Landing on the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox all the way back in 2005, the first Destroy All Humans! game was met with a fairly positive reception on launch. Though the game was criticized for not being quite as in-depth as other open-area games of the time, Destroy All Humans! earned a lot of praise for its satirical take on 1950s alien-obsessed Hollywood. In 2020, Black Forest Games developed a remake of Destroy All Humans!, and this year, the same studio is set to release Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed, a remaster of the original sequel.
The Destroy All Humans! series never really hit it big in the general gaming consciousness. Though each entry in the series was commercially successful, and review scores never really dipped below a 7/10, the Destroy All Humans! franchise hasn't made the transition to modern consoles in the same way that other series of the time have. For the most part, Destroy All Humans! is widely considered to be a fine, fun series, but it could be more. Though it sold over one million copies, 2020's Destroy All Humans! remake wasn't met with the best critical reception, and there are a few things that the sequel, Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed, could do to breathe new life into the franchise.
How Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed Can Improve On The First
According to Metacritic, 2020's Destroy All Humans! remake currently sits at a 70/100 on the PS4. On the Nintendo Switch, reviews skew a little lower, putting the game at a 66/100. These scores are by no means bad, but they certainly aren't great, and they're not enough to reinvigorate the Destroy All Humans! brand. Generally, the remake was praised for its visuals, with many outlets agreeing that most of Black Forest Games' efforts clearly went into bringing the original experience to the modern day. Unfortunately, it's this faithfulness to the source material that let Destroy All Humans! down.
Destroy All Humans! is a 17-year-old game, and while Black Forest Games gave everything a shiny, vibrant new lick of paint, the original could still very much be seen through the cracks. Destroy All Humans!'s gameplay doesn't really fit the modern age of gaming. The game's audio design is quite simplistic and non-dynamic, while the environments are also quite bland and unvaried. The game's objectives can get very repetitive, very quickly, and its oddly harsh difficulty doesn't quite match the game's jovial, laid-back tone. Throw on top of this a lack of in-depth weapon or character progression, and the Destroy All Humans! remake really feels like a game ripped straight out of the mid-2000s rather than a game that released in 2020.
For those seeking nostalgia, Destroy All Humans! provided a hefty hit, but for those hoping for more from the franchise, the remake was a little disappointing. With Black Forest Games handling Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed, the developer should be primed to learn from their mistakes, and produce an experience that not only brings the original game to the modern day via its visuals, but also through its gameplay. According to the game's official website, Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed is being rebuilt from the ground-up in Unreal Engine 4, which should nail the game's visuals right away. Hopefully, this also means the game's physics systems are vastly improved over the original title.
Hopefully, Destroy All Humans! 2 Reprobed can also tweak the original's gameplay a little so that it feels more modern. Some relatively simple ways to do this would be adding in a more complex character and weapon progression system, and maybe even extending it to Crypto's flying saucer ship. According to the game's website, multiple skins will be available for Crypto and his ship, which does add slightly more complexity to the game, but there's no mention yet of any serious changes to in-game progression. It seems unlikely that Black Forest Games will change up the gameplay formula in any significant way, but there's a lot of potential in the Destroy All Humans! franchise, so it would be a shame if this remaster was met with same middling reception as the first.
Destroy All Humans! 2: Reprobed launches August 30 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
