Attack on Titan 2 turns the series’ signature terror into a playground. The game, developed by Omega Force and published by Koei Tecmo, arrived in 2018 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Windows and Xbox One, with a Stadia port the following year. It is a sequel to the companies’ 2016 game and draws on Hajime Isayama’s manga. The hook is simple: you fly at giant humanoids with blades and grappling hooks, and for long stretches it works.
This is a hack and slash game, but the pace and the verticality are the point. You are not meant to feel safe.
The 104th Cadet Corps and an Original Lead
Attack on Titan 2 retells the first 50 chapters of the manga, the same ground covered by the first two seasons of the anime. The player moves through those events as a custom character, not as Eren Yeager or any other member of the established cast. That character joins the 104th Cadet Corps as a child, driven by a specific grudge: the Armored Titan killed their parents during the breach of Wall Maria.
It is a clean setup. It gives the player a reason to be in the room when the story’s famous beats land, and it lets the game put you beside the cast rather than inside one fixed head. The trade is that your lead is a cipher by design. The manga’s characters carry the emotion; yours carries the camera.
The base game’s last mission ends on an original note. The source is clear that this ending is non-canonical to both the anime and the manga. That is a deliberate break, and it is one of the more interesting choices in the package.
Daily Life and the Character Creator
Between missions, Attack on Titan 2 slows down. In a mode called “Daily Life,” players befriend and bond with the series’ cast, including Eren Yeager. You talk, you build relationships, you spend time with people who, in the source material, rarely get to sit still.
The character creator is another addition over the first title, and it matters more than it sounds. It is the difference between playing a story and playing your version of it.
The bigger structural change is co-op. The story mode is entirely playable in co-op. That single decision reshapes how the campaign feels. A story about isolation and overwhelming force becomes something you can share.
The modes break down like this:
- Single player
- Multiplayer
- Co-operative
That spread covers the ground the game wants to cover. It is not a narrow experience.
Scout Missions and the Final Battle DLC
The “Final Battle” DLC extends the story to chapters 51 through 90 of the manga, the same stretch covered by the anime’s third season. That is a lot of story for a game that already covers 50 chapters.
Scout Missions give you reasons to return after the credits. The game understands that its combat is the draw, and it keeps serving it.
The cel-shaded look suits the material. It keeps the titans readable even when they are filling the screen, which is a matter of taste as much as design.
Where Attack on Titan 2 Sits Against Its Own Ideas
The combat is fast and aerial, and the open areas let you approach a titan from almost any angle. That freedom is the game’s best idea. It is also where the seams show.
Fighting titans means targeting weak points and committing to a swing. When it clicks, the game produces a specific kind of thrill, the one the anime trades in. When it does not, you are repeating a motion against a health bar.
The comparison that matters is between the game and its predecessor. Here is how the two titles line up on the features the source describes.
| Element | Attack on Titan (2016) | Attack on Titan 2 (2018) |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Omega Force | Omega Force |
| Publisher | Koei Tecmo | Koei Tecmo |
| Character creator | Not present | Present |
| Co-op story mode | Not present | Entirely playable in co-op |
| “Daily Life” mode | Not present | Present |
The original ending is the sharper issue. Our view is that a non-canonical finale is a gamble. It can free a game from the obligation to match its source, or it can leave players who came for the manga’s actual turns feeling like they were handed a substitute.
What the Co-op Actually Changes
Playing the campaign with another person is not a small tweak. It changes the rhythm of every mission. Two players splitting a titan’s attention produce a different fight than one player doing everything alone.
That is the strongest argument for Attack on Titan 2 over its predecessor. The first game established the aerial combat; this one makes it social. The character creator and the co-op campaign are the two features that most clearly mark the sequel as a sequel rather than a re-release.
The bonding system in “Daily Life” does less work. It is pleasant, and it gives the cast room to breathe, but it sits apart from the combat rather than feeding into it. You spend time with Eren Yeager and the others, and then you go back out and swing at titans.
That is a missed chance, not a failure. The game is generous with content. It is less generous with reasons for that content to talk to itself.
Attack on Titan 3 and the IGDB Score
The “Final Battle” DLC picks up at chapter 51 and runs to chapter 90, which is exactly where the anime’s third season goes. If you want the story to keep moving after the base game’s original ending, this is where it moves.
A sequel, Attack on Titan 3, was announced in June 2026 and will be published on 10 December 2026. That announcement puts this game in a new light. Attack on Titan 2 is now a middle chapter in our reading, and its job was to prove the formula could carry a series. It did that.
Attack on Titan 2 earned a 7.5 out of 10 on the IGDB critic aggregate, across 13 outlets. That number is fair, and it is fair for a specific reason: the game is very good at one thing and merely competent at the rest.
The one thing is the combat. Fast, aerial, open, and now playable with a friend. The rest is a story retold with a blank protagonist and a bonding mode that runs parallel to the action. The base game’s ending breaks from the source, and the “Final Battle” DLC then returns to it.
The Combat and the Custom Lead
In our reading, Attack on Titan 2 is worth playing for the co-op campaign and the aerial combat. The custom lead and the original ending put distance between you and the story you came for, even though the DLC later closes much of that distance.
What matters most is the co-op. That is the feature that will decide whether the sequel builds on this or starts over. The combat was never the question. The question was whether the game could make the world feel inhabited, and in our view “Daily Life” only half answers it.
The titans are still the draw. Everything else is scaffolding.
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