SYNTHETIK 2 is a top-down shooter/roguelike developed by Flow Fire Games. The sequel to their previous game SYNTHETIK, it entered Early Access on 11th November 2021.
General Tropes:
- Alternate History: Like the first game, SYNTHETIK 2 takes place in a world where a German-Japanese team created the first AI shortly after WW2, with technology leapfrogging far ahead... and also leading to the AI rebellion threatening to annihilate all of humanity.
- Art Evolution: Thanks to a refined and more distinct art style, guns are more stylized compared to the first game, losing most of the resemblance to their real-life counterparts.
- Attack Its Weak Point: All enemies now have weakpoints that can be shot for big damage multiplier. Some legacy items (such as Facemelter) which used to proc on headshots now also triggers on weakpoint hits, making them much more versatile. Of course, you need to figure out where the weakpoints are first.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: AP works by subtracting the enemy's armor stat as in the previous game, but now it's possible to have too much of it: for every point of AP over the enemy's armor, your shots have a percentage chance to Pierce instead, passing through the target for reduced damage.
- The Ion damage type is notable for having 100 armor piercing, being able to effectively ignore all armor in the game.
- Challenge Run: The Escalation system grants increasingly powerful buffs to the Machine Legion to make an already-hard game even tougher. You do get some minor buffs to compensate, however.
- Faction Calculus: The Early Access release features two factions at launch, with more on the way:
- The Imperial S.A.T. Force is a Powerhouse. They use riot shields, tear gas, and electric weapons to lock down targets, and utilize tough wheeled vehicles for fire support. Being derived from police forces, however, they lack dedicated armor-piercing weapons and may struggle against heavy armor. Their weapons mainly consist of standard Soft Ballistic small arms, with some Shock Lightning and the odd Ion weapons here and there.
- The S.A.T. Chrono Squad is Subversive. Instead of sheer armor, they rely on Deflector Shields and teleportation to conduct hit-and-run. Augmenting their androids are a fleet of flying drones and alarm bots that can call in reinforcements. The Chrono Squad mainly utilize Fusion weapons, which strengthens and does more damage against shields.
- Guns Akimbo: Dual-wielded pistols can be on from crates or bought from shops. They fire two shots per trigger pull, but feature fast fire rate, decent recoil control, and ample magazine capacity to compensate for their low base damage.
- Magic 8-Ball: Among the upgrades you can buy from a terminal is a magic 8 ball. It ranges from dispensing genuinely good life advice (but not good for, say, an immediate firefight), Soviet propaganda, or telling you there's still time to join the Machine Legion.
- Mini-Boss: Some vehicles show up as enemies that can be tough to take down with thick armor, powerful attacks and the ability to call in/deploy reinforcements.
- Monowheel Mayhem: Part of the S.A.T. Force vehicle fleet is an armor-plated monowheel with guns on each side.
- More Dakka: The penultimate floor leading to the Last Defender has six giant turrets (two paired at the start, and four awaiting you at the middle door)that resemble a giant CIWS turret that fire explosive bullets at an extreme rate.
- Nerf:
- In general, you have slightly less ammo to work with than in the first game. It's more prominent with Heavy Gunners, whose LG-3 has less ammo overall than the basic Lewis MG there.
- The Bren equivalent removes its anti-air flak projectiles in favour of extremely inaccurate shots.
- Pinball Projectile: Bullets can be Deflected if they hit a target with more armor than their armor piercing stat, which in turn can strike another enemy (or the shooter). The Dynamic Reflector attachment improves the properties of Deflected bullets and treats the target as having more armor just to increases the chances of it happening.
- The Discus Launcher of the High Order is Synthetik 2's answer to its predecessor's Ripjack Launcher. While it doesn't absolutely flood the screen in sawblades, the laser disks it shoots out deal more damage multiplicatively each time they bounce off a surface, which can result in well over 100k damage per shot if the disc bounces off multiple walls.
- Pistol-Whipping: Assault Grenadier will automatically club nearby enemies with his weapon.
- Russian Roulette: One of the possible services of the Black Market is to play a game of Russian Roulette, with a 1/6 odds of losing. Winning increases your luck by 50%. Failing means taking 2000 damage (which ignores shields and can kill you), and getting cursed (decreased max health and shield by 15%, take 10% more damage).
- Sniper Pistol: The Patrol Revolver some Specializations can start with is basically a pocket sniper rifle, having very high damage and accuracy for a starting handgun.
- Spider Tank: The Spider series enemies are all Mini-Boss level foes that tend to spawn in pairs or trios.
- Fortress Spiders sport a vulcan minigun that will shred apart anybody that stands in front of it, and also comes with an ion dome to deflect any incoming shots while active.
- Heliolite Spiders shoot accurate laser blasts rapidly, and can easily snipe anyone who's not behind cover.
- Rocket Prisms are missile spam incarnate.
- Teleport Spam: Remember the Chrono Troopers from the first game? They're a whole faction now! Even their melee units will teleport every time they get hit, so bring high-damage single-shot weapon to deal with them.
- Oh, and they're a playable class. Now you can join in on the cover-violating fun.
- Took a Level in Badass: Rocket Prisims return. Unlike the first game, where they were common enemies, in 2, they are Elite Mooks, who's rocket spam has been kicked up a whole few levels. They're also much more durable, and can take a beating before going down.
- Video Game 3D Leap: The first game used 2D sprites on a Three-Quarters View. SYNTHETIK 2 is fully 3D on a fixed isometric camera angle.
- Wolfpack Boss: The Arena Masters return to once again fight you as a trio. This time however, the flamethrower wielding incinerator has been replaced with a stealthy assassin, with the red guard protector uses a flamethrower instead of its pistol.
