Teslagrad 2 Review (PC)

I have swim-zapped through icy columns of water, hopping from one to another, avoiding deadly brambles, and managing to land right on the edge of the ledge that marked the path forward. It took me around 10 tries, mainly because I had to figure out the best moment to move from one vertical water stream to another.

I hope Lumina is nice and dry because we are now dealing with repulsor surfaces, bubble jumping, and some very nasty electric barriers. I’ve landed in them quite a lot and the image of them zapping the character I control out of existence is quite gruesome. But I now know the best time to zap through them and get to the next challenge.

I time my movement to avoid a lone Viking skeleton, which can kill me with one touch, and it’s then easy to navigate a few more timed challenges before getting to a new area. I could shift to electricity form and move through a wire to a previous area to look for more exploration opportunities. But I choose to go across a light bridge, chased by an airship that tries to hit me with massive swords, to see what other challenges this realm offers.

Teslagrad 2 is developed by Rain Games and published by Modus Games. I played on the PC using Steam. The game is also available on the Nintendo Switch, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X and S, and older platforms from Microsoft and Sony. This is a pretty classic action platformer, centered on electricity and magnetism powers.

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The story is built around Lumina, a young girl with the powers of Teslamancer. Under attack, she crash-lands in Wyrmheim, a land that is directly inspired by the Nordic culture of our own world. The hero does not talk or explain anything about her powers or her origin, although a picture of her family is a constant presence. Vikings are after her and the only way to escape them is to move and trust in a mysterious figure that sometimes offers help.

This kind of minimalism can be good for an experience that allows players to create their own narrative or introduces lore and other details using the environment. But Teslagrad 2 doesn’t do much of that and I often struggled to find a reason to push forward and see what new obstacles Lumina will have to deal with. The focus of the game is mostly on its gameplay.

The approach here is also a minimalist one. Lumina moves relatively fast and has a classic jump to reach some ledges, but her true platforming power comes from her electricity-focused powers. The teleporting zap allows her to get past gaps and through certain obstacles. Her clock pushes back or sticks to surfaces. Combining the two gives players ways to deal with tricky obstacle courses. The level of challenge gradually ramps up, introducing challenges at a good pace before asking players to master them.

Later in Teslagrad 2, our heroine also gets access to Mjolnir and the ability to quickly cross water areas. Both come in handy but the focus remains on understanding the environment and finding the best way to move fast and with as little friction as possible. Keep an eye out for ziplines that connect to other areas and for secrets. There are moments when the game feels like it is specifically designed to appeal to speedrunners.

Lumina will also have to deal with some powerful bosses. These encounters take place in relatively small spaces and a shield allows our protagonist to take a hit and learn the patterns of her opponents. It quickly becomes clear what combination of moves can defeat a boss, the difficulty again lies in the execution. The moose battle is one of the best moments of the year for me, even if it’s pretty hard to set up the puzzle pieces to win it.

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Teslagrad 2 is a difficult game. Good placement of automatic checkpoints helps keep the level of annoyance down but there were moments where I had to walk away from the game for a while. The experience will certainly appeal to anyone who liked the first title in the series or wants to overcome some tough platforming sequences.

But Lumina and her narrative feel too slight to keep the level of immersion up. The universe has some cool ideas but is not that innovative. The level design often makes little sense if you ignore the need to create complex platforming sequences. I wanted to care more about the protagonist and her family. A sliding difficulty slider would also have helped with accessibility.

Teslagrad 2 conjures a nice-looking world, built on Scandinavian motifs and with some nice personal touches. Our heroine’s simple look communicates plenty of determination and I like the animations. The design for the moose boss is spectacular, even if that particular fight is one of the more annoying of the entire game. I wanted to have that creature as a companion or spend some more time with it.

The sound design is less interesting than the graphics but mostly fits the universe. There are subtle hints of medieval music in the soundtrack, which is good at enhancing the immersion element, and I came to hate the hiss of the electric barriers that often managed to get the better of me.

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The Good

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