Koei Tecmo’s first Attack on Titan game was a surprisingly good adaptation of the popular anime. The co-op Scout mode wasn’t too fancy, but it did give players lots of missions to take on with online friends. Attack on Titan 2 is set to raise the bar a bit further when it arrives on consoles this March. We got our hands on the big-screen and Switch versions of the game at a recent preview event, checking out the character creation feature, new multiplayer mode, and more.
Creating your own scout
The previous Attack on Titan adapted the storyline of the first season of the show. Naturally, the sequel tackles the second season. One big difference in how the story’s presentation this time is the perspective. Last time, you played as Eren, Armin, and other known members of the Scout Regimen – soldiers who seek out new habitable land and fight against the gigantic Titans that threaten humanity.
This time, you’ll play as an all-new member of the Scout Regiment that you create. Your scout will take part in the same key events from the show, engaging in missions with established members of the team. Cinematics take place from a first-person perspective, whereas the gameplay retains the traditional third-person view of your character and surroundings.
Not only do you get to control your custom scout throughout story mode, you’ll also be able to play as him or her in the game’s online co-op and competitive modes. It’s a clever way to keep players invested throughout the entire Attack on Titan 2 experience. Of course, you’ll still be able to play as other characters in multiplayer as well. Multiplayer features 30 playable characters from the show, twenty more than the first game.
Other Koei Tecmo games like Toukiden 2 offer truly robust character creation tools, and Attack on Titan 2 is no different. Upon starting the game, you’ll select from one of six basic body types. From there, the customization kicks into high gear. You can adjust very little facial feature and setting-appropriate clothing, all of which come in a variety of colors as well. The customization here kind of puts that of Monster Hunter: World to shame.
A Titanic campaign, now with co-op
Having created a custom character, players are free to jump into the Story campaign. The story adapts the second season of the anime but features unique framing sequences built around the custom character. The details of this character’s adventures come from a recently discovered journal. Did our hero actually die before losing the journal? We’ll have to finish the campaign to find out.
The actual campaign begins with a tutorial that will be all too familiar to fans of the last game. In fact, it’s nearly identical. You start as a fresh cadet on a training exercise in the wilderness, swinging through caverns and beating up dummy Titans. It’s good that the tutorial exists, because Attack on Titan 2’s controls (unchanged from the first game) definitely have a learning curve. But the familiarity will lead to boredom for established players.
The proper campaign missions are thankfully much more exciting. In the mission I played, the city was once again under attack by gigantic human-eating Titans. My character had to rendezvous with AI teammates (all characters from the show) and take down numerous Titans who had breached the city’s protective wall. After knocking out enough regular foes, the stage ends with a battle against an armored Titan.
Attack on Titan 2 looks and plays a lot like its predecessor, so don’t expect a drastically different game here. The core gameplay of swooping around the environment like Spider-Man, latching onto Titans, destroying their body parts, and then delivering a killing blow to the back of the neck is just as engaging as ever. But there are a few new mechanics, such as locations where players can erect supply towers. After setting one up, it will provide items like fuel and blade sharpeners.
Story Mode will also support 2-player online co-op this time out. We didn’t get to test this feature, but bringing along a friend should make story missions that much more exciting. Hopefully players can tackle campaign missions without having to complete them solo first, but the Attack on Titan games share some DNA with Koei Tecmo’s Warriors games, so that requirement wouldn’t surprise me.
Switch and multiplayer impressions
Although most of my time with Attack on Titan 2 was spent on the PlayStation 4 version, I also got to try out multiplayer on the Nintendo Switch. The first game’s cooperative Expeditions mode naturally returns. This time, the co-op missions are called Scout missions. Although the structure and quantity of Scout missions hasn’t changed in this sequel, being able to play as your own custom character, as well as 30 canonical characters, should certainly add some staying power.
Attack on Titan 2 also features a new competitive game-type called Annihilation Mode. After joining a game, players will walk around a multiplayer lobby (depicted as the inside of a tent) as they wait for others to arrive. In the Switch build I played, the only thing we could do is walk around and perform a handful of emotes. Everyone had to wait until a two-minute timer had expired for the match to start. Hopefully the finished game will simply allow the host to launch the game when everyone is ready.
Annihilation Mode pits two teams of four players against each other. Each team’s goal is simply to kill the most Titans before the match timer expires. Titans keep respawning in groups, so you’ll always have something to fight. Think of it as a horde mode, except you’re competing for kills. The competitive element might be unappealing to co-op fans, but I could see Annihilation appealing more to the co-op crowd than standard player-versus-player games.
As for the Nintendo Switch experience, we played in docked mode with controllers inserted into the Joy-Con grip. The Switch version doesn’t look nearly as sharp as the PlayStation 4 game, with much simpler geometry and lower resolution textures in evidence. I’d place the performance as just slightly better than that of the first Vita game (the second game is only coming to Vita in Japan). Still, Attack on Titan 2 has strong artistic design, so Switch owners won’t be disappointed with its looks.
The Joy-Cons aren’t exactly the most comfortable controllers out there, particularly when dealing with a game with genuinely complex controls like Attack on Titan 2. But I only played the Switch version for a couple of multiplayer games. Players who spend more time with the game and haven’t picked up a Pro Controller yet should still do fine.
Having played the preview version of Attack on Titan 2 on both PlayStation 4 and Switch, it’s looking like a fairly safe sequel. It introduces the next big chapter of the story, custom characters, competitive multiplayer, and Story co-op – and that’s about it. The gameplay and visuals could easily be mistaken for the first game, but that game’s story was just as engaging as its gameplay, so fans are likely to enjoy the new installment as well. We’ll find out on March 20, when Attack on Titan 2 arrives on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Steam.
Disclosure: Travel to the Attack on Titan 2 preview event was provided by Koei Tecmo.