than in the first. It’s just pure enjoyment once you get the hang of it and just progress, letting the game take you.
As I said, the whole world is beautifully done, from crumbled buildings to empty meadows you can wander. There are so many places to explore and side-bosses to find that it’s insane. Every inch of the map is made with such care and insane detail that you can’t be indifferent to this world. It’ll get under your skin the moment you see what it offers.
That said, with that comes one issue: performance on the PlayStation 5 console. The game has two mode, Quality and Action. Quality is locked at 30 frames, Action is… not a fixed 60fps display, more like an unlocked framerate, which can be a huge problem, especially in fights with enemies. I hope they fix this with patches, ’cause honestly, that’s the only real flaw I could point out for this title.
We would like to thank Bandai Namco for providing us with the key for this review
Code Vein II (PlayStation 5)
Code Vein II is a game that decided to step away from its comfor zone, its predecessor and go in a bolder direction with the story, characters, and combat mechanics. No matter how many similarities it has with other games, Code Vein II is so much its own thing, with original ideas and killer mechanics that, in my humble opinion, it ranks as one of the best soulslikes released so far. So if you love this type of game, you absolutely can't miss Code Vein II, it's basically the full package in every way.
