Code Vein 2 Review: Stick with it?

It takes some time to get into things... and it's there that you'll love it or hate it.

Code Vein 2 is the latest from Bandai Namco, offering up a stylised anime-action RPG experience that’s also attempting to distance itself from the original Code Vein. I’ve not played the 2019 original, so that suits me just fine.

The premise of Code Vein 2 is relatively simple; you’re a vampire but not (otherwise known as a Revenant) who resides in a world that’s been corrupted. Those who aren’t lucky enough to keep their wits about them and fight whatever’s plaguing the post-apocalyptic world are turned into Horrors, adding to the amassing army that stands in your way. Paired with the first of many partners, you’re tasked to travel back in time and rescue a number of heroes who will help restore the world to its former glory.

Walking in blind, it didn’t take me long to realise that Code Vein 2 resides at the intersection between anime and Soulslike, doing its best to appease fans of both genres. I’m firmly in the latter camp, and kicked off the sequel by being fairly disinterested, despite the anime half actually providing sensible narrative in a genre where you’re mostly left to figure out lore through fleeting messages or puzzles. As for the remainder of the anime influence? A majority of its characters look pre-pubescent, most are scantily clad, and two females in particular sport breasts larger than their heads. Dialogue is schlocky and, at times, self-important. I’m not trying to yuck an anime fan’s yum, but none of that was clicking for me.

After a couple of hours, though, I’d warmed up to what the Soulslike side was offering. Code Vein 2 has surprisingly deep combat systems — arguably too deep in some cases — with a variety of weapons to choose from, all bolstered by forma, blood codes, jails, and partners. Blood codes are like classes, obtained through progression and increased through usage and proficiency; they provide your base stats. Weapons come in a variety of flavours too; I favoured a two-handed sword, modified by blood, that felt like a nice balance between speed and damage. Forma plug into your weapons, offering special attacks or buffs that can aid in battle.

For forma to be used, though, you’ll need to harvest blood (you are a vampire, after all) — otherwise known as Ichor — and spend it to activate your abilities. The jail comes into play here, helping to harvest Ichor in the middle of combat, or at times where you’ve been able to stagger your opponent. Finally, your partner will act as a second hero, dealing damage to opponents alongside you; they also will revive you if you’re felled, though that happening a second time during a cooldown will mean you’re truly dead.

Battles, therefore, are sometimes an intricate dance as you’re on your last leg, frantically dodging your opponent’s attacks while waiting for your partner to respawn. If you’re wanting to go it alone, you can for the most part — absorbing your partner back into you will boost your attack damage, though you still get the two-attempt life as I described earlier.

It’s admittedly fun to mix and match all of the above to find a combat style that suits you as you explore the past and present of the world. It becomes less fun, however, given the way in which the world is laid out.

My biggest problems with Code Vein 2 come from level and encounter design. Most quests need to specifically tell you how to get from one place to another as it’s decidedly not obvious. Dungeons are sprawling, but consist of identical, narrow corridor after corridor.  They’re such small, tight spaces, and those tends to cause a bunch of issues relating to your camera that certainly don’t help when playing a Soulslike. Despite a lack of activity on-screen, I repeatedly encountered massive drops in framerate on both my base PS5 and my PS5 Pro. These framerate drops appear to have slowed down after a version 1.0.2.0 update, but they’re not fully gone; nor can I even confirm the update addressed that issue as I’ve not been able to sight patch notes.

Level design also impacts a number of boss battles, which are mixed bags. I don’t feel like I’m under- or over-levelled for anything that I’m fighting, but a majority of boss battles seem to take an extremely long amount of time, or conversely no time at all. While this isn’t an issue in itself, it is when you factor in that spaces that are too small to effectively work within; seemingly a staple in Code Vein 2. You’ll frequently become stuck on terrain as you’re dodging large area of effect (AoE) attacks, or having to deal with aforementioned camera issues.

What I’ve described above is treated as a feature and not a bug; these issues compiling upon themselves mean you’ll frequently miss otherwise obvious telegraphed attacks. You’ll lose your first of two lives often in these scenarios; as you wait for your partner to pour themselves back into you for your second wind, you’ll watch helplessly as a boss will line up multiple AoE attacks on your vulnerable body. Without being able to dodge, you’ll be hammered upon and will die. Scenarios like this will generally happen right near the end of a boss’ life bar, and that means you’re doing the whole, long-ass battle over again; it’s an unfair waste of your time.

I’ve relied upon a parry through most of my total playtime, though several boss encounters are just so poorly designed that I can’t even try to pull a parry off. In one, the boss was so large, and within a battle area that could barely contain him, that I couldn’t see my character, nor the boss in full. As a result, he wails upon me as I do my best to try and imagine where I’ll be dodging to in the space. In other encounters, a successful parry doesn’t mean that you’ll stagger your opponent, but rather just cancel each other’s actions — you both harmlessly just clip through one another.

Moving past that particular boss, I realised I was now over-levelled as I was taking breaks from my frustration by chasing down side-quests. Here, complex combat systems meant nothing and an overpowered sword plus one forma meant almost instant success. I fought three different bosses that were identical in quick succession, then one boss that had three blades in one room, then more blades in a second room. I later encountered another boss copy that was a damage sponge, taking everything I threw at it without flinching; its previous copy was felled in literal seconds. It wasn’t fun to destroy carbon-copy bosses, and it certainly wasn’t fun to hardly make a dent in another.

This next complaint is admittedly minor, but I’m going to list it nonetheless. I favoured a bow and arrow as a secondary weapon, using it to aggro a specific enemy in a group of far-away ones (just like I would in Dark Souls). Nine times out of ten, my partner character would decide to walk directly in front of me as I was aiming an firing, throwing off my shot. This behaviour was easily replicated, and continually frustrating.

Whereas Code Vein 2 pulled me in with time, it has also pushed me away with even more. Those who are at different points in the Venn diagram that is anime plus Souls may find themselves appreciating more on offer than I do, but ultimately, I’m bounce between being entertained and being too frustrated and disinterested to want to continue on. While fun from moment to moment, Code Vein 2 has a cookie-cutter plot, matching dialogue, and combat that isn’t polished to the level it needs to be. Its world is pleasurable enough, though poorly designed boss and dungeon encounters will bottleneck your overall experience.

Code Vein 2 heads to Windows PC via Steam, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5 from 30 January 2026.

Code Vein 2 30 January 2026 PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC: Steam Buy on Xbox: Microsoft Store, Amazon Buy on PlayStation: PlayStation Store, Amazon