Red Faction Guerrilla was released nearly a decade ago and over time the game received cult like recognition. It isn’t easy to do what Volition did when they released the game in the summer of 2009. They took an established first-person shooter and completed scrapped it in favor of a third person open-world game. While we may never know how well received a Red Faction 3 would have been had it followed in the footsteps of its predecessors, we do know that Guerrilla is still kicking after all these years despite more roadblocks than you can imagine.
While there is a lot to love about this iteration of the game, let’s get one thing out in the open right off the bat. The name ReMARStered is so hilariously bad that you instantly hate having to call the game this, yet you must give THQ Nordic props for not missing an opportunity to use such a ridiculous take on the remaster pun. Luckily for them the Red Faction Guerrilla ReMARStered is a good enough game to forgive and never forget that they decided to use the terrible twist on words.
Those looking for any additions aside from the bundled-in DLC from the original release will be disappointed. The only upgrades that the game received were purely cosmetic. The upgrades amount to Guerrilla running at 60 frames per second in 1080p on standard consoles or in 4K Performance mode on the PS4 Pro and Xbox One.
The story is thin, yet serviceable enough to pull you in and give you purpose for exploring the open world the game has to offer. You leave earth to start a new life on Mars as a miner and within moments you find yourself having to join the Red Faction to survive. The EDF has gone from being the saviors of all and morphed into the face of evil, making Mars livable in order to be the dictators of anyone that decides to take up residence there. The Red Faction is formed out of necessity to fight back and give Mars back to the people. How you decide to join this fight is entirely up to you.
The Campaign gives you the freedom to accomplish tasks as you see fit with the end goal being complete liberation from the EDF. Mars has been divided into five sections and you are tasked with freeing them one at a time. You do this by lowering the morale of the EDF all the way down to zero while simultaneously raising the morale of the guerrillas that you fight beside. As you enter each section there is a mission to get you familiar with the lay of the area and then you are let loose to do as you please. Destroying EDF facilities will lower their morale to zero so destroy, destroy, destroy. Everything in the game is destructible, except for this one dumpster for some reason, no matter how many times you hit the thing it will not crumble. That is the hook that Red Faction has had since the beginning. There is something incredible satisfying about picking up your sledgehammer and just going to town on a structure, but make sure you are out of the way when it comes crashing down or you’ll be a permanent fixture in the rubble and must restart at the nearest safe house.
Aside from destroying as much EDF property as you possible can, you’ll have events pop up in real time that you can chose to accept. Think live events in Destiny, but without other players there to fight beside. Over the intercom you’ll hear that a convoy is on the way and you need to stop it, or an area is under attack and they need your help. You can continue the task you were doing or drop everything and come to their aid. Completing these will boost the Red Faction morale and reward you with salvage that you can use back at the safe house to buy weapons and other items. Once completing the necessary missions to move on, you have one last job to do at each location and upon completion you will free that area from EDF rule. One thing that is really fascinating in a game this old is the fact that once you liberate an area they are completely free of EDF reign. When you return to that area for any reason you pass through with no resistance. As soon as you cross back into an uncleared area you will be met with forces and must pick the fight back up.
For a game released during the middle of last console generation, the open world is really one of the best we’ve ever seen. Guerrilla had the bad luck of releasing within a twelve-month window as Red Dead Redemption and we can’t help but think that this helped it to get a little lost in the shuffle and caused it to fall more into the cult status.
Aside from the incredible open world, players have the option to also play the full multiplayer from the original game as well as a mode called Wrecking Crew. There aren’t many people playing on multiplayer so hopefully more will join in because, at the time of review, matches were hard to find. Multiplayer modes range from objective based game types and death matches. The weapon variety and match types have enough to keep you invested for quite some time if more players start joining in on matches. Wrecking Crew is just what it sounds like, up to four players have 60 seconds to destroy as much as they can. Rack up the most points and you win. This mode really showcases the true destructibility of Red Faction Guerrilla and should not be missed.
For a decade-old game, Red Faction Guerrilla ReMARStered looks pretty good with the fresh coat of paint. However, this is a remaster and not a remake. Though it looks better than the original, it shows its age visually. You can also tell the game is a little dated when you look at the configuration of the screen. The HUD is incredibly messy and there are icons and numbers everywhere. Over the last decade developers have worked to clean that up and put as little on the screen as possible. While this doesn’t take away from the experience per say, it does make it a little harder to get used to – especially when you start combat for the first time. Aiming and shooting takes some getting used to even though it feels great.
The controls feel tight and everything in the game feels as you would expect it to in the real world. Every vehicle you see can be driven and heavier ones such as dump trucks go slow and take turns very wide while smaller dune buggies can zip around and turn on a dime. Though you may not always have a vehicle near you that you want, you’ll never be surprised at how they feel once you get behind the wheel. Controls outside of driving feel great as well, however the button configuration feels dated. You’ll find yourself trying to scope and instead performing a melee attack. Again, this never breaks the experience but will take some getting used to and shows the game’s age.
Red Faction Guerrilla implemented ideas that games are still using today. Everything from Fortnite to Gears of War has something to thank this game for trying first. The one area that games still aren’t using regularly is the destructible environments. Outside of Battlefield, nobody has really done this on the level that Red Faction was able to. Hopefully with this remaster and Battlefield V due later this year, destructible environments will once again be used in games.
Recommendation: It’s been over seven years since we’ve seen an entry in the Red Faction series. The fact that they can live on is nothing short of a miracle. After all that THQ has been through over the past few years it’s nice to know that they still have love for this franchise. With this release it’s safe to say that if it does well enough a potential sequel could be on the way to follow up 2011’s Armageddon. With a price point of $29.99 on PS4 and Xbox One and a mere $19.99 on PC, anyone who enjoys the series or open world games in general should do themselves a favor and check out Guerrilla. In fact, if you already own the original on PC a free update will give you a fresh coat of ReMARStered paint and you’ll have the game already!
*Red Faction Guerrilla ReMARStered was provided to the reviewer by the publishing company but this fact did not alter the reviewer’s opinion*
Check out our Review Guide to see what we criteria we use to score games.
