Red Solstice 2: Survivors

I’m not gonna lie, I laughed and cringed a bit when Troy Baker introduced Red Solstice 2: Survivors as a “real-time XCOM“. As if that statement made any freaking sense, during one of E3 2021’s many, many, many showcases. Even though that presentation did very little to convince new people to try that game out, that served to remind me that its full version was due to be released soon, which made me very excited. I quite enjoyed the preview build I was sent a few weeks ago, so I really...

Red Solstice 2: Survivors is not a new sight, as we’ve tried out its alpha before. You can check out our impressions of that here. The game hasn’t changed all that drastically, so you can consider this review roughly a retread of the preview.

With a focus on multiplayer, Red Solstice 2: Survivors tackles the action/tactical genre, offering up hordes of foes and beautiful presentations in the field. Where it lacks is connection with the player, bugs, and some difficulty spikes that make it infuriating.

Red Solstice 2 is an interesting game. When you look at all the components, you'd understandably picture it as being a real-time XCOM, with the quality and features that come to mind with such a description. Playing the game, a lot of what you would expect is there. However, the few downfalls found in games like XCOM seem to have been expanded, while the aspects that made the game shine haven't been recreated for the real-time tactics approach offered by Red Solstice 2.

A cybernetically-enhanced super-soldier named the Executor is all that stands against humankind’s destruction at the hands of the deadly STROL virus in Red Solstice 2: Survivors, a sequel to the 2015 survival tactics title. Fusing real-time strategy with action, survival horror, and online squad-based multiplayer, players fight to secure humanity’s future and slay hordes of mutant abominations. It’s atmospheric, it’s tactical, it’s tense: but does its unique genre blend work?