tl;dr: New players, stay away until you see some patch notes about the difficulty curve. It's awful, and I'm saying that as a long time Redout enjoyer and advocate.

Redout 2 seems to be a game by game developers who have not spoken to anyone outside of their hardcore playerbase for the past decade. The difficulty curve is insane, and the campaign mode has an aggressive problem with the very idea of player agency.

The tutorials are blisteringly hard, and I'm saying that as a guy who has over 80 hours in the previous game. They slow time and assume control from you, that can occasionally put you into walls or off the track, as the only way to progress past them is to hold down the designated input. They are unhelpful at best, and mandatory. I had to teach myself boost-stacking to complete the tutorial level you have to beat to unlock the tutorial about boost stacking. I got 3rd place in a tutorial that just shows you *text* explaining car stats. It is massively overtuned for the hardcore crowd.

As an additional screw-you, the game only half-explains some vital mechanics and locks them behind additional tutorials in the tutorial race league that you can only access after you have won some races in the B tier league. It's comical how bad this signposting is.

The campaign forces you to drive the ESA car. You do not get to choose your starting chassis. You are forced into this un-upgraded jalopy and asked to play the game against opponents that are genuinely just better than you, and race like they've been turning laps since before you were born. The idea that a player would have preferences about what kind of car they would like is not even considered. Progression is glacial and involves unlocking specific parts that arbitrarily raise different stats. It's impossible early game to determine if you have lost because you made driving mistakes, or because your numbers are not turgid enough to out-race the raid boss. This is a terrible sensation to foist upon players who may be losing due only to developer malice and no actual fault of their own.

Some of the earliest campaign events available to you as a player are one-lap time trials. Blind. You do not have any idea what you're getting into in a precision racing game that literally sells itself on near incomprehensible fastness. Hope you enjoy the restart button because you'll use it a lot chasing a gold that is physically impossible to achieve with the terrible car you are forced to drive at start.

My favorite bit though, after all of this crass mistrust of the player to make any meaningful decisions or observations, is that in the multiplayer mode the ONLY cars available to you are the un-upgraded junker you start with or fully kitted out max level versions of every other car. The idea that new players might form a small grid to teach themselves in a reasonable spread of their preferred low tier vehicles is apparently completely lost on 34 Big Things, and it is an absolute shame.

The new player experience for this game is a trainwreck. I'm sure the 10 people who show up to the weekly wallgrind are going to have a great time, but they are not about to find themselves many new friends with the launch of Redout 2.

All that said: For those of you who have not been scared away, the actual mechanical driving in this game is a thing of beauty. Cars handle with an amount of control and willingness to cooperate with long, boostful drifts that I could only have dreamed of playing Redout1. There are now boosters that live in the apexes of some corners and will still accelerate you accordingly even if you are fully sidewrong to their orientation. The boost pool is fully intertwined with your vehicle's health, and were it not for the fact that a single explosion means an entire race restart, is really fun to balance. The combination pressures of your auto-repair's time delay, your coolant temperatures begging you to go faster, and the flickering booster ahead of you forces you into a beautiful headspace balancing risk and reward.

Until you go slightly too far, explode, and the setback of exploding is so punishing it forces you to restart the map.

I don't have high hopes for 34big things having a functional response to feedback however. They have failed to provide proper lobbies, or for that matter proper lobby controls after that being a glaring issue for the entirety of Redout1. I fear that they may be too stubborn in their design convictions to realize that their tiny cabal of dedicated fans will be the only people interested in their future ranked league and season passes if this new player experience is not addressed.

The most pessimistic part of me is very looking forward to seeing how they cultivate a competitive scene without allowing for a casual one to exist. The cart is firmly before the horse there, and by we've seen how that plays out time and time again.

tl;dr: New players, stay away until you see some patch notes about the difficulty curve. It's awful, and I'm saying that as a long time Redout enjoyer and advocate. Redout 2 seems to be a game by game developers who have not spoken to anyone outside of their hardcore playerbase for the past decade. The difficulty curve is insane, and the campaign mode has an aggressive problem with the very idea of player agency. The tutorials are blisteringly hard, and I'm saying that as a guy who has over 80 hours in the previous game. They slow time and assume control from you, that can occasionally put you into walls or off the track, as the only way to progress past them is to hold down the designated input. They are unhelpful at best, and mandatory. I had to teach myself boost-stacking to complete the tutorial level you have to beat to unlock the tutorial about boost stacking. I got 3rd place in a tutorial that just shows you *text* explaining car stats. It is massively overtuned for the hardcore crowd. As an additional screw-you, the game only half-explains some vital mechanics and locks them behind additional tutorials in the tutorial race league that you can only access after you have won some races in the B tier league. It's comical how bad this signposting is. The campaign forces you to drive the ESA car. You do not get to choose your starting chassis. You are forced into this un-upgraded jalopy and asked to play the game against opponents that are genuinely just better than you, and race like they've been turning laps since before you were born. The idea that a player would have preferences about what kind of car they would like is not even considered. Progression is glacial and involves unlocking specific parts that arbitrarily raise different stats. It's impossible early game to determine if you have lost because you made driving mistakes, or because your numbers are not turgid enough to out-race the raid boss. This is a terrible sensation to foist upon players who may be losing due only to developer malice and no actual fault of their own. Some of the earliest campaign events available to you as a player are one-lap time trials. Blind. You do not have any idea what you're getting into in a precision racing game that literally sells itself on near incomprehensible fastness. Hope you enjoy the restart button because you'll use it a lot chasing a gold that is physically impossible to achieve with the terrible car you are forced to drive at start. My favorite bit though, after all of this crass mistrust of the player to make any meaningful decisions or observations, is that in the multiplayer mode the ONLY cars available to you are the un-upgraded junker you start with or fully kitted out max level versions of every other car. The idea that new players might form a small grid to teach themselves in a reasonable spread of their preferred low tier vehicles is apparently completely lost on 34 Big Things, and it is an absolute shame. The new player experience for this game is a trainwreck. I'm sure the 10 people who show up to the weekly wallgrind are going to have a great time, but they are not about to find themselves many new friends with the launch of Redout 2. All that said: For those of you who have not been scared away, the actual mechanical driving in this game is a thing of beauty. Cars handle with an amount of control and willingness to cooperate with long, boostful drifts that I could only have dreamed of playing Redout1. There are now boosters that live in the apexes of some corners and will still accelerate you accordingly even if you are fully sidewrong to their orientation. The boost pool is fully intertwined with your vehicle's health, and were it not for the fact that a single explosion means an entire race restart, is really fun to balance. The combination pressures of your auto-repair's time delay, your coolant temperatures begging you to go faster, and the flickering booster ahead of you forces you into a beautiful headspace balancing risk and reward. Until you go slightly too far, explode, and the setback of exploding is so punishing it forces you to restart the map. I don't have high hopes for 34big things having a functional response to feedback however. They have failed to provide proper lobbies, or for that matter proper lobby controls after that being a glaring issue for the entirety of Redout1. I fear that they may be too stubborn in their design convictions to realize that their tiny cabal of dedicated fans will be the only people interested in their future ranked league and season passes if this new player experience is not addressed. The most pessimistic part of me is very looking forward to seeing how they cultivate a competitive scene without allowing for a casual one to exist. The cart is firmly before the horse there, and by we've seen how that plays out time and time again.