Reus 2 Review

Reus 2 is a neat little game; I never played the first, but the sequel drew my intrigue. It’s a world-building god game where you take control of six different Giants, god-like beings in charge of terraforming planets into many differing biomes.

Your main goal in Reus 2 is to build a prosperous civilisation. To do this, you’ll place Biotica around the planet, each of which provides specific resources depending on a variety of factors. Throughout a run, you’ll find different humans, and you’ll start with one. As you gather more resources, each civilisation will also begin Projects, small tasks that reward having certain Biotica with even more resources. You’ll also have bigger tasks called Quests, which have an impact on how your civilisations grow and change.

At the beginning, and at certain milestones, you’ll enter different Eras that have unique Benefits and Quests to engage with. At these milestones, you’re given the ability to select from a few options, which is one of my favourite systems within Reus 2. Experimenting with different Eras is really satisfying and leads to a lot of replayability. It almost feels like you’re telling a unique story each time, and it’s deeply engaging. At a more direct level, these force you to engage with different Biotica on your own terms.

Eras also contribute to Reus’ primary win condition. The more you connect with the Era Quests, the more stars you’ll earn, which then correlates to the Prosperity of your planet. This functions as something of a scoring mechanic, and also exists to level up your Profile, which unlocks new items. I’m really fond of the levelling too, it doesn’t take long to make progress, but it helps introduce new elements at a really comfortable pace, stopping the player from potentially being overwhelmed.

Reus 2’s planets are built on a grid-like world, which is where you’ll place your Biotica. The positioning of these really matters too, as often they’ll get benefits from being close to, or adjacent to, Biotica with certain Tags, which is the crux of the system. You’ll want to min-max your options while remaining aware of your Era goals for each civilisation. The Giants you selected at the start of each planet determine a lot of these factors.

For example, the Swamp Giant can create Rainforest biomes. These have a focus on Science, so are great for scientific Eras and characters who thrive with it, such as the Inventor. They also primarily create Plant-type Biotica (more specifically, Trees), but these aren’t entirely locked to the Rainforest biome. Different Giants have different options per biome, so finding unique combinations of Giants, Biomes, and Biotica is a satisfying set of systems. And this isn’t even everything, Micros are additional items which can be added to Biotica, which alter their Tags and sometimes their effects.

As far as meta-progression is concerned, there’s the aforementioned Profile Level, and also a collection to fill out. This collection has basically everything from Era’s to Biotica, so to get the most out of Reus 2, you’ll want to really explore everything it has to offer.

As a whole, Reus 2 is genuinely fantastic: it’s relaxing, satisfying, and deeply replayable. Its core gameplay loop is brilliant and I can’t recommend it enough.