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.