Trepang2 Review

Trepang2 is a new FPS released by Trepang Studios and published by Team17. Taking incredibly obvious inspiration from classic shooters, such as F.E.A.R., it’s a high-paced, intense, and gory shooter.

This title absolutely shines brightest on the gameplay front: combat and gunplay feel utterly masterful, with all the weapons having a distinct feel. The sound and visual design surrounding the guns is incredible, the recoil feels fantastic, and all the different weapons are very punchy and powerful. To accent this, the player character — Subject 106 — is enhanced with superpowers: Focus, a bullet time system, vastly slowing down time, making dodging bullets a satisfying option, and Cloak, temporarily making 106 invisible until either the meter reaches 0 or a gun is fired. These lead to a vast amount of options through combat encounters, and with the violently over-the-top melee system featuring dropkicks and insane throws, it makes for an utterly hilarious time. The only real problem I had with much of the combat came down to variety in weapon choice and some sub-par bosses.

I felt I had seen much of what the game's weapons had to offer within the first hour, and while more were introduced later on, they were either underpowered or very situational. Balance was lacking, leading to me using the shotgun for the majority of my time as it felt the most useful, especially after getting access to the dual-wield system. To the game's credit, however, I was having far too much fun to really care about these issues. That being said, the other problem I had was the boss fights, many of which felt too restrictive and long. These were admittedly fairly few and far between and not outright bad, just an obvious drop in quality from the rest of the game. The final boss was the only one I had a genuinely bad time with, losing access to the majority of the game’s most fun tools and having to slowly chip away at a boss who kept disappearing only to appear for a split second and disappear again.

The story is nothing ground-breaking, but it absolutely complements the game's combat. Focusing on a typically evil corporation, Horizon, performing incredibly unethical experiments. 106 is tasked with revealing this to the world and shutting Horizon down. It also manages to interweave horror elements here and there, with missions such as Site 83 taking heavy inspiration from the SCP series and seemingly making obvious references to other notable horror franchises such as The Backrooms. The story is very fun, if a little short, and manages to complement the gameplay well, but it is not the game's strongest point. There’s even a cult thrown into the mix, which seems to mainly be there for some variety. Admittedly though, this works wonders; all of the game's environments are incredibly unique, from an old castle in the UK to an underground research lab in Siberia, all the way to a dilapidated lab. Side content is also strewn throughout the game, with some relatively simple side missions and the combat simulator, a wave-based survival mode on a vast amount of maps.

Visually, Trepang2 sadly doesn’t do much to go above and beyond, outside of the dismemberment and gore system. Many of the locations look perfectly satisfactory, but I wasn’t outright impressed with many of them. I also had some issues with the brightness in some areas, being nigh impossible to see, and the flashlight was not much use. The gore was definitely the standout part of the visuals; grenades turning groups of enemies into a bloody paste, the shotgun tearing limbs off and leaving only organs in its wake, and so much more. It really tied the gunplay up in a nice bow and made it just that little more enjoyable. Also, the performance was perfect; I had no noticeable stutters throughout my playtime, nor any crashes.

Trepang2 is an absolutely brilliant experience. Combat is insanely fun and satisfying, and the story is entertaining. The price tag may be a little high as the content is thin, but the fantastic gameplay loop makes it worth the time and the money.