Welcome to my review of Ghostrunner 2. This game is brought to us by developers One More Level and publishers 505 Games. It is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
For the purpose of this review, I was kindly given a key for the Xbox Series version of the game, and I played it on my Xbox Series X.
Of course, it’s a direct sequel to the smash hit action game from 2020, Ghostrunner.
Cyberpunk Running is Fun
Continue reading to see why I scored this game a seven out of ten. You can also read our previous Xbox game reviews when you’re done here.
The Game
Just like in the original game, we play as Jack who is a very agile Ghostrunner with many abilities for the player to utilise during the game.
For example, Jack can use a grappling hook to help him get around the levels much quicker. The grappling hook can also be combined with one of the other abilities such as a Shuriken. Throw a Shuriken at an enemy to stun them, grapple toward them, and end their suffering.
There are other abilities for you to unlock as you progress through the game. You can unlock them with experience earned whilst traversing through the missions in the game. Of course, you unlock XP when slashing through your enemies.
I must add that I didn’t play much of the original Ghostrunner game, but I did enjoy what I played. This also stands for Ghostrunner 2. It’s great fun and each time you die, you find yourself doing the “One more go” before turning it off for bed… We all know how that goes.
The game requires some very fast reflexes at times, this is good as it keeps you on your toes (or the edge of your seat!) and at the ready for pretty much anything… Kind of. There’s always another trick up the enemies’ sleeves to inflict pain on you.
Look & Sound
So I feel this is where the game lets us down on the Xbox Series X. Regardless of the selected setting in the menu, the game just doesn’t look great.
It runs pretty damn well when “High Framerate Mode” is selected, but it doesn’t look impressive. There are quite a lot of “Current Generation” games I’ve played on the Series X and PlayStation 5 that looks absolutely incredible, even on the performance/high framerate modes. Ghostrunner 2 is most definitely not one of those.
The quality of the sound is amazing though. The music really gets you into the game and immerses you into each move you’re doing.
Sound effects are brilliant, each slash of the sword, footstep whilst wall running, even bouncing projectiles back at your foes can be heard nice and clear.
Conclusions
Ghost Runner 2 is a fun game, but I feel the graphics (on Xbox Series X at least) let it down. It runs pretty well at 4K60 (high frame rate mode) but overall, it didn’t feel very “Current Generation” on the Series X.
The gameplay does make up for some of the graphical downfalls, but that can only do so much for a game like this in my humble opinion.
I score Ghostrunner 2 a 7 out of 10.
A code was kindly provided for us to review this.
