SYNTHETIK 2 Beginner’s Guide – Top 5 Tips & Tricks

by Yannis Vatis / Game Guides, SYNTHETIK Guides, Tips & Tricks / 26 Sep 2023

The original SYNTHETIK is a cult roguelike game like no other. It’s a top-down tactical shooter that aims to give you an experience akin to an adrenaline rush mixed with a borderline heart attack. SYNTHETIK 2 delivers the same experience with many new features and options thrown into the mix.

If you’re stepping into this lesser-known gaming gem for the first time, we’ve assembled below the top 5 most essential tips and tricks to help you get started.

Deliberate Actions

Forget everything you know about shooting games. Especially if you’re coming from titles like Call of Duty, you’re likely used to forgiving gameplay. SYNTHETIK 2 will take your twitchy, frenetic habits, chew them up and serve them back to you for breakfast.

Every action you take and every decision you make, you need to do so deliberately. Doing anything in this game without purpose will only lead you to death. For instance, moving while shooting significantly reduces your accuracy. At the same time, standing still for too long is also precarious. Identifying the right openings that allow you to stop and shoot is one of many skills you need to get accustomed to in SYNTHETIK 2.

Solid Classes

Lots of games deliberately make some of their classes stronger or more beginner-friendly. SYNTHETIK 2 doesn’t want to play favorites like that, meaning that every class in the game is a solid pick. What matters in this game is your skills and performance, as well as your upgrading decisions.

Twist our arms for a newbie-friendly class, though, and then we’ll have to recommend Riotguard. The class has many bonuses that give it more survivability over the rest of the roster. However, don’t let that instill bad habits in playstyle. Shields and armor won’t carry you. Deliberate movement and clever positioning will.

Cover Knowledge

As we mentioned above, having shields and other defenses in SYNTHETIK 2 aren’t built to make you indestructible. In fact, we’d say that these attributes should be your last line of defense. Instead, you need to learn how to cover and understand the mechanics behind it.

There’s no cover mechanic in the game like in Gears of War. However, your environment will be filled with walls, columns, crates, machines, and other objects that’ll protect you from enemy fire. They aren’t without their perks and caveats, though. For one, you can use cover to make an enemy bullet ricochet back to their face potentially. On the other hand, you can still take splash damage from explosives if you’re too close to the object covering you.

Environmental Hazards

Apart from cover, SYNTHETIK 2’s environments are filled with various hazards. As a step-up from its predecessor, this game places even more emphasis on these level hazards, making them a solid option for dispatching enemies in almost every situation. For instance, there are red barrels that explode when fired on but beware as these can also be used by your enemies.

Weapon Swap

As a final tip, you need to understand how weapons work in SYNTHETIK 2. More specifically, understanding overheating and reloading are what’ll take you from noob to hero in this game. Weapons that you repeatedly fire with eventually overheat or even jam. At the same time, reloading is an active process. You need to remove the clip first, then hit the reload button and do so with specific timing to gain buffs. On top of that, ejecting a clip that still has ammo in it means it’s wasted. For both these reasons, you need to get used to swapping weapons. Nine times out of 10, switching your gun is always a better idea than frantically reloading or putting your gun in the red.

Yannis Vatis

Yannis is a veteran gamer with over 30 years of experience playing a wide spectrum of video games. When not writing about games, he's playing them, and if he's not playing them, then he's definitely thinking about them.
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