We’ve got yet another case of a publisher no longer funding the continuation of a franchise and thus a smaller developer self-assigning the goal of delivering a spiritual successor. Remember the F.E.A.R. franchise that combined bombastic bullet-time first-person shooting with disturbing horror elements back in the 7th generation of consoles? Trepang Studios brings us more of that with Trepang2 – let’s see if it lives up to the comparison!
A familiar fearing
This game’s action-packed single-player campaign opens up with a rather mysterious beginning, where we take control of our protagonist who needs to escape a prison facility and is helped by an unknown person to do so. At first, with our protagonist handcuffed, this gives us a stealth sequence where we need to avoid guards, but before long we start obtaining firearms and start having a much more leveled field against said opposition. Outmanned, we have to traverse several rooms, corridors, warehouses, and so on, usually full of squads of enemies ranging from about 4 to 6 units. Due to this disadvantage in numbers, the game encourages the player to use a stealth approach, and it does indeed offer decent solutions there. You can crawl in the dark, become invisible for a couple of seconds via a special cloak device, perform lethal takedowns from behind, carry away fainted or murdered enemies, shoot at lights, disable alarms, and so on. It’s fairly complete of a stealth experience in truth, but it’s also not even remotely the most satisfying way to play Trepang2.
Despite the game offering surprisingly solid stealth mechanics, with AI opponents calling reinforcements, splitting up, and doing formations better than they do in most shooters, this is the “boring” way to play this title – and to be fair, the game itself ensures that is not an option before long. What this game is all about is… running into fights head-on with blazing guns. It’s easy to draw parallels with the likes of the original F.E.A.R., but also Doom Eternal, Bulletstorm, Ultrakill, and various other high-octane shooters, but Trepang2 has its own identity. Players can use their adrenaline to turn on a good-looking bullet time mode that slows down the game and allows for more time to make split-second decisions, while also dodging enemy bullets not unlike The Matrix which pretty much invented this technique in cinema. By killing more enemies, more adrenaline is generated, allowing for longer spells of this mode. With long jumps, slides, powerful melee hits, and more, it’s exhilarating to see enemies and bullets being thrown around, made especially gorgeous by the levels that are generous in things to damage. After a shootout, it is funny to walk back to all the debris, bodies, blood splatters, weapons, and bullets left on the floor, as during the heat of the fight it’s hard to even truly grasp the kind of terror we’re leaving behind.
Spooky scary shootouts
By the latter half of the game’s second mission, not even an hour into the story, the horror elements start to become prevalent as well. What starts as a generic espionage story, quickly takes a left turn into pure horror, as the labs we’re raiding turn out to have been doing some horrific human experiments, leaving us with less-than-desirable opponents in the form of humanoid demons, flying monsters, and other creepy stuff to shoot down or, in some case, to simply escape from. This is where the game’s horror elements, again inspired by the original F.E.A.R., truly get intense. Without wanting to spoil much, the sterile labs and offices quickly give place to corridors with all kinds of nasty materials on the wall, nightmare sequences, jumpscares, and then some. The intensity of the gameplay never drops, however, always emphasizing the high-octane gameplay.
In truth, the execution of said horror and plot beats is nowhere near as elegant and memorable as found in the F.E.A.R. games, most notably the first one. The themes it tackles, the jumpscares, and the demonic designs of the new enemies feel rather safe, and perhaps even more importantly the plot is delivered in a sterile way. The vast majority of the lore is conveyed via computer terminals, catalogs, and such that are found in absolute abundance in the various levels, sometimes even multiple of them in the same room. Meanwhile, almost every plot advancement and interaction with characters happens in the hub which players go back to after each mission, told us via generic soldiers with a face mask on that make it feel impersonal and not very emotionally impactful. A far cry from the memorable introduction of Alma in the F.E.A.R. games, whose arrival coincided with the game world progressively becoming corrupted and terrifying. Here, it feels more like a switch from one style to another without any of that subtlety.
Instruments of destruction
The game’s main focus is the gameplay though, and it’s honestly hard to put into words how brutally satisfying Trepang2’s shootouts are. With the FOV that can be cranked up very high and an already fast base movement speed, it’s exhilarating to slide or jump into a firefight, as the bullet-time we manually activate makes aiming at enemies a lot easier, with their bodies being pushed away, hundreds of particles like sparks and blood drops fill the screen, all with this distorted look that makes it seem like you cranked your TV’s clarity setting up to 100. It’s fast, precise, and makes the player feel like a deity among the poor helpless soldiers or demons that step in their way.
Throughout the campaign, the player finds all kinds of weaponry and tools to improve their chances of survival, with every couple rooms even offering a good place to take a breather, reload all ammo, but even change the weapons’ characteristics – even make them dual-wielders. In what you could define as a much more simplified version of Call of Duty’s Gunsmith, you can add all kinds of attachments such as silencers, extended magazines, and more to the weaponry, all the way down to one of the many unlockable skins and then some. With only 2 weapons that can be carried at once, the player has to make increasingly difficult choices, especially considering a grenade launcher, a bolt gun, and even a minigun enter the rotation before long.
The looks
From a technical standpoint, Trepang2 delivers a slightly uneven but rather impressive look on Xbox Series X, the platform I tested it on. While not every individual asset looks particularly gorgeous, with character models in particular that feel a bit shallow and unremarkable, the actual areas ooze with details, clean surfaces that reflect light (not sure if via raytracing or pre-baked lights, but it looks neat), with the aforementioned particles that make these areas feel insanely crowded and lively as soon as bullets start flying. All this at a seemingly very high resolution and pretty much rock solid 60fps, with barely any bugs encountered, aside from a handful of funky ragdolls that, to be honest, happen in virtually every game.
The campaign can be blasted through in just about 3-4 hours without excessively rushing, which might seem like a really low number. And to be fair, it is: it would have been nice to see a longer, more fleshed-out story. To partially save the day at least, the content of the game doesn’t quite end there. The story offers multiple optional side missions as well, though most of these boil down to surviving hordes of enemies rather than fleshed-out levels to explore and story beats to uncover. There is also a frankly stunning amount of gameplay options: on top of having many difficulty options ranging from a very forgiving Easy setting to a devastating Rage Mode, Trepang2 has several dozens of cheat codes the player can mess around with. These have an astonishing variety and range from the likes of having all enemies already alerted, them being clumsy, their stats altered, all the way down to all weapons having ADS, all bullets turning into knives, infinite grenades, a spooky mode (optimal, with Hollywood approaching) or continuously draining health that forces a speedrun playstyle.
No reason to fear
Trepang2 is a title that tries to recapture the magic of the classic F.E.A.R. franchise, managing to mimic certain aspects well, even improving upon them, while also failing to do so in others. The action-packed gameplay is mighty spectacular and incredibly satisfying when fighting against other soldiers, much less so when it’s against generic zombie-like enemies, flying mobs, or bullet sponge bosses, whose mechanics very much negate the perks of the shooting mechanics themselves. Likewise, the game’s execution of a horror mystery is a bit weak, especially compared to the great original F.E.A.R. game, with a very basic execution of horror tropes and no interesting characters to speak of. Yet, with some of the most satisfying shooting on the market and a surprising amount of customization and cheat codes, Trepang2 is still worth a shot, whether you’re a fan of the franchise it’s inspired by or just a fan of exciting first-person shooters.
Trepang2
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Fantastic gunplay
- Incredibly spectacular
- Improves on the F.E.A.R. formula in many ways
CONS
- Base campaign is a bit short
- Horror elements are hit and miss
- Narration is disappointing
