Grime 2

A while back, a friend and I were having a conversation about difficulty in video games. We both have years of experience playing hard games, and came to realize that difficulty is more than just “game is hard’. People have described hard games differently, and what can be seen as synonyms to the word ‘hard’ are actually different levels of difficulty. For the longest time I saw difficulty in two ways, challenging and frustrating. One form of hardness asks you to meet the terms it sets. Killing you in ways most other games wouldn’t, but each failure is understandable. The game is hard and kills you, yes, but that’s not its main goal. It’s for you to reach the level or mindset of fun it desires. Engage with the game excitedly. You can see why or how you died, and from these lessons you learn to get better. Avoid the same mistakes, get further, and reach your end goal. A perfect example in my opinion is Dark Souls. You learn the level layouts and where enemies are placed. How to tackle different encounters or recognize attack patterns. Know when to dodgeroll and get a hit in using your weapon of choice. Dark Souls is hard, but it’s not overbearing. It lets you take time to learn and rewards thoughtful play in a world with maze-like level design.

Frustrating to me is when a game is designed to harm you as much as it can. Nioh is always the title that comes to mind for me when I think of frustration. When you mess up it feels way more punishing whereas Dark Souls gives you some room for recovery. The game enjoys bum rushing you with crazy opponents whereas Dark Souls despite having gangs jumping you or giant beasts still give you a fighting chance. Dark Souls gives you options to experiment, and Nioh, despite having a flashy combat system, is pretty restrictive if you don’t understand the systems behind it. That’s how I felt at least playing the Nioh games. The last comparison is Dark Souls and future games give you different areas to explore to get stronger. Disguising grind in the form of taking new paths and discovering. Nioh doesn’t have this and sometimes expects you to replay missions to get experience points to level up. Nioh is frustrating whether it be its combat, how it handles grinding, and poor explanation of its systems. It’s why I haven’t played Nioh 3 yet, even though I’m sure it’s one of the best big releases of 2026. So we have two levels of hardness, but you’ll be surprised to hear a third level I’ve discovered recently. That being ‘demanding’, a level that is sandwiched between the two I just described. The game wants you to engage in a way that’s fun in its image. What you die from is understandably fair. However, the choices it gives you to tackle problems aren't widespread as ‘challenging.’

Only a few games come to mind when I think of ‘demanding’ video games. Sekiro is a common example for most people. A few months ago I replayed Cyber Shadow, this 2D platformer I tried all the way back in 2021. Loved it a lot more this time around, but realized not a lot of folks will be able to beat it. Then there’s the game I always think about when it comes to demanding titles. Grime, a soulslike metroidvania developed by indie studio Clover Bite. I reviewed this game all the way back in 2023, and I’m shocked to find myself still looking back on it. The universe was really unique made up of individuals who are malformed or no longer want to exist in the dying world. Finding value in bodily perfection and seeing you as the perfect being to end all life. The world design even complimented this as you slowly ascended the world, encountered beings with more articulated bodies, the environment became brighter/colorful, and you learned where you truly were. It’s clever to have your world compliment your storytelling. Grime is also one of few games I’ve played where you are not a good guy. People constantly refer to you as a world ender and all you do is devour. Absorb foes around you and grow with animalistic strength. You are not here to save these people. You are here to doom them all, and that is one of the darkest endings I have seen to a video game. Grime was excellent. Combat was slow compared to most soulslike, but what it lacked in fluidity it made up for in impact. With every hit feeling satisfying, and the many bosses being tests of careful maneuvers & endurance rather than hack away. Yet, it was the main reason why Grime was such a demanding game. Play perfectly with clunky controls or don’t. It's a demanding game.

Still it left a strong impression and I hoped whatever projects Clover Bite had in store next would be an improvement. Then in 2025 they revealed Grime 2, and it became one of my most hyped metroidvanias aside from Hollow Knight: Silksong and Ender Magnolia. At first it looked like a more of the same sequel, which is fine. All they had to do was tweak the balancing and I would remain happy. What I got was not just a refinement, but the biggest metroidvania to release this year. Grime 2 is superb. It is so much better than I was hoping it would be. It is my favorite 2026 metroidvania and it’s a shame a majority of players are gonna skip out on it. Either because the first game didn’t click for them, the other metroidvanias that have come out, or probably getting distracted by Resident Evil: Requiem or something. Let me tell you that Grime 2 is a certified banger, and Clover Bite like many other devs deserve acclaim for creating a god tier genre entry. Today we’re talking about Grime 2 and why it absolutely deserves your utter attention.

Story

A voice reaches out to you. Telling you to wake up and that work needs to be done. A whole new world to venture into with lifeforms all around. Breathing, walking, touching, and above all else living. They are alive, and you need to undo this. Tear them limb from limb. Devour their flesh and bones. Consume the materials that compose their bodies and use it to grow. Devour, eat, and mutate into a stronger form. You must consume so that you may hatch. A vessel for something better, but you ignore the thoughts. Attempting to push the voice away and wake up. Rising from the earth and finding yourself confined in a cave. Life within the grave is not what you expect. A barrage of walking tendrils, hand spiders, and monsters that do not dawn human shapes. An axe lies aside and this is your first form of defense.You fight your way out and cut down the colossus who blocks off the main exit. Making your way to the outside world to be greeted by a colorful sky. The sun beams down on your face. Should I say face. Your head consists of fingers to form a hood-like shape. Inside a tendril in need of food. The rest of your body is fine and as you pass by sentient life they treat you as one of their own. Another creature constructed and painted by the gods of this world. There once existed the beings who formed the universe you see now.

Sculptors and painters attempt to achieve perfection with their work. Seeing value in all those they conjured into existence. Those little grunts running around, worshipping their almightyness, and forming kingdoms dedicated to worshipping these gods. However, they disappeared and the world no longer remembers who they once were beyond their names. You navigate this earth. A realm of mystery and wonder. Only to run into a girl attempting to out maneuver some monsters and a green hooded man. The girl is named Ver and the man is named Manzil. He runs a lonely base nearby housing two inkpot siblings, a blacksmith, Ver, and himself. They are a collective of people who work together to hunt down a great beast. A being who a long time ago came into the area, tore apart the township that once stood, ate all of its inhabitants, and left. Leaving Manzil to weep in the ruins he failed to protect. This being is named Goel, and Manzil dedicated his whole life into one day locating this creature and killing it. Preventing the fearsome Goel from creating its atrocious genocides once again. Manzil realizing you’re stronger than you decided to recruit you. Assign you the task of finding a breathsmith so together you may collect needed to assemble a weapon to kill Goel. Along the way you learn more about the world, those who created it, and why things are the way they are. All while fulfilling your hunger.

Gameplay

The opening of Grime 2 makes it feel like it would be more of the same. Following many of the same principles such as mazelike level design, opening shortcuts to cutdown backtracking, and a few soulslike mechanics such as everytime you die you get sent back to a rest point. Restoring your health and healing charges, but respawning every single enemy in the area. Where it differs is that Grime 2 doesn’t focus so much on the soulslike aspects. Going for a direction I find akin to Blasphemous 2. Choosing instead to be a vast confident metroidvania rather than a game that is split between both genres. Instead of acquiring Souls or the last game’s case it was Mass you instead just accumulate experience points. Nothing is lost upon death and when you achieve the right amount of experience points you level up. Visiting a rest spot lets you spend a stat point in one of the fixed categories. One of which being health and the other four affect weapon scaling. Every weapon is attributed with two stats. One will have the weapon increase higher in damage, and the other will do the same but for less. A good example is the starting axe that is attributed to strength and diverging. Weapons don’t just scale with two stats now, but also have special skills. Hit an enemy enough times and you fill up a meter, and pressing the special attack button lets you perform that skill. A mechanic that encourages active play.

However, you don’t want to constantly mass the attack button. This is where you might guess the game relies on a stamina bar, but Grime 2 makes another big change from the majority of soulslikes. You have Force instead of stamina, and even when the force bar is drained you can keep slashing away. There is a little mark on the force bar, and this determines damage output. If you hit a foe while force is above the tick bar then you deal increased damage. Anything below that deals the base damage, and once below the maximum bar you don’t deal as much. On one hand you are encouraged to fight actively, but on the other hand there is motivation to wait. To avoid attacks, know when to back off, and dive right in again. It’s fun especially considering how much dodging and parrying the player will be doing. Dodging provides more invincibility frames but parrying can provide greater advantages if you are willing to take a risk. Easier to follow up with an attack, and deal some damage back depending on how you level pliability. Killing basic enemies can also refill your breath gauge, otherwise your healing charge. Kill enough and you get another heal which is useful because the world of Grime 2 is big and you’ll be exploring tons of ground. Parrying is not just one button. There’s different forms of parrying as players obtain new character abilities. Sometimes you have to dash into a foe, or grapple a weak point. All of which is color coded so you know what to exactly do. Parrying isn’t just for combat.

This being a 2D metroidvania means it also has the advantages of platforming. Jumping around the world, opening new routes, and ways of navigation. The dash can also be used midair to get across gaps. The grapple can zip you towards points or upward. Later on you unlock the ability to build up a charge jump, or turn into liquid when dashing into a wall. The world makes good use of your skills via platforming challenges, and you want to vary skill usage if you want to go anywhere. Final aspect I want to touch upon are the hunt points. Scattered throughout the world is prey. Bosses you need to kill for story reasons, but aside from great prey there’s smaller prey. Strong weaker foes that serve as minibosses or minor challenges. You can choose to ignore and dash past, but there is benefit in killing smaller prey. Not just eliminating a threat permanently as they don’t respawn, but obtaining a hunt point. These let you unlock perks on a skill tree. Buffs such as dealing more damage for a short period of time after a parry, or being able to perform a second dodge and onward shortly after the first. Some of these skills stack and when combined with a multitude of other perks you can transform a challenging game into a more manageable experience. Explore, find upgrades, improve your stats and gear, and devour. Eat good food in what is the grandest metroidvania of 2026. Hope your appetite will finally calms down.

Thoughts

Grime 2 was much better than what I was expecting. It’s a game I remained glued to from start to finish due to the simple act of playing it. Hell I obtained the platinum trophy, because that’s how much fun I had playing Grime 2. It’s not a perfect game. At one point I debated whether to give this a 10/10 or not. Shoot this into all time status for me, but as I worked towards the platinum I noticed a few flaws. Stuff that depending on who you are might not be great. To me though this is one of the greatest video game sequels ever made. It builds upon what made the original good while also refining certain elements. Grime was an excellent soulslike metroidvania. Striking a nice middle ground between the two genres, but its flaws deal with how it sits in the middle. In the same way the flaws of the first Blasphemous and Salt & Sanctuary revolve around how much they owe to Dark Souls than their own identities. I love the design choices of Bloodborne and the Dark Souls series, but I wonder if every soulslike needs to imitate their mechanics. As at times they do not always work. Did the original Grime need a corpse running mechanic? Did it need stamina in a game where tight platforming and precision during bosses mattered? Did it need to have a fast travel system so bad that they needed to fix one of the expansions?

I’m not saying these decision choices were terrible. At the end of the day they worked, but all of this leads you wondering when does inspiration turn into drawbacks. Grime 2 does what all the great soulslike metroidvanias such Ender Lilies, Nine Sols, and Blasphemous 2 have done. Form its own identity and apply fun twists on tried and true ideas. Instead of stamina you have focus that may or may not apply increased damage to base attacks. Instead of corpse running you have a specter that when eaten will restore some health. I even forgot to mention the mold system a bit earlier. Where killing certain enemies or dashing into them gives you a temporary mold. A side attack to quickly perform, but killing them enough gives you the attack mold permanently. At the expense of using paint during battle, which is a magic meter of sorts. If enemy molds aren’t good you have special molds, but these have limited uses. Often requiring you to explore the world to find enough fragments of specific mold to increase its usage. Which brings me onto one of my other main points in that the world of Grime 2 is more fun to explore than the first Grime. This is a massive game. With multiple secrets and optional challenges lying around. Every corner will house weapon materials, mold usage increases, new gear, and upgrades of some sort. Few can be obtained from bosses, but taking time to explore may net cool stuff.

I remember struggling with a boss midway through the game, but then taking an hour to explore using a bunch of the new upgrades I’ve obtained. I level up a bunch, increased the max amount of healing I had, paint for spells, and even found one more crystal needed to upgrade my axe. I then went back to the boss and killed it more easily. I love exploration in metroidvanias. Whether it be the reward for doing so, or the act of navigating around. Grime 2 has great platforming that makes usage of your expanding kit of tools. Chaining between different maneuvers and not once being frustrating, prolonged, or unfair. You’re given just the right amount of room to react or to move quickly. Even if you mess up the progress you have to redo isn’t too much. Either because of the shortcut you opened up, or just how forgiving the game is. It’s not just platforming that is much easier. I found the combat to be easier too. The first Grime had a tough endgame, and even though this game can be challenging at times I wouldn’t say it pushed the limit the same way the first did. Every attack is well telegraphed and with enough attempts these dudes fall apart like a crumbly cracker. I wonder if the reason why the difficulty of Grime 2 feels more adjusted is not cuz they learned, but due to how bigger and more spaced out the game is. This can be seen as a criticism though. Grime was a twelve or so hour long game, and Grime 2 is double that. For few people it may even take almost thirty hours to just get through the main story path.

I have a few friends who got burnt out near the end of Hollow Knight: Silksong. Saying that the game rolled out everything it needed during the first twenty hours, and then goes on for another ten or twenty. Grime 2 while not as long as Silksong does get kinda dragged out near the end and makes me wonder if they had removed one or two areas would the pacing be better. I don’t have many problems with the runtime or size of the world. Much like Silksong this was a playspace I enjoyed running around in a lot, and the quality of life improvements made Grime 2 a better title in my humble opinion. One thing I noticed is that Grime 2 is a much more colorful game. The first area is a cave made up of luscious green, and the next is a field of glistening red with sparkling pink skies. Part of it deals with the main themes and lore of Grime 2. Of godlike painters and the artists who constructed this world. Sculpted out of clay, and made each zone tied to a unique artist. It reminded me of Clair Obsucr, but that game explained who the creators of this world were at one point. Whereas in Grime 2 you have to piece it together with vague logs & scriptures. The soulslike storytelling method some people will despise, but I love it because even if you don’t get all the details you have good old internal imagination to back you up. The mystery is preserved as you try to understand the magical whimsy that is a world obsessed with art and the creation of it. The people who made it, who they were, and what defined them.

All carried by elegant music composed yet again by Alex Roe. I hope this game gets brought up when it comes to discussion of the best game soundtracks of 2026. Sometimes there’s nothing as the game wants to be ambient, but when there is music it’s beautiful. I do have a few complaints in terms of gameplay. This is not a technically perfect game. There’s some performance issues as the game stops to load an area. There’s some other bugs, but I forgot what. While playing they patched some of it out and are continuing to do so. I love how you can respect character and hunt point stats, but you can’t for weapons. There’s only so many upgrade materials in the game, so you end up sticking to the first few weapons you chose. The ones you invested heavily into and have gotten used to the moveset/skills. This does suck, because Grime 2 has a large arsenal and they’re all visually cool. Same goes for the armor sets. Stick to one that aligns with your build the most and don’t choose the rest. That one kinda makes more sense, but the weapon stuff does not. There’s a power later on where you can jump again when close enough to a ground or spike hazard, but the space is off at times. Taking time to get used to.

Other than that I don’t have too many complaints for Grime 2 as a video game. Leading us to the story, lore, and themes. I didn’t understand all of it. Again, soulslike storytelling and vagueness. Yet, I really liked the themes and topics of Grime 2. Feels like a combination of what games like Alan Wake 2, Clair Obscur, and Lorelei and The Laser Eyes talk about. What defines an artist. Is it their work or who they are as people? What happens when an artist does something terrible to achieve their vision? Does it diminish the art or the person themself? Can we separate art from the artist, or does the art convey the good and bad of that person? Seeing how they built their personality into it. Grime 2 also retreads the antihero plot the original did. Slowly unveiling that what we are doing isn’t what it seems, but this time you can try to fight back against what you are. The evil voice in your head begs for more, and you gotta determine whether you play along or deny. It’s very much you the player versus what the game is conditioning you to do. As you are brainwashed into seeing it as mindless fun rather than monstrous acts. I don’t want to spoil it, but later on you kill a being who doesn’t honestly deserve to die. Making you question if your end goal is truly worth achieving. Grime 2 is a flawed albeit masterpiece of a metroidvania. I’m a bit skeptical of what Clover Bite decides to make next, but whether or not they make Grime 3 or not I’m happy nonetheless. This has entered the hall of fame of perfect sequels, and gets one big strong recommendation in my book. I give Grime a 9.5/10 for being superb.

9.5/10, Superb