review banner saga 2

Time continues washing over us, says The Banner Saga 2’s narrator as the story starts up again. It’s an apt metaphor for the plight of your surviving leader, with a caravan’s worth of followers in real danger of drowning beneath an unforgiving tide that’s sweeping ever closer. If that wasn’t bad enough, hidden currents also lie in wait, ready to drag them under; these terrible circumstances are the kind that force good people into morally murky waters, making decisions that could easily see history paint them as the bad guy. Like its predecessor, The Banner Saga 2 is a game that dares to make the struggle to survive feel perilously close to futile. It invites you to do what you can to keep your people alive, even in the knowledge that it might not—and, in all likelihood, probably won’t—be enough. That in itself is a gauntlet being thrown down, a challenge to players to succeed against shattering odds—or at least to delay defeat as long as possible. But its greatest triumph is to invest you so deeply in a decaying world and its inhabitants that, no matter how bad things get, you want the journey to continue. The scenery is a huge draw, but you’ll want your cast to live long enough to see the same magnificent sights, too. If anything, the canvas is even more sprawling than before. The starkly beautiful setting seems to make you feel smaller than ever—at times, you’ll find yourself peering into the background at what looks like a tiny swarm of ants scuttling across the screen. If you weren’t already sure of your place in the world, these sequences makes you acutely aware of just how vulnerable your exhausted band really is. As before, the funereal trudge of your cortège cleverly captures both the sensation of time passing and the prevailing feeling of despair. The world is visibly breaking, and your caravan is no different. Departures come more frequently, as allies choose alternative paths, and others bid a more tragic farewell. More significantly, your choices, however well intentioned, cause rifts within the camp. Conflict grows organically from the decisions you actively make and those that are unceremoniously thrust upon you - with one exception, as an agonising late game dilemma leads you to face a former ally on the battlefield. This is high stakes, high drama stuff, but a rare moment of contrivance, too, with the ramifications of your choice not becoming clear until it’s too late. It’s powerful, but manipulatively so; manufactured, seemingly, to increase the emotional weight of your eventual choice.