In any given year, I play a whole lot of video games. A good chunk of what I play sticks with me in one way or another. Maybe it’s a deeply meaningful game like Despelote that makes me reflect on the real world. Perhaps it’s something like Mindseye, a game so memorably bad that it takes up rent in my head for years to come. Or maybe it’s a game that’s firmly in the middle, but at least excels in one particular area that gets me thinking. It’s not too often that I play something that just goes in one ear and out the other entirely.

Code Vein 2 is one of those rare games. When Bandai Namco’s Soulslike sequel launched, I was eager to give it a try and see how it was iterating on a popular genre. The bosses may have been plentiful, but the insight I craved never came. After several sessions, I walked away from Code Vein 2 with barely a lasting thought to share on it. It is a textbook definition of a Swagless Game.

What in the hell does that mean? It’s a “you know it when you see it” sort of thing, but let me try to define it anyway. A Swagless Game is one that feels like it was pulled out of a filing cabinet. It tends to be as middle of the road as they come, remixing what’s popular on the market right now into a serviceable alternative built for “if you like this, try this next” recommendations. The story has nothing of substance to say. The art direction doesn’t offer any surprises. The combat is broadly........

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