T
his is what you get if
you boil down Dark
Souls until the only
things left are some
water stains and
powdery minerals. That simplicity
isn’t a bad thing—this is where Dark
Souls and plenty of other modern
RPGs came from after all, the
grid-based first-person dungeon
crawler genre largely defined by
classics like Ultima Underworld and
The Bard’s Tale.
In Legend of Grimrock 2, I’m not
thumbing through item description
after item description looking for
narrative tidbits or scanning the
environment for a sense of its
history. In Legend of Grimrock 2, a
sword is a sword. A dungeon is a
dungeon. The game’s goal is still
something precise, but indefinable,
not anything a collaborative wiki
page can lay out and decrypt. The
goal here is mood, and the mood is a
cocktail of wonder and fear. The
tension between the two is what
charges every push forward into
booby-trap laden dungeons with a
tiny emotional tax. Legend of
Grimrock 2 is still an incredibly
atmospheric game.
And somehow, despite its open
faced generic dark fantasy trappings
and clear dedication to an antiquated
genre, Legend of Grimrock 2 feels
surprisingly fresh and modern, a pure
distillation of exploration, puzzle
solving, and light touch RPG systems
set against challenging combat
scenarios you can lazily click through
with one sweaty hand. I love this
juxtaposition. The stats and
equipment for my party of four are
laid out with clear definitions and
rules and the real work is in the prep.
Once I’m facing an enemy, be it a
turtle or an army of skeletons,
whether I win or lose is rarely pinnedto how quickly I click each of my
character actions on their relaxed
refresh cycle, but rather on how
much I explore and discover and
apply prior to each fight.ROCK N TROLL
It’s easy to breeze through Grimrock
2 ’s larger spaces without digging
around in the corners, but that’s how
you miss buried treasure and hidden
switches withholding better gear and
vital supplies. These are the powdery
minerals, the essential satisfaction
that comes from a videogame giving
you a treat for looking at it closely.
And that’s kind of what I’m
looking for right now. After a busy
release season and being in
lockdown, I’m looking for something
that cuts right to the cerebral cortex.
I’m exploring, taking notes on a
lovely digital map, slashing up
werewolves and wizards, dodging
traps, and thinking of literally nothing
else. It’s the kind of game PC Gamer
was built to broadcast, but also the
kind of near perfect thing that gets
buried in the glut of good stuff we get
every month lately. Grimrock 2 is
pure and potent, a game of pleasures
and themes. Find it under ‘Computer
Game’ in the dictionary.JAMES DAVENPORT
THIS MONTH
Murdered seven turtles and
ate their children.ALSO PLAYED
Sea Salt,
Resident Evil 4LEGEND OF GRIMROCK 2: pure PC gaming essence
“In Legend of Grimrock 2, a
sword is a sword.”
A PURE DISTILLATION OF
EXPLORATION, PUZZLE
SOLVING, AND RPG SYSTEMSDo animated skeletons
go to heaven or hell?Mileage will vary, but nothing
soothes me like a block puzzle.There’s an option to disable the map
if you prefer pen and paper.EXTRA LIFE
NOW PLAYING (^) I UPDATE I MOD SPOTLIGHT I HOW TO (^) I WHY I LOVE I REINSTALL I MUS T P L A Y