Code Vein II improves upon the original, but still feels hollow

Back in 2019, Code Vein felt like another Soulslike that was trying to bank on the popularity of the genre, without offering the same level of honed mechanics, tight combat, and storytelling that you might find elsewhere. I was left rather unfulfilled by almost everything in it. Now in 2026, the sequel feels like it has learnt a lot of lessons and improves on the original in almost every way, albeit only slightly.

However, even while playing with the variety of builds I could put together, defeating foes with the creative weapons, and following along with the novel time-traveling story, I found myself asking, “Would I still be playing this if I wasn’t reviewing it?” The answer is probably not because while Code Vein II is a better game than the original, it just doesn’t have much that really sinks its teeth into you or sucks you along its futuristic vampire adventure.

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Lou is side by side with you throughout the game, allowing you to jump time periods.

Back to the Present

While the game is called Code Vein II, it has very little to do with the first game from a narrative point of view. It’s a completely self-contained adventure set in the future where humans and revenants coexist. The world is on the brink of destruction, and as a Revenant Hunter, you are tasked with taking down the Revenants who have gone mad and saving the world from collapse.

This is done as part of a small group of hunters, and your ally, Lou, who possesses the mysterious ability to travel through time. Through Lou, you can return to the world before it was on the verge of devastation in hopes to try and learn about key individuals who have turned into revenants in order to unlock their cocoons in the present day and defeat them.

Much like the first game, the game just offloads lore and exposition onto you early on and expects you to play along, and worry about a lot of the jargon later, which is quite off-putting initially for such a directed narrative in a Soulslike.

However, I was quickly drawn to the time-travelling nature of its structure, which felt unique to this game. It’s a fun twist on the formula, and it’s rewarding to actually dive into these characters’ backstories and their previous lives, getting to interact with them face to face. It’s a great way to give your actions in the present day (you fighting them) some impact, as you have spent time with these people before they became revenants.

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Your actions in the past, affect the present, and the paths of some key characters throughout the game.

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Travelling back in time to meet characters before they became Revenants is an enjoyable hook and it’s satisfying to see what led to them becoming the horrors they are in the present day.

The same goes for the NPC characters, some of which are still alive in the present, which means your decisions and whether or not you follow their questlines in the past can affect them when you travel back to the present day.

Unfortunately, it all ends up being a bit predictable over the course of the full game, but your actions in the past and the present can affect the game’s ending, which is better than the time-travelling story meaning nothing. This narrative was the main force that drew me in as I was playing. If it wasn’t for it, I think I would have been even less enamored with the full package.

Unrealized Potential

You would think that this kind of narrative set-up would make for some interesting gameplay moments, bosses, environments, and a distinct flavor profile and texture between the present day and past, and while there is some of that, it’s nowhere near as impactful or well-realized as it could have been.

The main way this structure plays into the wider game is that you will revisit some areas in the past before they became abandoned, decayed, and forgotten. One early example is a city that was full of rusting railways and overgrown grass in the past, no longer existing as water has led to it all being submerged, forcing you to travel through buildings and the small roads left above water to get around.

However, the enemies in these locations don’t feel distinct enough between the past and present and just blend together as you play and visit each new location. It feels more like they exist in the same world, rather than from two distinct time periods.

Additionally, the environments you do explore are rather ugly and dull. Grey cityscapes, empty coastlines, muddy cliffs. It’s just not appealing or exciting, and when some color is injected into those environments, they often look gaudy as the sprinkles of light don’t mesh with the muted backgrounds that permeate the game.

I also found it pretty tricky to navigate around at times. See, Code Vein II is open-world, and I don’t really know why. You can explore anywhere in the present, although you are limited to specific areas or zones in the past, and the fact that everything looks so similar makes it tricky to remember key locations or circle back to pick up something you forgot. The game is crucially missing identifiable landmarks and key points of interest you can use to navigate.

Oftentimes, there isn’t anything worth grabbing off the beaten path anyway, and dungeons feel like tunnels filled with the same enemies you fought outside in the open world, making the entire exploration process unmemorable and monotonous. Some of those dungeons also don’t have different enemies or encounters in the past and present. So, if you complete them in one time period, they are empty in the other, which is rather disappointing.

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Areas of the world often look similar with few landmarks, making it hard to navigate or find your way around.

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Code Vein 2 lacks a lot of color in its environments, making it rather dismal to explore.

It doesn’t help that most of the items and consumables you can find are displayed in the inventory with these cookie-cutter 2D pictures filled in with basic colors, instead of physical items that help build out the lore of the world or give some tangible visualization to what you are finding.

Almost everything that could have been done with Code Vein II when it comes to exploration and the open world, thanks to its setup, feels like the bare minimum.

Flexible, but not Enamoring

While a vampire may enamor you with their allure, especially with how over the top some of Code Vein II’s character designs are when it comes to the proportions and designs, the game’s combat will not.

It’s mostly just serviceable and solid. Nothing here is particularly frustrating or bad to engage with, but it’s also rather unfulfilling. Attacks don’t feel clean or polished, and the game has some of the jank and soft impact feeling of the first game, where it never really feels like your actions have much weight or impact behind them.

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Jails, Forma, and weapons are one of the stronger aspects and it is fun to pull off their flashy special moves.

It’s fine when you are just mindlessly slaying through enemies, but even early on, I felt like I was growing tired of how the game felt to play. It’s just lacking any zest in combat, although the creativity and inventiveness of some of the weapons you can use helps offset this a tad.

My favorite choice was a set of dual blades that hovers behind you, and you fight with your vampire hunter mind, swinging the swords at enemies and performing flips as you chain attacks together. The returning Jails, Formae, and Blood Codes also offer flashy attacks, stat bonuses, or special moves that can help to shake up the repetitiveness of combat.

There’s an impressive amount of build customization that really allows you to play however you like, using a variety of different elemental types, weapons (including ranged weapons), and combat styles, and it is one of the more exciting parts of the game. It’s just a shame that a lot of it isn’t interesting enough to warrant several playthroughs in order to test it all out. The levelling system is very simple too, with all stats rising with each level, which is particularly strange because there are 16 different ailments that you can be affected by and use, which is frankly too many to keep track of.

You can also fight with a partner at your side, although I found this made the game quite easy, and I resorted to having them assimilated to me, boosting my own stats and abilities. They can also revive you several times after you are killed, making the game far less punishing than some other Soulslikes.

There’s a lot more to the skills and buildcrafting if you want to toy with it. But the game falls into the same trap of the original, just shoving mechanics, vendors, and upgrade systems down your throat early on, before you have really gotten to grips with anything, which is overwhelming and off-putting.

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Bosses don’t always feel distinct enough from the regular enemies, and some bosses are larger versions of regular enemies.

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Despite hard hitting attacks, and powerful special moves, combat doesn’t feel like it has much weight behind it.

Ultimately, Code Vein II improves slightly on the original, as a lot of the ideas that game had feel better fleshed out. However, it still feels like a vapid Soulslike most of the time, falling into a few of the pitfalls of the first game. Nothing here is offensive, bad, or unenjoyable; it’s just pedestrian and monochrome.

The one bright spot is the time-travelling story, which is a novel idea, but a lot of possibilities that setup could provide are never realized, even slightly. In the end, Code Vein II just feels like another milquetoast Soulslike that will come and go, like many others before it.