The Banner Saga 2 still boasts a warehouse's worth of doom 'n' gloom amid its many turn-based tactical battles and apocalyptic themes, but its characters and settings imbue it with a liveliness the original never really had. The stakes are higher now, yet there's also a greater sense of what's being lost as the world breaks and the sun squats motionless above.
Out of the gate, a handy option to import Steam save files ensures your choices from the previous game won't be among the casualties. Those choices are important, as they decide whether you start the game as Rook or his daughter Alette; if those names mean nothing to you, I suggest you play the first excellent game before jumping in here and relying on the recap cutscene in the main menu – it’s a good refresher, but hardly a substitute. (If you're like present company and you just hate the choices you've made, there's also a convenient option to play as either Rook or Alette with preset world states.)
Mountains No More
He is, in a sense, the right kind of man for this unforgiving world. It's partly because of him that the surrounding tragedies don't feel quite so stifling as before, as his gruffer outlook keeps the melancholy at bay and allows some of remaining wonders of dying world to shine through. In contrast to the 2014 original’s reliance on gray mountains and dark conifers, The Banner Saga 2 takes us into places like russet deciduous forests where creepy villagers skulk beneath the canopy, into caverns where Lovecraftian horrors lurk, across swamps with self-resurrecting bears, and over sprawling plains where centaurs hunt with spears and flails. Sometimes it even gets downright trippy, and the world breaks in ways I never would have imagined two years ago.
Battlefield Barriers
Their associated tactics find their stride on the new combat maps, which break up tidy strategies by altering victory conditions or forcing you to plan combat around obstacles both indestructible and destructible. Sometimes a harrowing battle can end with the death of an enemy leader; at other times I found myself struggling to clear away snow while Dredge beat on me.
The Verdict
The Banner Saga 2 doesn't change much of the experience that made the original such a well-loved surprise two years ago, and that's a good thing. The improvements may be small, but they're also substantial: the new combat units, the introduction of a second caravan story to follow, and the obstacles in the battlefield add up nicely. While beautifully written and populated with memorable characters and twists, the story does slightly suffer from a case of the "middle episodes" that may leave you eager for more. On the bright side, we know that more is on the way in a third and final installment.
