Code Vein 2
- xSaitoHx
- May 18
- 5 min read
About the Game
Code Vein 2 is an indirect open-world sequel to the previous installment, where the only things the games share are the Revenants, Supernatural beings, essentially Vampires that live and get stronger by absorbing the blood of humans.
In it, you will get to experience a sort of post-apocalyptic world, finally nearing its end, with it being up to you to stop it by forging powerful blood bonds with your Revenant companions.
Story
Code Vein 2 is a separate universe from the first game, where you begin with your character dying off-screen and waking up next to a Revenant “Lou”, who gave half her heart to bring you back to life.
There she explains some lore of the world as you move along to meet Lavinia, just as we see her temporarily seal in time a world-ending catastrophe, where she reveals Lou can travel back in time and tasks the two of you with going to the past and releasing seals of past heroes, keeping the calamity at bay, as the ones in modern time are slowly falling apart, so that you can create new ones, or better yet, end the threat for good.
She strongly warns you not to mess with the past beyond what is required for the seals, due to consequences you might not be able to foresee, but if you choose to interfere further, she reprimands you, but ultimately leaves it up to you to decide if it’s right to change past events.
From there on, you have an open world to explore, as you make your way unlocking the 5 hero seals, but some of them are locked behind progression in terms of needing to release one seal before you can release another.
Each one of these heroes eventually becomes a key companion in preventing the future calamity from happening, each with their own stories, goals, motivations, and side content to get to know them better, as well as offering various buffs.
Gameplay
The gameplay concept is similar to that of the first game, but shifts its focus away from basic light/heavy attacking with a nice variety of different weapon categories, weapons per category, more weapon skills, and Weapon Formae, which is essentially sorcery/faith in the mainstream Souls games, allowing for a nice variety of weapon combat.
Now, unlike most similar games, you don’t level up your stats. You can level up your health and stamina, but stats change depending on your selected blood code, each preferring its own style of combat, as well as giving a different type of drain attack.
New blood codes are unlocked as you progress through the game and meet new characters, who, in turn, give you access to their blood. Early on, they are pretty mediocre, but as you level up, said blood codes through combat, you get access to their upgraded variants up to a certain point, which greatly increase the stats they offer to you.
Enemies in this game have sturdiness that you can see bellow the enemy health bar, which is essentially a Poise gauge, allowing you to perform a drain attack or get a few free hits in on the enemy when it fills up.
Drain attacks are moves whose main purpose isn’t to just deal damage, but gather Ichor, which allows the player to use Weapon Formae (skills), Bequeathed Formae, and cast Formae (magic). Ichor, like in the first game, is gained passively with attacking, but it takes quite a few light hits or some strong attacks to trigger.
Bequeathed formae are special weapon attacks, separate from your main weapon, which are powerful tools used for clearing a wider area, dealing a lot more damage in a single swing, or applying status effect such as freezing your enemy in place for a few seconds.
You also always have a variety of Defensive formae/shields on hand, used for blocking or parrying, which don’t take up weapon slots but are always active in their own category.
Each piece of equipment adds to your overall balance/weight, slowing down your dodge speed and distance, so it’s of course always good to keep those in mind when making builds.
CV2 keeps the 5 weapon types of the first game, but adds 2 more, being Rune blades, (Twin ultra greatswords, which aren’t carried in hand, but are used telepathically, allowing you to use your hands and fists as weapons alongside performing attacks with the blades leading to some cool moves and combat)
And the second weapon being twin blades, which are essentially dual wielded short swords, allowing for very quick combat flow.
Weapons can, of course, also be transformed with different sorts of materials, changing their properties in terms of what sort of damage they deal, or applying special effects like slower movement speed for enemies, damage reduction, damage over time, etc.
One of the main mechanics of CV2 is the partner mechanic, which allows you to have your chosen companion summoned to fight alongside you, or Assimilated, granting you various buffs depending on who your partner is.
These two modes can be switched on the fly, even during combat, and are very useful for adapting to certain fights, but generally, I prefer to have them summoned as it allows them to deal or tank damage.
They can’t be killed in fights, but they do temporarily return to you/you lose our buffs if your HP gets drained to 0 for a short amount of time until they are automatically summoned again a few seconds later, while also restoring a portion of your HP. Every times you get downed during an encounter, the time it takes for your partner to return increases and restores less HP, eventually to a substantial amount.
Your partners also grant you more powerful buffs depending on your relationship with them. Depending on where you are in the story also effect which partners can be summoned, so you can’t always play alongside who you want.
Visuals
The game’s visuals honestly leave much to be desired, considering it's made in Unreal Engine 5, and its subpar performance even on more modern specs.
The character design also doesn’t feel as good or polished as in the first game, and some might find their designs a little jarring and odd-looking.
Audio and Music
The game has some amazing soundtracks, but the main one that plays on loop during exploration and combat and standard cut-scenes does get a bit repetitive, but the OST’s from each individual hero do make up for it, and the game even has a little musical number towards the end of the game, which was for me the best moment in the game, as I wasn’t spoiled by character trailers (GryfGoat)
The game’s cut-scenes are fully voiced outside of your character, other than two tiny bits in the endings.
As well as characters having dialogue when exploring the world.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Nice variety of weapons and combat styles,
Partner mechanic during combat,
Great soundtracks,
Immersive world and story.
Motorbike while exploring the world.
Cons
Poor optimization,
The oddity when it comes with a silent protagonist expressing themselves with odd gestures,
Conclusion
Code Vein 2 is a great indirect sequel game, that was very fun to play through, with a very nice variety of weapons, for which you don’t need any respec to try out different builds with a great atmosphere and a absolute must play for anyone who enjoys souls-likes.
Rating: 9/10
