Triple-a stealth games have been stuck in a bit of a rut lately, with the genre seeing few big-name entries in the past few years. Calls toresurrect franchises likeSplinter Cellhave mostly gone unanswered, leaving smaller titles to fill the shoes of once-giant franchises. EnterAragami 2,a follow-up to the original game that debuted back in 2016.
The setup forAragami 2is fairly simple. Players step into the role of an assassin capable of controlling shadows, using a suite of abilities to eliminate targets and complete objectives in a set of small, but open, maps. The key here is staying hidden from wandering patrols, guards, and the occasional civilian, all of which are capable of ruining the player’s night if they spot them – and it’s only a matter of time until they do.
Balancing Exploration and Stealth
Luckily, the AI in ourAragami 2preview seemed fairly oblivious, though in a way that walks a curious line. Essentially, players get a boost to their stealth ratings when they’re in shadows, with extra unlockable bonuses that can be earned through the skill tree. It leads to situations where the player will be at most a few feet from a wandering guard, but left undetected. Other times, though, it felt like guards had eagle eyes, capable of spotting a shadow from dozens of meters away under the cover of nightfall. Of course, the build isn’t final, and enemies' capacity to spot the player seems ripe for fine-tuning.
The preview’s mission objectives were fairly cookie-cutter, tasking players with assassinating targets, eavesdropping on conversations, surveying locations, and a smattering of the other staples of stealth games. There’s an objective board peppered withAragami 2’smaps that players use to launch missions, similar togames likeWarhammer: Vermintide 2.Aragami 2reuses locations for different missions, but it manages to keep players exploring other areas before returning long enough to avoid feeling stale.
Aragami 2does a decent job incentivizing exploration by scattering money around each level. The currency can be used to unlock new cosmetics to customize the player with, though there’s not a lot about the levels that really sticks out. Aesthetically, they’re pleasing, as isAragmi 2’soverall art style, but they could do with some bolder landmarks.
Combat Takes a Backseat
Get caught while sneaking about and players will be forced to retreat somewhere safe or challenge the guards head-on. Even facing a single enemy is quite the challenge inAragami 2, and more often than not players will be thrown into scenarios where they have to tackle multiple enemies at one time. It leads to some pretty spicy moments – moments that can be brutally difficult without proper timing and strategy – so the best bet is definitely to stick with the shadows and emphasize stealth.
That difficulty is, in part, due toAragami 2’sstamina system. Players have a small, rechargeable bar that gets whittled down when performing actions like blocking and dodging. That stamina bar gets depleted quickly, though, and when it’s gone players are left without a real way to defend themselves. Enemies have similar stamina bars, but it takes a considerable amount of effort to erase them when facing off against groups. It’s a bit similar toSekiro’sstamina system, for better or worse.
Perhaps the only glaring problem withAragami 2’sgameplaythat we noticed during the preview was how the game handled death. Players are forced to repeat the entire mission if they die, and while they’re typically bite-sized, they can require some meticulous planning to execute properly. It’s a baffling decision that drags the entire experience down, especially in instances where players have almost extracted back to the game’s hub world with other objectives completed. Aquicksave system like that ofDesperados 3could rectify the issue, or just allowing players to jump back to their last completed objective.
Aragami 2 Grows Beyond Its Predecessor
If there’s one thing that’s clear about the experience as a whole, though, it’s thatAragami2is trying desperately to outdo the original’s scope and scale. While we weren’t able to use the feature in our preview,Aragami 2will feature co-op. That gives it the potential forAssassin’s Creed Unity-style missions, though how that will affect combat difficulty, enemy placement, and other factors remains a mystery for now.
Aragami 2’sbest change is how radically it’s grown the depth of character customization, giving finer control over the character’s appearance than the first game offered. Players can swap out their masks, body armor, legs, and weapons with new looks, which is a nice touch. Plus, the suite of unlockable skills has been greatly expanded, which does add some more strategy to missions as players progress. The real litmus test forAragami 2will be how well it blends the expanded skill options with co-op play when the full game is released.
This change in scope could define howAragami 2is received when it fully launches, and rightly so. Lince Works, the game’s developer, is a small team, but still managed to carve out a name for itself with the originalAragami.Aragami 2doesn’t feel like a radical overhaul of the core gameplay mechanics, but it is building on that foundation in a couple of key ways.
It’s easy to see the areas whereAragami 2stands to improve, but it’s still shaping up to be a marked improvement over the first game. Notably,Aragami 2will be a day one Xbox Game Pass release, so those with access to the subscription service have few reasons not to dip their toes into it. Co-op play, ultimately, is the major question mark for the game, as it could add a radical new layer to the entire experience, a layer that could determine whetherAragami 2sinks or swims.
Aragami 2releases on September 17 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
