In that vein, Spirit of the North from Infuse Studio has always intrigued me. Surely, playing as a fox would prove just as compelling? While the first game didn’t really connect with me for a myriad of reasons, I had some hopes for the sequel, which is out now for Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC. Surely the development team had learned from the first game’s issues and lived up to the thematic potential. Unfortunately, Spirit of the North 2 fumbles almost as much as the first game and fails to really capitalize on an interesting exploration loop.

"You’re given free rein to explore, at least within your abilities. In this vein, Spirit of the North 2 does a decent job of providing enough freedom while reinforcing the plot’s agency."

The sequel starts with you, a fox, awakening in your sanctuary where other foxes dwell. You can customize your fox at the start, and while options are fairly limited (the number of fur and eye choices particularly didn’t impress), others become available as you explore the land. You’ll get plenty after quote-unquote accidentally releasing Grimnir, the dark shaman.

Grimnir, as you’ll learn through the various scrolls scattered through the sanctuary, isn’t a good dude. Though originally a wise shaman, traversing the regions and offering knowledge, he seemingly falls to darkness and begins to corrupt the various tribes. The Fox Tribe is the only one that escapes unscathed by fleeing to some unknown land, and, yet, Grimnir is also imprisoned within the sanctuary. Which is fine – perhaps there’s a rational explanation for these disparities. However, even after enough warnings that his staff should remain separated from him, you, the protagonist, take and deliver it, express style.

Yes, it’s somewhat accidental, having collapsed through rickety wooden boards and super-conveniently landing in Grimnir’s cell, but the entire set-up feels incredibly contrived. It feels like the development team couldn’t think of any other way to kickstart the adventure across the Northern Isles without making your character into an absolute dolt. The only thing funnier is the mighty Grimnir, who creates lava eruptions within the cavern he’s imprisoned and sets fire to your sanctuary, is fought off by a couple of pecks from your raven companion.

After escaping a corrupted bear and the sanctuary, you proceed to explore the landscape, gathering clues and ideally cleansing the surroundings. The goal is to locate the Guardians, who were lost to Grimnir’s dark tides, but it’s not completely obvious. Instead, you’re given free rein to explore, at least within your abilities. In this vein, Spirit of the North 2 does a decent job of providing enough freedom while reinforcing the plot’s agency. You’ll collect crystal shards to unlock Obelisks and reveal more of the map, with points of interest to investigate, Runes to discover, and Wisps to collect. There are even cute little raccoon merchants to purchase wares as their limited facial expressions light up with joy.

"The landscape as a whole feels barren and not just because of the dull color palettes. The extensive distance between different things adds to the monotony."

These Wisps are integral to accessing the mini-dungeons dotting the landscape, where you’ll uncover items to unlock the main puzzles. There’s an extensive amount of puzzling and platforming, with the former feeling incredibly quaint. For instance, you’ll have to pick up small objects and place them on podiums to open the way forward, but they’re insultingly easy to find. One variation tries to mix things up by giving you three different small objects. Which one could possibly fit on the podium? Trial and error? Who could possibly try that?

Another instance involved leaping through openings due to every cell door being locked, which could have offered something intriguing but felt way too simplistic. I appreciate some guidance, like the raven companion perching on some objectives as an indication of where to go next. It’s thankfully not overdone, giving some breathing room to figure things out, even if the process is way too easy. The puzzles are slightly better, especially as you unlock new abilities like Glide that allow for fresh mechanics. There’s a Zelda-ish vibe, which isn’t completely unwelcome, even if I yearned for more varied challenges and harder puzzles.

On a side note, the raven sometimes sounds mysteriously like Kazooie from the Banjo-Kazooie series. Perhaps it’s Kazooie that sounds closer to a raven? Regardless, this only distracted me from the middling platforming and made me want to play Banjo-Kazooie.

Venturing to different areas just to see what lies around the next corner can be enjoyable, especially as you discover more scrolls and learn how bad Grimnir is and how you totally shouldn’t have broken him free. However, the landscape as a whole feels barren and not just because of the dull color palettes. The extensive distance between different things adds to the monotony. I don’t need a random event occurring every few minutes to farm two Tokens and a Blue, but it feels like the overall play space could have been compartmentalized a bit.

That extends to the skill tree as well, which offers all kinds of quote-unquote meaningful upgrades like +1 health and reduced fall damage (which feels unnecessary after you unlock Glide). I would have appreciated fewer nodes if it meant they were individually more impactful. At least the various discovered Runes add some interesting wrinkles, like free armor points that recover your health.

"With some more polish and shine, it could evolve into an above-average but still solid experience. In its current state, however, it’s little more than a hollow action-adventure title with numerous rough edges."

As for the platforming, the core component of the gameplay, it leaves something to be desired (like many other aspects). Along with regular jumps, you have “guided” jumps, where a small blue indicator appears on crevasses and ledges. Hit the jump button, and you’ll leap onto them. Attempt to leap onto them like a fox, and you sometimes won’t make it. Some sections are annoying to traverse without following the indicator. It’s not every single section, but the implementation is a bizarre choice and disrupts what should be a smooth platforming experience. You can’t ignore it either, which further adds to the mundanity.

Finally, there are the visuals created courtesy of Unreal Engine 5. There are two modes available on PS5, Performance and Fidelity, with the former selected for the sake of 60 FPS gameplay. The downside is that the aesthetic, which is an odd mix of realistic and animated that isn’t terrible but feels off as a whole, suffers from excessive environmental pop-in. At one point, I thought I saw the sky slightly flashing, which didn’t help with the immersion.

The overall brightness is also odd. Some areas were pitch-black until cranking it up slightly. Then I ran into other locations, which were dark until approaching closer, leading to uncertainty, especially since fall damage and environmental hazards are a thing.

Spirit of the North 2 has sizable ambitions – it’s apparent in the storyline, awfully contrived as the set-up and boneheaded as the protagonist may be, and in the sheer scale of the landscape. If only the iffy platforming, barren regions, unimpressive puzzles and awful visual optimization, on PS5. With some more polish and shine, it could evolve into an above-average but still solid experience. In its current state, however, it’s little more than a hollow action-adventure title with numerous rough edges.

This game was reviewed on PS5.

Along with the game’s release date, the Signature Edition of Spirit of the North 2 was also unveiled. Slated for release on PC and PS5, Spirit of the North 2 Signature Edition will be a physical release of the game that also includes a host of physical goodies.

Spirit of the North 2 Signature Edition will include the game itself, a signed, full-colour art and lore booklet, two embroidered patches, four metal character pins, two art cards, and two mystical Runescript cards. All of this, along with a copy of the game, will be packed into an oversized collector’s box that features exclusive cover art made for the Signature Edition.

The Signature Edition will be available exclusively from Silver Lining Direct, and is priced at €64.99 for either the PC or the PS5 version. The standard edition of Spirit of the North 2 is priced at €24.99 on PC and €34.99 on PS5.

Spirit of the North 2 was announced all the way back in October 2023. In the game, players take on the role of a fox that is on a journey through a ruined world to try and restore the guardian beasts. Along the way, the fox, accompanied by a raven, will have to deal with the dark shaman Grimnir.

The core gameplay in Spirit of the North 2 will feature quite a bit of exploration. Through this, players will also be able to upgrade their abilities by finding magical runes hidden all over the world. There will also be quite a bit of side content in the form of optional challenges and secrets that players can find.

The original announcement trailer gave us a look at the kinds of environments that players will get to explore throughout the world, ranging from labyrinthine ruins, snow-capped mountains, and dark and dank crypts. While not too much in the form of more details have been revealed for Spirit of the North 2, the developers at Infuse Studios have said that players will have to deal with enemies through puzzle-based encounters.

In Spirit of the North 2, players will be able to explore the untamed Northern Isles where they will be able to uncover ancient mysteries and even get new abilities as they cleanse the land around them of its corruption. The studio has stated that it will take players more than 16 hours to finish the main story of Spirit of the North 2. It is unknown whether that play time also includes optional content that players can discover.

As its name might imply, Spirit of the North 2 is a sequel. Its predecessor, aptly dubbed Spirit of the North, was released back in November 2019 on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. For more details, check out our review of the PS4 version of the title.

Joined by a raven, the fox journeys to restore the guardian beasts. The world is still in ruins, and the duo must contend with Grimnir, the dark shaman, on their quest. You’ll discover runes to enhance abilities and can explore the open world, discovering various challenges and secrets. Along with its skills, you can also customize the fox’s look.

The range of environments, from snowy mountains and ancient labyrinths to murky crypts, is impressive. Though combat isn’t showcased, the developer promises “thrilling, puzzle-based encounters” against “formidable foes” to free the legendary guardians. Stay tuned for more updates on Spirit of the North 2, and check out our review for the first game here.

From the beginning, Spirit of the North is a walking simulator in its truest form. You guide the fox you control along paths with very little to do except admire the environments and attempt to piece together what you think has happened to the fallen civilization you’re exploring. It takes very clear inspiration from the likes of Journey and Rime in its presentation and gameplay. With no dialogue and very little text, you are given vague direction and minimal explanation as to what you are meant to be doing throughout the game, and your only course of action is to follow the guide that leads you and assists you along the way.

"The first few chapters of the game flaunt the game’s strengths, which are contained entirely in its presentation."

Spicing up the walking simulator aspects of the gameplay, though, are objects throughout the world with which you have to interact to affect parts of the environment that will allow you to proceed. Usually, this happens by collecting Spirit Blooms, patches of blue flowers that give you a special glow and allow your companion spirit to have these contextual interactions with the environment, primarily with decaying tablets that can be lit. In doing this, you have a few options for your spirits actions. These are hardly puzzles in the early going, as they appear more like fetch quests to bring the Spirit Blooms to the desired locations than anything that requires much thought, and the actions to do what you need are relatively constant, with very little in the way of difficulty in wondering what you have to do. This is emphasized especially because every time you come up to an object at any point in the game, regardless of how many abilities you have, the correct contextual button prompt pops up, which made it less of an activity in discovering where I should be acting than an activity in wandering and hoping a button prompt would appear.

In doing all of these puzzles, the game’s narrative starts to take a bit of a back seat. As it tells you exceptionally little, it takes effort to begin to have an understanding of what is really going on in this civilization and with your spirit companion. As you get to the latter stages of the game, there are more murals and hints as to what happened in the past that give more of an idea of the context of the world. There are also numerous Shaman Masters scattered throughout the world, whose staffs lay elsewhere in an environment. Reconnecting a Shaman Master acts as the game’s only real collectible within the game, though it is a valuable addition to the civilization’s past. Overall, though, the story is obtuse enough that it’s easy to overlook it as you complete the rest of the game, but on a second playthrough, it gets more interesting and begins to clear up what really happened to this world.

The first few chapters of the game flaunt the game’s strengths, which are contained entirely in its presentation. Walking around the varying environments is consistently stunning, especially as they change from one season or color to another. In these chapters, it’s a relaxing experience that lets you reflect on the world and companionship you experience. When seen from afar, the environments are gorgeous, especially under the red sky or under feet of snow. Up close, though, the environments can be rougher around the edges. It’s easy to see the specific texture edges, and some animations seem pretty framey. However, the game’s music is arguably its strongest aspect, rounding out the beautiful environments with an emotional and resonating score that rivals scores of others masterpieces in the genre. It does an incredible job of amplifying the emotional aspects of the game and making seemingly minor moments touching and memorable.

"With the peace and beauty of its environments as the game’s greatest aspect, then, the final chapters become somewhat of a letdown because they lose focus from what makes the game stand out."

Technically, the game runs generally well, with only an occasional hitch in the framerate. The more frustrating element is the hitboxes of the platforms and of your fox. It’s never entirely clear as to where you will land and whether or not that location will register as the platform on which it appears, making me fall through a platform or stand on air. Numerous times I had to restart late-game puzzles because I fell off a platform or missed a jump that was affected by a misplaced hitbox. It’s frustrating to see this because it took away from the game’s beauty, as I began to focus more on the specific corners of a platform than on the environment, civilization, or companionship the game is presenting.

With the peace and beauty of its environments as the game’s greatest aspect, then, the final chapters become somewhat of a letdown because they lose focus from what makes the game stand out. As you hit the more open areas, you’ll be faced with more intricate and thoughtful puzzles that do more to test your abilities, especially ones you gain later in the game. These can get pretty frustrating because of the imprecision of the hitboxes and the lack of explanations of not only what you need to do, but also what your abilities themselves can do. With this, you’ll begin to focus more on finding a way to create your path forward than on what actually lies ahead.

Though these puzzles are more of a way for the game to test you on your abilities, they feel forced into the game to make the ending more difficult, as opposed to anything that enhance the narrative. In the early stages of the game, it seems to understand that the civilization you’re exploring and the narrative and environments it’s presenting are the most important aspects, but these take away from that, especially in one chapter that takes place almost entirely within a cave. It’s a large missed opportunity that feels like the game felt like it had to shoehorn in more generic difficult puzzles than rely on its strengths and create a consistent experience that the first chapters hint at.

"While Spirit of the North is a fantastic case of a beautiful experience, its late inconsistencies hurt its complete package."

Spirit of the North contains an incredibly relaxing, beautiful, and mellow experience that gives you the ability to interpret its themes in your own ways. I loved the experiences in which I could walk around and explore the environments to try to piece together what happened to this civilization and who my spirit companion was, especially when backdropped by the achingly beautiful score that complements it. However, the last few chapters lose what makes the rest of it great because they choose to focus on the less satisfying, more generic puzzles, instead of the fantastic open exploration and discovery gameplay. While Spirit of the North is a fantastic case of a beautiful experience, its late inconsistencies hurt its complete package.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

"We were big fans of Journey, Abzu, and Rime for how they could capture people’s interest without ever having any dialogue. Having backgrounds as Game Environment Artists we were naturally drawn to this style of game and wanted to create something of our own."

Did you look at any similar games for inspiration while developing Spirit of the North? From what I’m able to sense, the game does seem to evoke games like Journey in style and tone.

When Taylor and I first started seriously thinking about making our own game we knew right away we wanted something that people would remember but something that was actually possible for us as a small team of two to create. We were big fans of Journey, Abzu, and Rime for how they could capture people’s interest without ever having any dialogue. Having backgrounds as Game Environment Artists we were naturally drawn to this style of game and wanted to create something of our own.

Environmental storytelling can be hard to nail down, especially when a game relies on it as absolutely as Spirit of the North seems to be doing. What’s the process been like to get that aspect of the experience just right?

It was a lot of trial and error on the level design side of things and just the visual style in general. Throughout the game, there are murals that give the player insight into what happened in the past that made the world around them the way that it is. The process of having things make sense but not be too obvious was a challenging one, especially without the use of words. In the end, the process came down to what made sense visually. We would ask friends if they could figure out what the murals meant or just parts of the game in general. Sometimes their answers were varied but we kind of liked that not everyone experienced it the same way.

I know Spirit of the North is supposed to be a guided, scripted experience, but what does it offer in terms of exploration? I imagine players will be quite tempted to explore the game’s beautiful environments.

Spirit of the North is a linear game, but towards the middle and end of the game when you start unlocking abilities we tried to open up the play space as much as we could without it becoming completely unreasonable for us as a team of two.

Why did you decide to go with a Nordic-inspired setting for this game? How much does the Nordic folklore figure into the game’s story and setting?

We first knew we wanted our games main character to be a fox, at first, we didn’t know what the game would even be about other than that. But Taylor remembered a Nordic folktale about a fox that creates the northern lights when it brushes its tail against things. After doing a bit more research, we knew we wanted to have it be part of our main story.

"Spirit of the North is a linear game, but towards the middle and end of the game when you start unlocking abilities we tried to open up the play space as much as we could without it becoming completely unreasonable for us as a team of two."

Can you talk to us about how puzzles will work in the game, and how much of the experience they account for as opposed to traversal and exploration?

Puzzles work in a few different ways, but the main mechanic involves Infusing standing stones with pure energy that is gathered from Spirit Bloom flowers that are scattered around the landscapes. Puzzles are a pretty significant part of the game, but they do help slow the player down and pay attention to their surroundings.

The spirit companion is obviously going to be important to the story, but how does it factor into the gameplay?

This question could only really be answered with serious spoilers. So for the sake of not spoiling the game. I will say that the Spirit Fox and Wisp are very important in terms of gameplay. There are certain abilities you can’t use without them. Making certain parts of the game shake up how you approach puzzles.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of Spirit of the North be?

A first playthrough takes around 8 hours if you take time to find all the collectibles. Originally our goal was for the game to be around 3 hours long, but we felt like it needed more. If we had made the game any bigger I don’t think we would have ever been able to finish it.

Why did you decide to launch as a timed exclusive for the PS4?

We decided to launch on PS4 first because we knew right away that there was no possible way a team of two could create and release a game for all platforms at once such as Xbox, Switch, PC. We knew since this is our first game the odds were already against us, so we decided to go with a console release for more exposure. We happen to be PS4 users, so we were already familiar with how the menus and interface worked so that played a big part in deciding as well.

How will the PS4 Pro version turn out in terms of resolution and frame rate?

The PS4 Pro version will run at a resolution of 1920×1080 capped at 60fps.

How is the game running on the original PS4, frame rate and resolution wise?

The standard PS4 will run at a resolution of 1920×1080 capped at 30fps. The game will look almost identical to the PS4 Pro with only a few minor settings turned down the major difference is the fps cap.

"We decided to launch on PS4 first because we knew right away that there was no possible way a team of two could create and release a game for all platforms at once such as Xbox, Switch, PC. We knew since this is our first game the odds were already against us, so we decided to go with a console release for more exposure."

The PS5 is confirmed to have an SSD. From a development perspective, how will this help you to improve game performance in the future?

An SSD will definitely help improve load and save times on all games running on that platform. But as an interesting side note. Load times also heavily depend on the other hardware in your system, Spirit of the North loads much faster on PS4 Pro than PS4 Standard. Even though they have the same sort of hard drive.

The PS5 will have a Zen 2 CPU processor which is a major leap over the CPUs found in the PS4 and Xbox One. From a development perspective, how will this help you in developing games of the future?

The PS5 will be much easier to develop for in terms of being able to use much more performance heavy rendering features such as higher quality DFAO, Volumetric Fog, and Ambient Occlusion. Just getting the game running on PS4 Pro was a challenge at first when I was trying to figure out the limitations of the hardware. I had to go through and optimize the game countless times and learn more about how rendering works than I ever thought I would know to get the game running decently on both systems.

Backwards compatibility is a big feature PS5. How will it help your past library to evolve and grow?

I think this will affect the whole industry and gaming community in many different ways. Some positives are people won’t have to buy remasters to play their favorite PS4 games. On the downside, developers won’t be as eager to release remasters or new editions of PS4 games on PS5. I think consumers will realize after a few years of the new console being out they would rather have remasters of their favorite PS4 games that utilizes the PS5’s hardware to its full potential letting them experience the games they like in more detail.

The PS5 was recently confirmed to have Haptic enabled controllers. How do you think that will help games to evolve?

I think Haptic feedback could be a really neat feature. As long as developers actually use it to its full potential and it doesn’t just add additional cost to the controller like the touchpad on the DualShock 4 that would be a great outcome.

We now know – officially – that the PS5 is going to launch in Holiday 2020, and over the past few months, Sony have shared a great deal of new details on their upcoming console. But of all the new info they have shared, the most exciting bits have been the one that came before everything else- the fact that the system is going to have an SSD (which has excited developers quite a bit), and that it’ll be using AMD’s Zen 2 CPU (which is something else that’s going to be a huge boost to development).

We recently conducted an interview with Infuse Studio’s Jacob Sutton – the developers of the upcoming narrative adventure title Spirit of the North – and picked his brain about next-gen hardware, what we know about it, and what all of it, from his perspective as a developer, is going to do for games next generation. And Sutton’s views on both the SSD and the new processor are quite positive.

When speaking about the PS5’s SSD, Sutton commented on how it would improve load times for all games, though he also noted that that’s something that depends on more than just the SSD.

“An SSD will definitely help improve load and save times on all games running on that platform,” said Sutton. “But as an interesting side note- load times also heavily depend on the other hardware in your system. Spirit of the North loads much faster on PS4 Pro than PS4 standard. Even though they have the same sort of hard drive.

Meanwhile, when we asked him about his thoughts on the PS5’s Zen 2 CPU, Sutton said that it would make developing games for the system significantly easier in terms of making use of intensive rendering techniques, while comparing it to his experiences with the difficulties he’s faced in getting his game optimized for the PS4 Pro.

“The PS5 will be much easier to develop for in terms of being able to use much more performance heavy rendering features such as higher quality DFAO, Volumetric Fog, and Ambient Occlusion,” he said. “Just getting the game running on PS4 Pro was a challenge at first when I was trying to figure out the limitations of the hardware. I had to go through and optimize the game countless times and learn more about how rendering works than I ever thought I would know to get the game running decently on both systems.”

In the same interview, Sutton also spoke to us about the PS5 controller’s recently revealed haptic feedback feature– read more on that through here. Our full interview with Sutton will be live soon, so stay tuned to GamingBolt.

Infuse Studio’s Spirit of the North launches exclusively for the PS4 on November 1.

Sony has yet to fully unveil the PlayStation 5, releasing bits of information en route to next year’s release. However, some of those details, like the next DualShock controller having adaptive triggers and Haptic feedback sounds very promising. What do other developers think of it though?

We spoke to Infuse Studio environment artist Jacob Sutton, who’s currently working on Spirit of the North for the PS4. Sutton said that, “I think Haptic feedback could be a really neat feature. As long as developers actually use it to its full potential and it doesn’t just add additional cost to the controller like the touchpad on the DualShock 4 that would be a great outcome.”

Backwards compatibility is another major feature that the PlayStation 5 will have. Despite it still being in development, having one’s entire PS4 library available from the outset is great. Regarding how it would help one’s library grow and evolve, Sutton said, “I think this will affect the whole industry and gaming community in many different ways. Some positives are people won’t have to buy remasters to play there favorite PS4 games.

“On the downside, developers won’t be as eager to release remasters or new editions of PS4 games on PS5. I think consumers will realize after a few years of the new console being out they would rather have remasters of there favorite PS4 games that utilizes the PS5’s hardware to its full potential letting them experience the games they like in more detail.”

The PlayStation 5 is out in Holiday 2020 with a reveal event rumored to be taking place in February 2020. Stay tuned for more details on the same in the coming months. As for Spirit of the North, it releases on November 1st for the PS4. Xbox One and PC releases are planned for later. Stay tuned for our full interview soon.