Geneforge 2 starts with you, an apprentice Shaper, accompanying your master on a fact finding mission to the failing Shaper colony of Drypeak. The initial thrill of adventure is dulled by scenes of industrial decline; abandoned mines and dusty farmsteads overseen by distrusting adminstrators who view your presence as an intrusion. And then you stumble upon a hidden tunnel whose exit causes your world map to quadruple in size, your master is suddenly kidnapped by mysterious assailants and you, an inexperienced apprentice, find yourself entangled in the lethal politics of a vast hidden world.

The above introductory sequence with its bait and switch reveal of the game world and overarching narrative is perhaps the highpoint of Geneforge 2's ambitions to supercede its predecessor whilst also demonstrating its inability to do so. The Drypeak Mountains are a bigger, fantastical game world with more factions than its predecessors and systemically the new creations, spells and abilities provide both variety and balance. Yet for all its additions, 2 is unfortunately subtractive in one key area. Geneforge 1's Sucia Island was a layered, thoughtfully designed space whose many pasts and nuanced inhabitants created a convincing and multifaceted virtual culture. The Drypeak Mountains fare poorly in comparison as although it serves the same function as Sucia Island, the individual inhabitants, towns and locales lack the same attention to detail and depth. Sucia Island felt like a place whilst the Drypeak Mountains felt more like a video game sandbox. This ends up being more significant as in spite of all its additions, 2 still completely adheres to 1's sandbox structure with the exception of its creative introduction. The Drypeak Mountains, stripped of the rich atmosphere and sense of mystery that made exploring Sucia Island so compelling, is simply a less engaging space to inhabit for dozens of hours. More stuff was not enough to overcome a sense that it was in service to an experience that felt inessential.

2 fares better when it operates outside of its need to compare with its predecessor. Whilst 1 demonstrated the iniquity of Shaper authority largely through its negligence and deliberate maladminstration, 2 does so by showing their awful capacity for violence. Just as 1 was a character study of the the world the Serviles built for themselves, 2 thoroughly investigates the consequences of that world's deliberate atomisation. The Shapers' thorough pogrom of Sucia Island have left generational wounds of trauma and perpetual dislocation and have consequently created a consensus among all creations that they will strike before the Shapers get a chance to find them. Though 1 is the first entry, 2's sense of escalation makes it feel like the beginning of the destructive war between Shapers and Creations that defines this series.

It is a more balanced and feature rich game than what came before with unique themes of communal disruption and revolutionary escalation, however its inability to step outside its predecessor's sandbox structure to better relay its sense of escalation makes it a less considered game overall.