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ELEX II is the sequel to ELEX, the vintage open-world role-playing experience from the award-winning creators of the Gothic and Risen series, Piranha Bytes. ELEX II returns to the post-apocalyptic Science Fantasy world of Magalan – with massive environments that can be explored with unrivaled freedom via jetpack, you will be able to move through the epic story any way you want.

This may be redundant as you're already here reading the Road Map, but if you want to stick to one playthrough, the knowledge of when to use save/reloads and what to save/spend as far as consumables and AP/LP is imperative. So, read thoroughly!

Feel free to play the game on any difficulty, but I would highly suggest doing so on Story. The combat is brutal and even on this difficulty, enemies can take huge chunks of your health. The biggest things to remember are to never commit to a faction permanently, and only spend your Attribute and Skill points when absolutely necessary. You can only join one faction at a time (but there are five achievements to get), and you can only max out one skill tree (and there are five of those as well). Only commit to something when you're sure it will apply to every skill tree or faction, otherwise you could lock yourself out of something.

I realized much too late that you can spend some AP/LP as you go since most of the skill trees overlap in what the bare minimum for each attribute requires. I played almost all the way to Chapter 3 without spending a single attribute point, which made things much more difficult than they should have been - I could only equip a crowbar doing 13 damage per hit, and was completely reliant on my companion for damage - it was horrible. Once I invested properly in my character the game became much easier and much more enjoyable. More on the specifics of this in Step 4.

Step 2: Reach Level 30 / Chapter 3 / Good or Bad Destruction
Follow the main quest mostly during this step, and you can do some of the beginning quests for factions, as well as any side-quests for random NPCs you come across. However, be sure you do not commit to any faction, and do not lock yourself out of the Outlaws by making an incorrect choice during one of the Berserker quests. You can see more info on how each of the faction achievements work in the guide below. Once you hit Level 30, and have begun Chapter 3, you can now begin working on unlocking each of the five faction-related achievements in the next step. For reference, to hit Level 30 I did the map achievement and unlocked all the teleporters killing anything I found as I traveled, and every side-quest I could find. You can kill dozens of enemies in the far north of the map for huge XP gains if you're strong enough and on a low difficulty.

The other thing to take note of during this section is your Destruction level. You'll want to focus on either being good or bad to raise the level as low or high as possible. It doesn't really matter which way you go, as there is an easy way to increase or decrease this quickly. You can join the Morkons and go on a killing spree if you get the good achievement first, or donate a ton of money to the Bastion if you go the bad route first. More on these methods are in the guide below.

Make a hard save once you hit Level 30, as you'll have one of the major requirements for the two sub-factions out of the way. You can quickly get the Morkon achievement done on its own by doing their faction quests and joining, ensuring that you save prior and reload after. You can also get the Defector achievement quickly by following one of the first Chapter 3 story quests (again, save/reload here). However, the remaining achievements are much trickier. The Berserkers and Albs can be joined the same way as the Morkons achievement-wise, but you'll unfortunately need to stick with those choices so you can get the Outlaws and Clerics achievements later on, respectively - you can only join those two sub-factions if you have ranked up their corrosponding rival.

With that one main, hard save on hand prior to joining any faction, you can choose the Berserkers. Work through their faction quests and once you hit the third rank in the Berserkers (which is where the Level 30 requirement comes in), you will get a new quest that can allow you to betray them and switch to the Outlaws who you have been working with behind their backs. As I mentioned before, there is a choice during the quests leading up to joining the Berserkers that can cause you to lock yourself out of the Outlaws, so read carefully on what choice to make there. Get the two linked faction achievements here, then revert to that hard save we made before joining the Berserkers.

Back on the hard save prior to joining any faction, join the Albs. Repeat the same process we did for the Berserkers/Outlaws and work with the Albs through the third rank (again, requiring Level 30) and the next quest will then give you the option to betray the Albs and switch over the Clerics for their achievement. With all the faction achievements out of the way, you can either stick with the Clerics, or reload to your previous save and choose any faction you'd like to finish the game.

These achievements are mighty tricky, and take a TON of attribute points to earn. As I mentioned above, I was leary of spending any AP for the longest time, thinking I had to bank the full amount for each skill tree ahead of time, before I sat down and did the math of what each skill tree would require in the end. I have outlined that in the guide below, but essentially what I realized is that pretty much every skill tree had "minimum" requirements for some of the attributes, which would allow you to invest in those from the start without locking yourself out of a different tree. Doing this, you can still strengthen your character to keep the difficulty of the game down. I went from equipping a crowbar that only did 13 damage to a Legendary weapon with three socket slots that did over 100 damage and I was able to slot +3 enemy XP boosts into it as well.

It is important to understand how much is spent when increasing your attributes to know how many AP you'll need to save, as well as when to use the various potions you can get. From 10-45, each AP will increase the stat by one. From 46-66, it takes 2 AP to increase the stat by one. Then from 67-100 it takes FIVE AP to increase the stat by one. Obviously that's a big jump, so this is where you'll want to use the potions. You should also make sure you don't have any items equipped that raise your attributes until you reach 66, since that will force you to pay more. Get to 66 first, then equip the items that increase your stats.  Once you have all the skill tree achievements, you can spend all your points however you see fit.

Well, alright. Now we can just enjoy the rest of the game! There are a large number of cumulative achievements you've probably made good progress on, such as killing monsters, earning money, crafting, and opening locked safes/chests. Knock out the remainder of these (feel free to save and reload since these are account-wide and not tied to a single save file). Do any side-quests that have achievements tied to them, then finish off the story which should be your last achievement! Big congrats if you managed to follow all of that, this was certainly a tricky one.

ELEX II is classic Piranha Bytes fare. It has a decent amount of jank with an equal amount of charm. The achievement list is geared toward multiple playthroughs and has a bunch of missables but with some careful planning you can circumvent that and save yourself a ton of time. I really like the ELEX series, and this developer in general, but you have to know that you're getting yourself into a "B-tier" experience and just be alright with that.