Ghostrunner 2 Review: Expanded, Upgraded, Still Brutal (PS5)

The first Ghostrunner game is undoubtedly one of the best arcade-like Cyberpunk games out there, with very frenetic first-person action that is hard to describe with a single game genre. And now 3 years after its release back in 2020, we finally have a sequel. The developers have done a great job adding new stuff to the Ghostrunner universe and new gameplay mechanics that are very welcome and make the game a much more dense experience. It has been expanded and even improved in several aspects so let’s take a look at what to expect from this great sequel in my Ghostrunner 2 review.

Ghostrunner 2 is available for $39.99 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Story – Old Jack Is Back!

The game’s story takes place after the events of the first Ghostrunner. Surprisingly enough, the story continues with a new plot, new villains, and new dilemmas. This means that you don’t necessarily need to have played the first Ghostrunner game to understand the events of the sequel, but a few important plot points are mentioned here that are still relevant for the overall narrative to the Ghostrunner universe.

After the original game’s ending where we assumed the departure of our beloved cyber-ninja friend Jack, we reincarnate his robotic skin once again to bring aid to the climbers in their fight for survival in Dharma Tower. Little is mentioned about how he survived the ending of the first game, but the details can be found throughout a few optional dialogues with Zoe.

And speaking about Zoe, the game has been improved with a main hub that you can visit after some of the game’s levels, which allows you to interact with many characters and discover more about the Ghostrunner world by talking to them. This, and the actual cinematics with characters interacting with the player in real-time represents a step forward. The first Ghostrunner only had radio dialogues and short 2D animations whenever a cinematic was necessary. While most dialogues still occur through comms, we now have cinematics with 3D characters interacting with each other in real-time. That means we can now see how our allies look like and interact with them, making Ghostrunner 2 a slightly more immersive experience than the first game. The story has a better narrative because of this. There are a few plot twists that actually caught me off guard and made me wonder what the hell was going to happen next.

We’ll be once again playing as Jack inside Dharma Tower

Our protagonist (old Jacky boy) has also suffered from a very positive character development. After the confusing events of the first game, he has now re-adapted very well to the climbers group. It’s a much deeper protagonist now. Jack tells a few small jokes throughout the story, swears a lot, and remarks on the irony of most of the absurd situations he has to face in every level, reminding you that even if he is made out of metal, he is still human. He is still the cold assassin from the first game, but his closer interaction with the climbers has improved his social skills, which is quite heartwarming to see.

The story has a lot slower pace than the first game, but the narrative of the sequel allows it to do so without making it necessarily tedious. Talking to everyone at the base is quite a relaxing break from the brutal and unforgiving action of the missions.

However, I still believe this sequel suffers from the same sins that were committed in the first game’s ending, which made it quite underwhelming after a few hours of gameplay. But despite that, I believe everything I mentioned above marks an improvement from the previous Ghostrunner plot and manages to tell a new one in a much more optimal way. We still have to keep working on the endings part though. There is still room for improvement in the interaction with other characters, but Ghostrunner 2 definitely sets the bar moderately higher regarding the story aspects of the game (which marks a very positive start for this review). Hey, for a game that is mostly focused on the gameplay part and the story is just a component of it, I think it’s quite decent.

Gameplay – Still Unforgiving, Still Addictive… But Expanded

The fast-paced, unforgiving, brutal, and highly addictive gameplay from the first game makes a spectacular comeback. The puzzles have been severely reduced compared to the first entry, but the action has been turned up for an even more rewarding experience. New enemy types, new powers, and many new skills have been implemented into Jack’s loadout. These powers and skills can be unlocked by progressing through the game and finding hidden collectibles.

Collectibles can now be tracked through the mini-map from the very beginning of the game, so this ability is no longer tied to a specific upgrade. The collectibles act similar to the first game, but this time around they can be more than just skins for our sword. We can get some serious upgrade slots for our character, so they’re definitely worth grabbing as soon as possible.

I felt the action was turned up so much that I believe this game is undoubtedly harder than its predecessor. You can still play Ghostrunner 2 without tackling the first one, but I seriously don’t recommend it. Not due to story-related issues, but the first Ghostrunner game is much simpler and more compact than this sequel. And don’t get me wrong, the difficulty was just right. But I can’t imagine diving into this game without having the knowledge that I already gathered in the previous entry. There’s no way I could have gotten used to this game without knowing the basic sword, movement, and traversal mechanics from the first one (which are still present here).

New, fun, and exciting parkour mechanics have also been added to the game.

There are new challenges, bike sections, cybervoid levels, boss fights, combat simulations, parkour simulations… many, many things to do that will test your skills and patience. It’s quite impressive how much was packed into the sequel when you think of how smaller and shorter the first game was. It’s not like Ghostrunner 2 is super long or anything like that, but in its approximately 12 hours of length, it makes an overall improvement that makes it feel like an actual sequel and not just a pretentious stand-alone DLC.

And now that I mentioned the bike, halfway through the experience there were a couple of levels that involved driving around with the bike outside of Dharma Tower that felt very different from what we were used to, even for this point of the story. Once you reach this part, the game transmits a calm, slow-paced sensation. This calmness is only interrupted by certain enemies every now and then, but the desolation and the ability to explore wide areas overtakes the usual feeling of the typical Ghostrunner missions. Even the length of these couple of levels is different, taking around 1 hour to complete each one instead of the usual 20 to 30 minutes it takes to complete a mission. They were quite innovative and I’m sure many players will be happy to explore around on not-so-linear areas.

I was personally starting to get bored around the end of the second of these exploration-based missions, but thankfully the game’s pace started to pick up again just in time before it harmed the experience too much. I think these missions would have been more interesting if they had featured more characters to talk with through the comms to add variety to the dialogues instead of just talking to Kira over and over.

The fast-paced bike sections are fun and adrenaline-inducing.

The fast-paced rhythm is still there for the most part though, which is something I personally appreciated. The boss fights are almost the same in quantity compared to the first game, but most of them have been seriously improved with more layers of complexity. The boss fights are much better, and more epic here. Except for the final boss, which I found quite underwhelming after the brutal parkour and combat experienced in the first few bosses. That’s another reason to believe there’s a serious problem with the endings in Ghostrunner. The game feels highly rewarding and the satisfaction levels are immeasurable. That is until the credits start to roll. The game is such a complex challenge that you always get left with the sensation that the final challenge was going to be much bigger than that.

All things considered, there has been an undeniable improvement in most gameplay mechanics that made certain levels more interesting and unique. My only complaint would be the final boss and just a few minor bugs that didn’t allow me to keep progressing so I had to restart from the last checkpoint. But my overall objective thoughts about the gameplay is that it is still as great as ever and makes another positive impact on this Ghostrunner 2 review.

Graphics – Visually Fitting

The graphics haven’t been particularly improved. To be honest, I prefer the visuals of the first game. There are several graphic display options though, which is nice and always appreciated. However, during the first levels, the world seems quite bland in design and lacks the visual variety of the levels from the first game that made Dharma Tower feel much more alive. Here, I sadly felt some levels had a very generic design with black and grey textures with little to no details, leaving behind the colorful aspects and original level designs from the predecessor. I only started feeling like the visual design was impressive again a little bit before getting out of Dharma Tower with the bike. The cybervoid was cooler than ever though, with funky, LSD-like designs and exploration mechanics.

The graphics are okay, I think the illumination was a little bit better and more detailed in the first Ghostrunner game (even on the PS4 version of it, so it has nothing to do with ray-tracing). So I was just slightly disappointed by the looks of the sequel. It is still quite good with mostly solid 60 fps and a nice quality in performance mode. They certainly did not improve the graphics at all, but they are up to standard, I would say.

The overall graphic quality has remained decent and enjoyable.

Sound – Powerful and Futuristic Synth Waves

Just like I said in my review of the first game, the soundtrack is one of the most powerful elements of Ghostrunner 2, and this sequel had its own touch with it. There are several new tracks that give that futuristic cyberpunk sensation, and some tracks feel like remixes from the previous game, which is still also great. There was one particular song during a boss fight inside the cybervoid that was just too splendid to describe. A powerful electronic soundtrack with a chorus on the back is never not going to make a boss fight as epic as it gets.

There are times when the music goes a little bit unnoticed. This happens because of the slower pace the game gets when you get out of Dharma Tower, and the soundtrack adapts to the circumstances. However, the music was never absent, and even during more calm sections with few enemies and lots of exploration to do, the music always felt like it was on point.

There is more variety in the soundtrack which ranges from calm, almost relaxing tracks that resemble the loneliness of the apocalyptic world outside the tower to the epic fast-paced electronic synth waves that are typical of Ghostrunner. It has been adapted to the story and it was very well executed, as I expected from the sequel of a game that had such an already amazing and astonishing soundtrack.

Ghostrunner 2 was reviewed on PS5 with key provided by 505 Games.