Remnant 2: How Power Levels & Co-op Scaling Works

This article is part of a directory: Remnant 2: Complete Guide - Archetypes, Bosses, Builds, Puzzles, Secrets, & More

Understanding how the scaling works as far as enemy health and damage in Remnant 2 can be pretty confusing. The game attempts to do things differently from other Soulslike games, and it also did this with the original game Remnant: From the Ashes as well. In Remnant: From the Ashes, the game took the player's gear and weapon upgrade levels into consideration and generated the worlds they entered based on that.

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This meant that players could basically enter a new world with nothing upgraded, have it generate the whole realm based on that, and then go upgrade stuff to make the whole zone much easier, including the World Boss. However, Remnant 2 went about scaling in a pretty different way this time, especially with how it works in regard to online co-op, so let's go over it.

Updated December 5th, 2023 by Jacob Buchalter: A lot of new groups of friends are likely going to be trying out Remnant 2 soon, given that the game and it's prequel game, Remnant: From the Ashes, were both added to Xbox Game Pass. Because of this, it's worth re-going over how exactly scaling works in this game. There are a lot of games where, if one player has more free time to put into the game, they're unintentionally making the game more difficult for their friends when they play together. Remnant 2 is very conscious of this, and while it does still make the game a bit harder in this scenario, it's much less egregious. So, let's go over how exactly all this is calculated.

How General Scaling Works In Remnant 2

Weapon Levels + Archetype Level = Power Level

'Level' Type	Explanation	What It Impacts
Power Level	Archetype Level + Weapon Level = Power Level	World Level
Weapon Level	A weighted average of the highest upgraded weapon in each slot, those being Long Guns, Hand Guns, and Melee Weapons.	World Level
Archetype Level	The sum of the player's two highest Archetype Levels. Since Archetypes max out at level 10, the highest the Archetype Level can be is 20.	World Level
Total Archetype Level	The combined total of all Archetype Levels added together. With 12 Archetypes total (as of the time of the Awakened King DLC), that's a maximum of 120 levels.	Quality of Relic Fragments

Before getting into exactly how scaling works in multiplayer, let's first go over how enemy scaling works as a whole. Because Remnant 2 doesn't have upgradable Armor anymore (or Set Bonuses, for that matter), they can't just scale difficulty based on gun upgrades alone. So, to replace the Armor upgrades part of the equation, Remnant 2 uses both the player's weighted average Weapon Levels (across all three slots AKA Long Gun, Hand Gun, and Melee) and their Archetype Level (the sum of their two highest Archetype levels), to calculate their weighted average 'Power Level'.

It's worth noting that the Total Archetype Level that players can see in the Advanced Stats of the Character screen is, as it implies, the total sum of all their Archetype Levels. This doesn't play into their Power Level and instead helps determine the level/quality of dropped Relic Fragments.

But, this doesn't mean that players can take off upgraded Weapons or switch to low-level Archetypes to manipulate their Power Level, as this Power Level calculation considers all of the player's Weapons and Archetypes in their inventory, including those not currently equipped. That Power Level is then used to determine the World Level of worlds players enter for the first time.

How Power Levels Equates To World Levels

The World Level Will Be Higher Than Your Power Level, But You'll Quickly Outscale It

Remnant 2 - Power Level 16 Character In A Power Level 2 World

So, now that the game has the player's Power Level all figured out, when that player enters a new World, it uses their Power Level to determine the 'World Level'. Also, another aspect plenty of players are a bit confused about is the process of these worlds being procedurally generated.

Sometimes the 'Recommended Level' of a generated world is higher than the player's current Power Level, and in that case, the World Level might be a bit higher than expected, but not by much.

Is the world the player enters for the first time using their current Power Level as the reference for every single 'screen' or 'zone' of that world at the moment the world is generated? Or is each zone generated individually when the player enters each of them for the first time? Short answer, it's the second one. This Power Level to World Level calculation is done each time players enter a new 'zone' of a world for the first time. In case this might still be a bit difficult to understand without a hypothetical example of how it works. So, let's go over a hypothetical situation:

A Power Level 2 player enters Yaesha for the first time, and the first zone they spawn into is World Level 3.
The player then goes off and does Adventure Mode or helps in other players' games online before coming back to Yaesha at a new Power Level of 6.
The, now Power Level 6, player then enters another zone for the first time, let's say the Faithless Thicket. When this happens, the World Level of the Faithless Thicket 'map' will use that Power Level of 6 to calculate its World Level instead of going off the original Power Level 2, meaning it'll probably end up at World Level 7 or so.
After entering this zone for the first time and seeing the World Level, players can then leave and explore Adventure Mode or other worlds to increase their Power Level as much as they want before returning if they find the zone to be too difficult. Once the zone is generated, that World Level always stays the same until it's re-rolled from Ward 13.

And as a final note, players should know that every 'zone' in a World won't generate 1 to 1 with their Power Level, these worlds are designed to slowly increase the Recommended Level as players progress through that world so that players feel the need to actually upgrade their guns. This means that a World that started at Power Level 3 can end at Power Level 6 or something similar without the player increasing their Power Level at all. Players can always check the Power Level of the zone they're currently in by looking at the number in the top right of their mini-map in said zone as shown in the image above.

How The Scaling System Applies To Co-Op Multiplayer

A High-Level Player Won't Ruin Their Low-Level Friend's Lobby

Remnant 2 - Dev Confirmation Of Co Op Scaling

Type	Example Host Power Level	Ally Power Level	Recommended Level	World Level 'Estimate'
Singleplayer	3	N/A	4	4
Multiplayer	3	20	4	5-7

But, how does all this scaling nonsense apply to Remnant 2's online co-op? It's a bit complicated (as if it wasn't complicated already) but basically, World Level generation for each zone takes the Host's Power Level into account, figures out what it should generate that zone's World Level as, and then scales that up by 1-3 more Levels max depending on if there's an ally in the Lobby that's 3+ Power Levels higher than the Host or not.

Essentially, it was designed so that players who marathon the game and get to a high Power Level can still join the lobby of their friend who hasn't had much free time and is at a low Power Level without making the game too easy or too difficulty for any of the parties involved.

As an example, if the Host's Power Level is 3 and the zone would have been generated with a World Level of 4 in singleplayer based on this info, if they have a friend in the lobby with a Power Level of 20, the maximum World Level that this zone will be when generated is 7, not 20 like some people mistakenly thought.

All this is to basically say that players (Steam or Game Pass both) who plan to play through the majority of Remnant 2 together don't need to worry too much about making 'second characters' or stopping themselves from Leveling/Upgrading their gear too much in fear of making the game too 'easy' when playing in their friend's campaign. As seen in the image above, this information is confirmed by the devs (specifically Tragic) in the Remnant 2 Discord.

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