Ever since the Gunfire Games’ Darksiders franchise was established, fans have been clamoring for an online co-op adventure featuring all four horsemen in the same game, and three entries later we’re all still waiting. Fortunately, Remnant: From the Ashes , a new action-adventure romp from the same developers, has a lot of what fans were looking for in its online co-op setting, including a unique take on the post-apocalypse.

Loading

Loading

Remnant: From the Ashes - July 2019 Screenshots 9 IMAGES

From what developers have told me thus far, Remnant is not connected to Darksiders in any way but you could have fooled me. The setting here is several decades after the fall of traditional civilization and you take on the role of a survivor that knows no life other than one of suffering and scraping by to stay alive. Much like its contemporaries such as The Division 2, Destiny 2, and even Diablo 3, Remnant has a heavy focus on action-packed replayable content that’s primarily built around co-op play while dishing out steady streams of new loot and gear. (Check out our new 19-minute gameplay video below!)But in the case of Remnant, a huge chunk of what you replay will actually be different thanks to its robust procedural generation and randomization engines. Once you start up a mission the map is set in stone, but if you die or leave and come back enemy spawn points will be totally different. The developers describe to me a sort of “AI Conductor” that works behind the scenes to decide which enemies spawn where, what they do, how hard they are to kill, and which pieces of loot they drop. Not only that, but it’s dynamic. That means if the enemy holds you up at a nasty choke point or identifies your team struggling, they can crank up the heat to put even more pressure on you. If that sounds similar to the ill-fated Hellgate: London, it’s not a coincidence. One of the lead developers told me that was very specifically an inspiration.My Remnant demo was split into two parts: offline single-player and online co-op. Even though the game is clearly being designed around the promise of playing online with other people it’s entirely playable solo as well. You don’t even need to be connected to the server at all to enjoy it as a single-player game, in fact. What struck me immediately about Remnant, which will be released for PC, PS4, and Xbox One on August 20 for $40, is just how deliberate and heavy the controls felt. Pressing attack without aiming triggers a melee attack, such as the tanky character’s hefty hammer, which is great for wiping up small, weak enemies without wasting ammo. As a contrast to fast-paced twitch-based gameplay that feels like a new standard across several genres, Remnant feels like it was designed to make you feel the cumbersome weight of each movement and attack. Dodge rolls take time and precision to use well, with noticeable recovery times after each movement. Even firing shots from weapons has serious punch that makes each gun feel distinct and powerful. All that’s not to say it feels clunky at all, but you certainly won’t have the illusion that you’re controlling some freak action hero that moves weightlessly through the world.Your loadout consists of two guns that can be swapped at will and a melee weapon, as well as an assortment of other gear like a helmet, armor piece, trinkets such as rings, and other expected bits and bobs. Each weapon also gets a mod attached to it, which can have a dramatic effect on gameplay, such as spouting a healing aura or summoning a flesh-eating bug from inside the earth itself. On top of all this, you level up and spend perk points to further define your stats and abilities. It’s got a satisfying RPG layer over the top, but it’s still primarily a co-op shooter at its heart. I can imagine playing single player in a game like this will be useful for experiencing the story without having to worry about other players rushing through content, or if you want more of a challenge. Approaching a room full of enemies as a solo player is extremely dangerous. Even standard mobs can kill you in a manner of seconds if you’re not careful. Without anyone to watch your back or cover you while you flank, combat can get very intense very quickly.Once my demo switched to cooperative play, that’s when it felt like things were really clicking. As the tanky character I used a slow and powerful hammer along with a beefy shotgun, aggro-stealing mods that kept enemies off my teammates, and a submachine gun for spraying at medium to close range. One of my teammates packed a powerful sniper rifle and our third buddy was a well-rounded assault type. The one area we explored was a sandy locale featuring small hut-style homes. Near the center of the city was a dungeon, which we were told is created procedurally once it loads up and then enemies are placed randomly each time we reload. And reload we did. It wasn’t easy by any means, but it was well-designed and fun to try without being frustrating. The unpredictability of not knowing where enemies would appear helped keep things fresh even if we were technically replaying the same content a few times over. I think it took us about four tries to finally finish the dungeon, but at the end we got an awesome set of armor that was certainly worth the effort.And that feels like a big part of what Gunfire wants to accomplish with Remnant: a game that’s truly replayable that can offer something fresh every time. All too often looter shooters and action RPGs get bogged down in offering more loot and more gear without making any of it actually valuable. Remnant seems to include fewer gear drops overall, but the quality of each piece of loot is, as a whole, usually much higher. That feels like a good balance for a game this unforgiving.

David Jangeaux is a contributor to IGN. Talk games with him on Twitter at @David_Jagneaux