Soul Hackers 2: 5 Beginner Tips

With Soul Hackers 2 releasing soon, many prospective players will assuredly be curious about how to best approach the experience. So, with that being said, we have compiled the following five tips that every beginner player should know to get the most out of Soul Hackers 2.

• If you missed it, check out our feature detailing Soul Hackers 2’s New Game+ Features
• Check out our Review

1. Prioritize the Soul Matrix

One of the central gameplay avenues for Soul Hackers 2 is the Soul Matrix, a hub comprising dungeons containing the party members’ memories. Aside from the standard gameplay benefits such as more findable items and enemies to defeat for experience are Aion Directives. These are essentially quests confined to the Soul Matrix, and they follow an easily recognizable array of tasks, such as defeating a certain number of enemies, obtaining specific items, and more.

Progressing through the Soul Matrix is dependent on Ringo’s Soul Level with each party member, which grows from choices made throughout the story and hangout events at the Bar Heidrun. Completing the Aion Directives and delving deeper within the mental labyrinths lets the cast learn valuable skills, ranging from passive combat benefits to manual map activation ones that alter navigation. In essence, it’s always in your best interest to complete as much of the Soul Matrix as you can.

2. Get Milady’s “Assasin’s Steps” Map Skill as Soon as Possible

Piggybacking off of the general Soul Matrix tip is a specific skill you can obtain there for the party member Milady. Called “Assassin’s Steps,” this map ability lets players navigate areas far more quickly, saving inestimable time. Again, I can’t emphasize this skill’s sheer usefulness enough, so be sure to grab it as soon as you can to make your overall gameplay experience far smoother.

3. Don’t Slack Off on COMP Upgrades

COMPs are the cast’s weapons, and they can be upgraded at the COMP Smith in town. The actual act of upgrading is relatively straightforward, but the frequency at which one can upgrade may be beyond a beginner player’s expectations.

Whenever you explore a dungeon, check in at the COMP Smith because you’re practically always guaranteed to unlock new skills if you’ve been battling and gathering items. From increasing various elemental affinities to simply enhancing raw damage output, making regular COMP checkups is a must.

4. Be Cognizant of Your Equipped Mistiques

After a certain point in the story, you can interact with a quest NPC in the Roppo Realm to unlock Mistiques, equipable items that enhance elemental output. For example, they can serve to increase raw damage for a particular element or lessen the MP cost required for that element’s skills. Every character can have their own individual Mistiques, and multiple Mistique slots can even be unlocked via the COMP Smith, so be sure to check in on them frequently.

5. Don’t Be a Completionist During Your First Playthrough

I discussed this point in our article talking about Soul Hackers 2’s New Game+ features, but it’s in your best interest not to do everything you can during your first playthrough. The primary reason for this is that in the Soul Matrix, Soul Levels determine how far Ringo can progress through a character’s dungeon, and during a first playthrough, it’s essentially impossible to clear all Soul Matrixes fully.

The amount of character affinity gained simply makes such a feat impossible, and on New Game+, Soul Levels grow at an increased rate, so it’s best to worry about completing everything then. Further, some demon fusion combinations can only be obtained by reaching the end of the Soul Matrix dungeons, and a few quests are also New Game+ specific. So, the benefits granted by the Soul Matrix are still worthwhile for a first playthrough but don’t stress over having to achieve each and everything in it, such as the Aion Directives.

Soul Hackers 2 will release on August 26, 2022, for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. When the game launches tomorrow, we will be publishing quest guides.