Like a good Calvin Klein, these genes are pre-destroyed. Geneforge 2 – Infestation is fresh off the shelf, but looks and plays like a late-’90s RPG. While most isometric throwbacks these days offer forced perspective for 3D scenes, Geneforge 2 is a real treat – its flat characters gliding across tiled backgrounds, with the elegant shuffling of Shogun-era courtiers.
This look is less a nostalgic preference than a practical one. Geneforge 2, like all of Jeff Vogel’s games, was created in the spare bedroom of his Seattle home with the support of his wife, Mariann Krizsan—and a handful of artists scattered around. It’s the latest in a long line of Spiderweb Software’s low-budget RPGs that have achieved extensive scale and responsiveness by relying on cost-effective, old-school production values. There’s no voice acting here, and no ambient noise that can’t be had from royalty-free sound banks. In the map’s pastoral areas, the sense of grazing cattle is conveyed solely by a free sound effect called “Eating a rusk.wav.”
As a result, Geneforge 2 feels a bit cheesy at first. When the atmospheric bird screeches and wind howls subside, there’s little left to sustain the illusion of a living world. But the gaps are soon filled by Vogel’s edged prose and exquisite world-building. The Geneforge universe—first conceived in the 2000s and fleshed out in the current Spiderweb remake series—is one of the few truly original settings in the Western RPG canon.
The world of swords and sorcery is dominated by a sect called the Shapers, who have gained supremacy by turning pools of viscous essence into subservient life forms. Some of these genetically engineered creatures are monstrous, designed to maintain the Shapers’ power and quell uprisings. Others are Serviles, lowly workers who find satisfaction in tilling fields and breaking rocks. And then there are alien creatures bred for a specific purpose: Servant Minds, who run mining operations from their trays, their stunted limbs making them little more than desktop computers; wise control panels encased in granite, “alive and functional, if very, very bored.” The Shapers, who acquired their secrets through primitive trial and error, now guard them fiercely and hold a godlike status among the common folk.
It’s a system that could be called scientific friction—oscillating between the highly advanced and the medieval, and prone to all sorts of social and moral dilemmas. Should Serviles have rights? Try saying “yes” to your Shaper line manager listening.
You enter this deep mess as a Shaper apprentice, a humble but respected one, sent to investigate a failed mountain colony and report back to his masters. From the outset, you encounter the consequences of genetic tampering gone wrong—rogue creatures stumbling through the wilderness and slender, weedy trees cracking the foundations of houses. As Vogel succinctly puts it, “the Shaper’s work swallows the Shaper’s work.”
It’s Vogel’s voice that elevates all of Geneforge’s scripts. He’s a sort of shaper, bringing the primitive backgrounds to life with pop-up text that doesn’t wrap around a twisted, deformed bush but adds a sarcastic flare to the proceedings. “This little grove is no longer haunted,” he notes at the conclusion of a battle with swamp spirits. “Nothing like a good, decisive application of violence to drive the undead from an area.” It’s the kind of individual style that would only be watered down in a project with a larger writing team.
Geneforge 2 is explored in discrete sections connected by a world map, in the style of Infinity Engine games. As you trek high into the inhospitable peaks, just outside the Shaper’s rule, you come across increasingly alarming violations of the laws you know. The architects of these illegal activities look upon you with a mixture of fear and eagerness – knowing that you could bring an army of Shapers down on them, while hoping that you can either convince or manipulate you to their way of thinking. Deciding which factions to support or destroy – and when to show your cards in support of a side – ultimately becomes the endgame of Geneforge 2.
Obsidian’s Josh Sawyer has said earlier about his preference for gradual plot twists over dramatic turns – a dawning understanding, drawn from exploration and dialogue, that slowly changes your perspective on the events unfolding around you. In this respect, Geneforge 2 is a masterpiece. In no other RPG can you return to your starting town after 30 hours with a recent and fundamentally different perspective on the place and its purpose.
Your investment in this conflict and intrigue is rewarded with freedom to maneuver—dancing around problems rather than cutting them down. Battles with groups you’d rather not face can be bypassed through dialogue or by sneaking around, provided you’re skilled enough. Many RPGs promise to support stealth and diplomacy, but few deliver as consistently as Geneforge 2. In this sense, it’s more comparable to Deus Ex: Human Revolution than its direct counterparts—trying to provide you with alternative paths and opportunities for theft and sabotage. Geneforge even has its own version of the multitool—a miniature tentacled creature encased in metal that can be squeezed into locks and mechanisms. Boss fights can be compacted in this way, and entire areas can be brought under your control with deadly electric poles.
Like the immersive simulators of antique, the trade-off for all these choices is a certain amount of depth – and sometimes you’ll be tapping your toes on the bottom of a pool. Stealth isn’t any more advanced than it was in 1997’s Fallout, requiring only that you keep your distance from enemy NPCs as you zigzag across the map. But the sheer speed of enemy movement lends these sequences an arcade-like tension, forcing you to quickly change course or get into fights you’re not prepared for. As in Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s also the option to engage in turn-based combat at will – allowing you to strategically bypass unsuspecting patrols when the situation calls for it.
Combat starts out basic, but reveals more and more nuance as you go. In keeping with the Shapers’ unholy experiments, you can summon and discard creations at will, constructing and dismantling units in seconds to suit your needs. Monsters have a pleasantly trashy feel to them—like the fire dinosaur Fyoras, who swarms like velociraptors, and Thahds, who resembles ThunderCats but punches like Victorian boxers.
All can be upgraded to be harder or faster, or covered in exploding boils that burst and wound your opponents. Some monsters are designed to explode upon death and take pleasure in it. But the more powerful your creations are, the less control you have over them. This is a factor you will learn to take seriously when a wounded Thahd turns on you in a high-stress situation, delivering a roundhouse blow to your delicately clad midsection.
With experience, you learn to right-click enemies to check their resistances before a fight—and then build up a fire- or poison-spitting lineup accordingly. There’s a satisfaction in blowing up an area or solving a situational problem by throwing the right beasts at it. In one case, I sent out a bunch of stocky creatures, one after another, to distract a golem while I looted the chests it was guarding—and then left my monsters to their fate. It’s the kind of mercenary approach that could never be applied to an RPG with named companions, whose deaths usually trigger an instant reload. And it’s a form of utilitarianism that harks back to Geneforge’s core themes in a way that most combat systems don’t.
Once you start to appreciate these nuances and story synergies, you’ll long forget about Geneforge 2’s visual shortcomings, a UI that can’t handle scaling at higher resolutions, and a goofy main menu with its frankly teenage animated cursor. Even if Baldur’s Gate 3 starts a Western RPG renaissance, Spiderweb Software’s production will be impossible to ignore as long as it delivers such a distinct flavor of ironic, elaborate, and open-ended role-playing. Long may Vogel remain in fashion.
This review is based on the version of the game provided by developer Spiderweb Software.
