Code Vein II Review

Bandai Namco’s sequel to the anime vampire Soulslike comes packed with all the coolest ideas you’ve seen in this genre over the last decade. We’ve got a large open space with dungeons, secrets and loot dotted à la Elden Ring. You’ve even got a jumping mount: a motorbike (that also glides). Then there’s the pretty generous fast travel system to get you about when biking isn’t sufficient, AI allies that provide powerful synergies to your combat approach, one of the most customisable character creators in the genre, and a sufficient stack of weapons and abilities backed by a build system that greatly encourages player experimentation. It’s a generally faster-paced tactical action RPG, quickstepping in line with the likes of Nioh. If you’ve not played the 2019 original, like me, don’t even worry. Like the best standalone sequels, I never missed a beat for not having done any homework. 

The story is set in a technologically advanced future where mutations go too far and create a breed of vampires called Revenants. As Revenants increase in numbers and humans start to dwindle, an apocalyptic event called the Upheaval occurs that causes Resurgence to spread. Four vampire heroes channel their powers to seal away this cataclysm, forcing them into a cursed slumber for a century. Your player-made character, and their time-travelling vampire mate, Lou, will warp into the past to befriend these heroes to secure the ‘bond’ necessary to defeat them and claim their hearts in the present. There’s that anime power of love and friendship, with the obligatory need to have some fights thrown in. If the anime characters in the trailers pulled you in, the game has assumed you’re already down for this kind of wonky plot silliness.

Always bathe with your homies

Code Vein II’s most obvious novelty in the crowded Soulslike market is its approach to cinematics and story. It only takes a couple of hours with Code Vein II to know that the storytellers in this game have bucked the esoteric, atmospheric storytelling typical of the genre. Instead, you’re going to be getting heaps of in-engine cutscenes and forced corridor vignettes. All are backed by dramatic orchestral scores and some damn solid English lip synching when in frame – a rarity in games with anime characters. This game loves a dialogue cutscene, so you can anticipate a nice rest for your hands every half an hour.

While Code Vein II is a single-player experience, you will spend most of your time supported by a handful of vampire companions you will meet in the story. They have a tendency to sometimes just stand around or get caught in the environment, but when they’re working properly, I’d rather have them than nothing. You can also ’assimilate’ them for a boost in power. In the field, you can leverage their particular power sets to reconsider your approach to challenging fights. There’s also a ton of backend stat synergies that each ally provides, which I found could completely rewrite the rules of play when exploited smartly. Unfortunately, Code Vein II presents as a stats and system-heavy title that will intimidate for at least the first dozen hours. However, there is a satisfying amount of depth to be plumbed for those willing to engage. Even without genre staples like armour stats and accessories to tinker with, those looking for such fiddly mechanisms of empowerment will still be satisfied here.

The bow is your first Bequeathed Forma. Not as powerful, but handy for picking off foes

Enter Blood Codes. A prepackaged stat block in an item, often with special abilities, that will determine your equipment and combat strategy. Spending your precious experience points (Haze) on levelling up does not actually increase your combat stats like Strength and Willpower, only things like your health and stamina. Blood Codes do this instead. Exploiting this system allows for some proper vampire badassery. You see, Code Vein II eschews most of the genre’s meaner edges in favour of the vampire power fantasy, and it rocks. Spending adequate time with each Blood Code build can unlock far greater versions, with higher stat thresholds and the capacity to wield wilder weapons. As these Blood Codes are mostly doled out in tandem with the story, I found that the game maintained a steady challenge curve throughout, both with my character empowerment and enemy difficulty. Because having templated stat builds takes out the faff of equipment micromanagement, I was confidently able to undergo major build swaps with little consequence and jump straight back into the action to test it out. 

As a vampire hunter with vampire companions, you also get access to some super-powered vampire abilities. The sickest of these are called Bequeathed Forma. They are mostly big, wind-up attacks that will one-hit most enemies, shave chunks off bosses, and restore your ability resources. Swinging a big sword twice your size is well and fun in Dark Souls. Code Vein II says let’s make that sword three times your size and just wipe away your problems. These attacks are easily interrupted, but having such a tool in your arsenal definitely suits the power fantasy this game is aiming for. 

Unfortunately, as solid as Code Vein II appears on paper, it suffers from a lot of underbaked ideas and half measures. This is an Unreal Engine 5 game, but you wouldn’t necessarily guess that from the bland world, constant texture pop-ins and prominent frame skips that occur during gameplay and cutscenes. Having an Elden Ring-style open world is cool and all, but the invisible walls and lacklustre environmental design make it best explored in small doses. Dungeons suffer from nearly all looking the same, with heaps of dilapidated warehouses and sanitary steel-walled facilities. 

The cool-looking, gothic monsters never quite fit in with the modern, industrial environments

Then there’s the story. Oh boy, is it verbose. Practically every second term is a proper noun that has a unique meaning exclusive to this game. Vampires are Revenants, epidemics are Upheavals. That’s the tip of the iceberg. Emotional moments lost their weight on me with characters spitting out absurd lines, such as being able to observe the physical ‘Pathos’ in the surrounding environment of a character who supposedly contains a lot of emotional pathos. It is entirely likely you will see a character use a noun, and it’s in-game, proper noun usage, in the same sentence, leaving the baffled player to translate the otherwise plain English. Credit is due to the voice actors though, who persevere and do their level best to sell the discombobulating writing.

Final Thoughts

Time travel. Open world. Soulslike. Vampires. Code Vein II has so many different ideas going on, and they’re mostly fine, but nothing about them stands out. The core combat fundamentals are breezy and satisfying with the controller in hand. Tidying up stat allocation and buildcrafting courtesy of the Blood Code system is perhaps this game’s key offering to the greater design conversation around Souls games. A passable amount of compelling bosses and enemy variety kept me plodding away well enough for 50 hours. However, none of this game’s pros are without their flaws. Further distracting from the game’s potential are the frequent technical and performance issues on PS5, and the subpar story. Fundamentally, Code Vein II has the guts and grit to be a solid action RPG, but the points of frustration may not endear everybody to the challenges lying in wait. 

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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