You can actually decline to align with anyone, and forge your own path. At a certain point, you’ll be asked to align with a God: Thor, Hel, or Odin. With each new level, you’ll be given skill and attribute points to be spent any way you like. Since this is an RPG, combat and quests begets experience that feeds into levels. Food is important, dropped by animals and enemies, can be cooked to slowly replenish health and keep stamina up. You’ll need to gather resources like wood, stone, iron, and more to not only craft weapons and armor, but help build up settlements that have been ravaged by bandits, trolls, and other Norse creatures. In terms of gameplay, this is an RPG mixed with some light survival elements. With nearly 100 hours of gameplay, there’s no shortage of things to do here. The developers say that some of the quests were inspired by the community during the rescue efforts of Studio 369. I’m not upset with that, because all of the quests are voiced, and the NPCs all have something interesting to say.

But they mostly involve going to a location to kill someone or collect something, then going back to talk to the quest giver. The side quests are rather straightforward, and open-ended in how you complete them. Stopping Loki is no easy feat, as you work through the different Ages in undoing Ragnarök, it’s an epic adventure not seen before. It’ll take you around 50 hours to see the main quests through.

You can follow the main thread, or find the side quests to help those in need. The game then lets you loose to play the game as you see fit. Steeped in Norse mythology, you are guided by other Gods to reverse Loki’s damage to Midgard before it’s too late. Not just any apocalypse mind you, but Ragnarök, unleashed by the trickster Loki. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: you are a chosen warrior that’s been tasked with the overwhelming duty to stop an apocalypse from occurring. The result of this work is an experience that’s a flawed, yet highly engrossing game that I keep coming back to play. In under a year, RUNE II has seen a massive overhaul and tons of improvements with a new vision and direction. RUNE II: Decapitation Edition serves as a “Definitive Edition” of RUNE II, and the tail end of a redemption arc for the developers at Studio 369 and publisher Ragnarok Game, who inherited a mess. Most games don’t get to make a second first impression, but RUNE II has such an opening. Everyone deserves a second chance, an opportunity to make things right.

Rune 2 beta