It's been over a decade since Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro and his team first graced fans with Deadly Premonition. The idiosyncratic survival horror game played like a mishmash of Shenmue-esque life simulation and Resident Evil 4 combat encounters, wrapped in a neo-noir murder mystery that resembled Twin Peaks in more ways than one. It was a commercial flop and became one of the most critically polarizing games of all time, but fans absolutely adored it. The indelible characters, writing, and plot put Swery on the map as a creator, and he has now made a surprising but welcome return to that world with Deadly Premonition 2. For better and worse, this sequel doubles down on the greatest strengths and even greater weaknesses of its predecessor. Deadly Premonition 2 may not be as impactful, but it's still an essential experience for that particular kind of person who fell in love with the first game.
Swery has evidently taken a leaf out of True Detective's book for Deadly Premonition 2, reflecting his unabashed affection for crime shows once again. The story is split between events in 2005 and 2019, following the ritualistic murder of a teenage girl in the small town of Le Carre, Louisiana. FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan (the returning protagonist) first took the case in 2005, but the girl's body inexplicably disappeared during the investigation. Morgan still uncovered the killer and the case was officially closed, but many questions remained unanswered. 14 years later, Morgan is slowly dying of brain cancer and has long since retired from the FBI. Two younger FBI agents are now investigating him for his "suspicious actions" in the case, and have come to his Boston apartment to grill him. As Morgan answers their questions, the player takes on the role of his younger self when he originally investigated the murder in Le Carre... and steadily pieces together the whole story.
Let's be completely clear: as a video game, Deadly Premonition 2 is terrible in pretty much every respect. The first game wasn't exactly amazing in terms of gameplay or visuals, but somehow, Deadly Premonition 2 is even worse. Character models, animations, textures, environments, draw distances, and everything else all look like they're more than a generation behind. One might think that this was done to make the rest of the game run smoothly, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Load times take forever and the frame rate is unbelievably low, often dropping to slideshow-like speeds when out in the mostly empty open world of Le Carre. The game just barely qualifies as "playable," and the awful technical performance remains from beginning to end.
Even if Deadly Premonition 2 did run well, though, that wouldn't address all of its other more fundamental problems. The main missions and side missions seem almost deliberately horrible, full of shameless fetch quests, time constraints, and lame minigames. There's almost nothing worthwhile to do in the open world, and the critical path consists of subpar gunplay and painfully overlong combat sequences (just like the first game). None of it is remotely challenging or interesting, either - even the customization and upgrades are meaningless when it only takes a couple shots to kill any enemy, and bosses can barely hit you as long as you're not standing still.
In spite of all this, though, Deadly Premonition 2 still delivers the kinds of things that made its predecessor so exceptional: beguiling characters, sublime humor, and absurd yet resonant storytelling. Morgan is as charming as ever, calmly switching from astute observations to hilarious associations to barely-relevant movie references. He's supported by a cast of lovably eccentric townsfolk throughout his investigation, each of whom is memorable in their own right. They're more bombastic and less intriguing than the characters of the first game, but they all bolster the central mystery and create a strong feeling of small-town life in the Deep South. There are a few exceptions - most notably a confusingly mishandled trans character who is integral to the plot - but on the whole, the story is consistently engaging, ridiculously funny and surprisingly profound.
In many ways, Deadly Premonition 2 is an indefensibly, almost insistently bad video game. It is so poorly made that it's hard to believe it just came out in 2020, especially as the sequel to a game with an established fan following. However, it's unlikely that any of this will surprise or deter the kind of person who is already interested in Deadly Premonition. Swery's delightfully harebrained storytelling definitely makes this another trip worth taking, but for those who haven't experienced the series yet, it's strongly recommend playing the original game first. If a player is on board after that, Deadly Premonition 2 is for certainly more of the same.
Deadly Premonition 2 is available now on Nintendo Switch. A code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.
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