Remnant 2 player gets punished with eternal torment upon the spike after drawing with a DLC boss

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Eventually, the traveller stopped thinking.

A heavily armoured knight, Bruin, stares viciously through their heavy metal helm at the player. Menacingly.
(Image credit: Gunfire Games)

Remnant 2's latest DLC The Awakened King is a good time. I recently blasted through its six-hour long one-shot campaign as a glass cannon Gunslinger/Hunter build who folded in two the moment anything so much as breathed on me. 

One boss, however, doesn't care much for your health or damage resistance. Bruin, Blade of the King, is a knight whose obsession for impalement gives Vlad the Impaler a run for his money. He also has a one-hit KO move, a command-grab lunge that leaves you hanging on a pike. See below.

"No one escapes the pike", indeed. (Image credit: Gunfire Games)

It's pretty tolerable for an instant kill move, with a very obvious sound cue that tells you when to dodge and a massive wind-up. Still, if you mess up, you're getting spiked. One player on the game's subreddit, however, was punished with far more than death for their crimes.

Vastriva's teammates manage to slay Bruin while the impale animation plays out. A victorious "Quest Complete!" appears on the screen while their poor body hangs limply from their enemy's pike. And then… nothing. "That's it?" asks their character, while bleeding profusely from their gut. Their summoned minion stares blankly at them, unable—or perhaps unwilling—to help.

Boss killed me right when I killed them and somehow I survived, but this happened. (Could also be a bug report but I couldn't help but edit this.) from r/remnantgame

I've fought enough bosses in Remnant 2 to know that things that should kill you, such as damage over time effects, get purged as soon as you reduce a boss to zero health. While this is a huge quality of life feature that's saved me from a few close calls, I suspect it's backfired here.

Whatever the 'you're dead' trigger is, it seems linked to the end of the animation. Vastriva got grabbed, but the boss died before the code guillotine could fall. They should be dead, but the game is keeping them alive in a suspended state of animation, pure "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" nightmare fuel.

I'm sure this'll be patched out in a future update, especially since your first playthrough of The Awakened King isn't randomised, so every player will come up against Bruin at some point. Until then, Vastriva shall stay atop a bloody spear to serve as a grim reminder to glass cannons everywhere: don't forget your dodge button. Unless they restart their game, that is.

Harvey Randall
Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.