Elex II

Elex II drops you back into Magalan with a jetpack on your back and a lot of ground-level trouble waiting below. Its best idea is the freedom to cross a huge science-fantasy wasteland from above, then decide how Jax deals with the factions and people living in it. That makes wandering feel purposeful when you enjoy following your own curiosity instead of rushing a single critical path.

The sequel has real ambition, from its reactive NPCs to a story built around uniting groups against a new invasion. Still, its rough-edged role-playing style will be more rewarding for patient fans of Piranha Bytes than anyone looking for a polished, frictionless action RPG. The jetpack, the faction choices, and Magalan’s strange mix of ruin and fantasy are enough to make the trip worthwhile if that particular kind of messy freedom is what you want.

Retro Replay Review

Gameplay

The first thing Elex II gets right is putting a jetpack at the center of its open world. Magalan is built to be crossed with more than just a long walk, and the ability to lift off and fly changes the feel of exploration from a checklist march into something more spontaneous. You can spot a route, take to the air, and make your own way there. For a game about a battered world full of competing powers, that freedom is its strongest hook.

Combat gives Jax close-range and ranged options, and the sequel leans on an improved control system to make switching between those approaches more comfortable. The important part is not simply that there are different ways to fight. It is that Elex II places combat inside a larger role-playing loop where your conduct can influence the people around you. NPCs remember what you do, and companions can join or leave based on how you behave. That gives even ordinary conversations more weight than they would have in a pure action game.

There is a stubborn, old-school streak to the experience. Elex II wants you to invest in its world, deal with its factions, and accept that choices have consequences. NPCs may be killed, with consequences for the story, so treating every encounter as disposable is not a smart approach. If you enjoy RPGs that let you live with the results of your decisions, the roughness is easier to forgive. If you mainly want combat to carry the whole adventure, the game’s broader demands may test your patience.

Graphics

Magalan’s imagery comes from its collision of post-apocalyptic ruins and science fantasy: a world where the wreckage of one age shares space with factions and threats tied to the strange power of Elex. The documented jetpack exploration lets Jax cross this world by air.

Story

Jax returns several years after defeating the Hybrid, but peace does not last. A new threat arrives from the sky and unleashes dark Elex, putting all life on Magalan at risk. The setup is appropriately large-scale, yet the story has a personal thread too: Jax is trying to find his separated son, Dex, while facing a crisis that needs factions to stand together.

That combination gives Elex II more to work with than a simple save-the-world march. You are not just chasing an invading force. You are trying to persuade the factions of Magalan to cooperate, while Jax’s decisions shape relationships along the way. The game’s reactive NPCs and companion behavior fit this premise well, because they turn its talk of consequence into something that can affect the people traveling with you.

The moral-decision framing will land best if you like stories that leave room for inconvenient outcomes. Elex II is interested in what Jax does to get results, not only whether he succeeds. Its family stakes help ground the larger conflict, although the main draw remains the chance to navigate Magalan’s faction relationships on your own terms.

Overall Experience

Elex II is a big, unruly sequel with a specific kind of confidence. It does not narrow Magalan into a guided tour. Instead, it hands you mobility, competing factions, and consequences that can follow you through the campaign. The result is most satisfying when you stop trying to play it like a streamlined action game and start treating it as a world you have to negotiate.

Its payoff comes from the connection between exploration and choice. Flying across the map would be a novelty on its own, but it gains value because the places you reach contain people who may remember your actions, companions who may reconsider their loyalty, and story paths affected by who lives or dies. Those documented consequences give the role-playing choices their weight.

Give Elex II a chance if you want a sequel that favors agency over polish and are willing to meet its old-school sensibilities halfway. Fans deciding whether to return can find the core premise and feature outline in the official Elex II description. Everyone else should know what they are signing up for: an ambitious science-fantasy RPG whose best moments come from exploring freely and accepting that your choices can complicate the road ahead.