Revenants, incursions, resurgents, vestiges, cocoons. None of these mean what you might think they mean, even in the context of whatever you might know about anime Soulslike action-RPG Code Vein. I’ve spent a few hours hands-on with Code Vein II, bright-eyed and ignorant from having never touched the 2019 original. A spiritual sequel, the connective tissue appears to be the genre and theme. And boy, describing the what of it is something. Code Vein II is a time-travelling post-apocalyptic vampiric science fantasy with stylistic and aesthetic sensibilities pulling at virtually every concept in between. It is anime in all of its excess, while also reaching for the emotional highs and lows of that medium.
Players begin by creating a vampire from an impressively comprehensive creator. There’s a nice volume of character customisation options, with a decent suite of outfits and accessories that can be used for dressing up. The default wardrobe is impressively vast. You can even get weirdly specific about the placement of accessories, because who says watches belong on the wrist? I’m not one to get lost in these kinds of systems, happy to reroll a few random character appearances before jumping in. Here, I was amused at how many layers players are given to tinker with, with folks easily able to spend their first hour here if so inclined.
The world, set in the not-so-distant future, has been cut down by an illness that sees the dead turn into monsters. This is known as the Resurgence. The undead, Resurgents. To combat this world-ending catastrophe are the Revenants, the good vampires. They’ve put a pause on the disease spreading further in the future, but there are still monsters to be cleaned up, and you’ll likely need to find a proper way to stop the Resurgence altogether. Oh, and the game’s heroes are keeping the disease in stasis by having gone into a kind of slumber in the present day. Of these heroes, I spent my session mostly in the past with Josée Anjou. One of the first women you’ll meet in the game, you’ll notice that this game likes its characters scantily clad and comically proportioned. That’s anime, I guess. Best hope your family members don’t walk in.
The guns show a lot of promise
Code Vein II isn’t just heavy with its own spin on the dictionary and familiar genre concepts; it’ll make you go to school with its many systems under the hood. Blood Codes, Jails, Links, Partners, Bonds, cooking, item synthesis, formae. At some point, half an hour into the preview, I realised I need to stop trying to understand all this vernacular and systems explainers, and just play.
The majority of the preview is set in the Sunken City. Though there are open outdoor spaces that can even be traversed by motorbike, this city is more linear, indoor, akin to a dungeon. Our protagonist is mostly scouring through the empty innards of dilapidated buildings and industrial iron walkways, in search of a big bad Resurgent in the depths of the city. The location is so varied in its architectural types, and the enemies within also seemed as eclectic. This was exciting, warily entering each room, unsure of what monstrosity lies in wait. They’re formidable in presence and weight. The designs run the broad church of grotesque multi-limbed bipedal creatures to emo demon knights, but are so different in their movements and behaviour, keeping an uncertainty and tension throughout the action.
Combat caters to most of the standard Soulslike class archetypes, with its own spins on everything you know about this subgenre. Character building doesn’t require the fierce allocation of stats, but players will switch out a heart-like item that swaps out the entire stat set. This makes switching playstyles and weapon types a breeze. Though there is ranged combat and a seemingly wide array of weapons and styles, much of the combat will be focused on building up bleed on enemies, while also draining enemy blood for powerful attacks called formae. There are special abilities that remind me of Elden Ring’s Ashes of War, augmenting the player and weapons for that little extra output. Each build can have up to four of these. Some are focused on defence, on projectiles, and presumably on your partner, too. There are over 200 available.
Having a partner gives breathing room during potentially fatal multi-foe ambushes
There’s a partner system where allies can revive you, fight alongside you, or you can absorb (assimilate) your AI-controlled ally. Functioning in place of the online summonable co-operative ally of the Souls series, your partner makes a tremendous impact in sharing the burden of combat. Vampiric hero Josée is our partner for the Sunken City (past) section of the preview. They can be seen staggering and catching your opponent offside. Absorbing Josée worked well in one-on-one encounters like bosses, where I needed big, focused damage dealt as efficiently as possible.
So into the past we go to fight some big bads and save the day. Then, in the present day, we fight the heroes who helped vanquish those previous foes. At least, this was my read of the events. The pertinent thing, though, was that the promise of a great foe is made clear at the outset of each timeline’s endeavour. Of the two great main bosses of the preview, the Metagen of the past’s sunken city is a huge four-armed beast. Slower than the player in most respects, it was a challenging and lengthy fight that exhibited this game’s approach to large, beast-type bosses. Even better is the demo’s final boss, the tainted version of the scantily clad Josée (if I understood the wild events occurring). Transformed into a massive, oversized katana-wielding, plate-armoured knight beast, Josée is my favourite fight. It scratches that classic itch of the quick exchanges, high-stakes one-on-one fights that Dark Souls mastered so well. She’s no Artorias, but she admirably cribs enough that I had a terrific time dying countlessly before felling her.
Of the narrative that I could decipher in my session, there is a lot of talk around Josée’s sister, Lise, who attempted suicide. Something about losing control, and choosing to end her life instead of affecting others. This is conveyed to the player as a kind of static vignette with dramatic voice-overs. This takes place in a dreamline corridor that the player can narrowly wander in, but there are otherwise no animations here; it is virtually another cutscene, but the player can spin their character in circles. I’m unsure how effective some of these themes will be if conveyed via static silhouettes that the player characters just idly wander by. But fear not, these soft cutscenes are likely to transition into cinematic cutscenes with even more exposition.
Josée glows up
While I cannot speak to how much of Code Vein II is borrowing from its predecessor, I suspect both new and returning players will be equally baffled at the outset by systems density, if not the proper noun-loaded narrative. However, I cannot deny that the sincerity and presentation driving all of this is very good, with great boss tunes and Bandai Namco’s ironic flavour of anime voice acting and dramatic, indulgent cutscenes.
Code Vein II releases on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on January 30.
Previewed on PS5 at an event hosted by Bandai Namco.
