I rarely play a game out of sequence. If I haven’t played a title in a series before, I usually want to start with the first entry. This is so I can see where it began and how the series evolves. I do play out of order sometimes. This is usually when I’m less worried about missing out on the story, or the hype grabs me. I sometimes do that to see if the previous entries might pique my interest and give them a go. With Spirit of the North 2, I decided to do that.

Will I be going back to play the first one?

What the Fox?

Spirit of the North 2 is set around the series’ protagonist, our cute and fluffy Fox friend. With its raven companion, the Fox unwittingly unleashes the villain of the piece, a hate-filled shaman, Grimnir. The furry and feathery duo must scour the open world of Spirit of the North 2 together. They’re seeking to restore the lost animal spirit guardians.

The story of Spirit of the North 2 isn’t the clearest, well, it wasn’t for me. My understanding is that the land is becoming corrupted, or some of the areas were anyway. Creating corruption, decay, and dangerous environmental hazards. Subsequently, the lost Guardians you are seeking have also been corrupted and have become filled with pain or trauma. Making them hostile towards you.

Defeat them in an end-of-area boss battle, and you, as the Fox, can connect with them. Using your Fox Guardian powers, you’ll soothe their pain, restoring them as an ally. They’ll then join you later for the final fight against the Shaman, Grimnir. After each battle, you’ll get a cutscene showing flashes of what happened to them. The source of their trauma presented in still images. Some of these were clearer than others. Many focus on the actions of Grimnir, and the timeline for this happening is unclear. Did it happen after unleashing Grimnir, or was this before Grimnir originally perished?

Most of the backstory and lore is filled in by in-world collectibles, in the form of scrolls. These are scattered across the game and tell the tale of different tribes (representing the different Guardians). Again, it isn’t clear who is who a lot of the time. I hadn’t known the name ‘Grimnir’ was the bad guy specifically until quite far in.

Stag and Deliver

Although I have yet to play the original Spirit of the North, I am aware of its shorter completion time. I wrongly assumed that the sequel might be something similar.

You’ll explore six areas of the world, each with its own Guardian to deal with (bar one). Each area requires you to acquire multiple key items and take them to a temple where the Guardian resides. These items are usually hidden within a tomb / crypt-type area that needs to be unlocked using ‘wisps’. These are orbs of energy that fly around the map, or can be unlocked in the game’s many mini-puzzles.

Once you’ve spotted or released a wisp, what follows is a bit of a chase sequence where the wisp will try to fly away. This can go on quite a bit, and depending on what abilities you have available, it can impact how easy it is to catch them. I found the wisp chasing largely frustrating. I needed the wisps, and the wisp chases sometimes took you quite far away from where you were. It just felt intentional to pad out your time in the game, busy work.

My Paws Are Barking

And boy, is there a lot of running around. At times, I was just running across a big meadow or valley towards my next destination. There was little to do or see. You can sprint, but it’s still a lot of back and forth, and at times, I found it tedious running about. There are portals that you can use to fast travel, but you have to find them, and then travel back to them to travel out. If you unlock your ‘homes’ around the map, you can travel to the last one you rested at from anywhere. This, however, wasn’t explained anywhere, so I didn’t discover this until much later in the game, and by accident.

I question if Spirit of the North 2 needed to be an open world. It seemed a bit empty. I spent a lot of time exploring, expecting to find secrets and hidden things, and outside of a few jars with crystals (currency), there wasn’t a great deal. Some of the more involved puzzles that took a bit more thinking led to several moments of “was that it?” for my efforts.

The initial encounter with Grimnir and it all kicking off was pretty exciting, and you get chased by a huge intimidating bear, but that’s it. There’s no enemies or encounters in the world, outside of the bosses in the set locations. I expected that the bear, or hell, even Grimnir, might show up again at some point to add some jeopardy and drama to the proceedings, but they don’t. Not until you face them in battle.

Butting Heads

The boss battles were generally interesting. I liked that they all had their own vibe to them. The first encounter with the white raven sees you trying to help it, not hurt it. Whereas other encounters need you to take them on a bit more directly. Most followed a pattern of dodging their attacks until they get tired, and then you do the thing you need to do to weaken them.

Often, you will be using newly acquired abilities to take on the boss. As you build up your repertoire, the bosses do feel more of a battle and more dynamic. There’s something to be said for the evolution of the Fox during the game. Starting with no real abilities, and having to take on a boss, to using all you’ve got in the final battle against Grimnir.

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Spirit of the North 2 feels like some classic adventure games where you unlock new abilities as you progress and defeat bosses. Or, buy or find new ‘runes’ to give you abilities. Runes give you a range of abilities that help you solve puzzles around the map. Like in Metroid, there’ll be some earlier areas or puzzles you won’t have access to until you unlock an ability later on in the game. Good luck remembering those without a notepad, though.

Although the map throws up ‘?’ markers for areas you haven’t discovered (when revealed by the Assassin’s Creed style ‘Obelisks’), once you’ve discovered them, i.e., they’ve been given a name, there’s no distinguishing between ‘completed’ or not. I think we must be at a point in gaming that something like a ‘you’ve been here’ or not type filter could be implemented. I think I have a small handful of collectibles left to get at the time of writing, but I couldn’t tell you where I haven’t been.

Grin and Bear It

To its credit, the game does give you some indication of where you’ve been with the map. Everywhere you haven’t been at all is cloaked in a grey mist, obscuring the map. This is cleared by going places, or by using one of the aforementioned Obelisks (though these cost crystals, so keep them handy). Which would surely have helped, however, about 13 hours into the game, I loaded in to play, and the entire map had been covered with the grey mist again, as if I hadn’t been there. I, of course, had, because all the markers from the locations were still there. Not only that, but the control scheme had changed. I don’t know if an update went out but something clearly went wrong somewhere.

I experienced a lot of issues with Spirit of the North 2 while I played, in almost every aspect.

Issues

• The opening scene started super sped up, including the sound.
• There were issues with sound, crackling, static-type noises, which I think were meant to be rain. Also experienced broken sound where it kept coming in and out.
• There were times my Fox fell through the scenery, though not through the map. I did at one point get stuck in an automatic doorway that I couldn’t get out of for some reason. I had to quit and reload.
• I found the checkpoint system occasionally unreliable. There are statues with fires in them that act like Dark Souls bonfires; the last one you were in contact with is your restart point should you die. I died and was taken to a checkpoint that I’d last used nearly an hour before and all my progress was reset alongside it in that time between checkpoints.
• Some elements of the game were just glowing spaces rather than what they should be. There are murals scattered throughout the world, depicting scenes to help tell the story, but sometimes these were just glowing squares of light.
• The camera also acted weird with some of these murals or interactions, losing control and focusing on a non-point and being very zoomed in on an uninteresting point of a grey wall.
• On a couple of occasions the Fox would just stop being animated, stay in one position and just slide around the map. I experienced this during the Ram boss battle and I had to take damage to get him moving again and using abilities.
• There were framerate drops on occasion.
• Auto-scrolling of the map (like I was moving the analogue stick).

Developers Infuse Studio are aware of some issues and a day one patch will be available.

Thorn in My Paw

I also found the platforming finicky: There are two types of jumps; ‘targeted jump’, where a cursor indicates where you’re jumping when you press the jump button. And free-form jumping. The positioning of that cursor for targeted jumping got incredibly frustrating as it often moved just as I pressed jump meaning I missed my jump because the Fox would do a normal jump and not make it. I found myself getting quite frustrated with it.

Annoyingly, many of the non-technical issues I had with the game are improved upon through playing the game and getting the late-game, upgrades. I feel you don’t get many of these until much later, and then you’re restricted by which runes you have equipped. Your dash and double jump abilities are on the same rune slot so you can’t have both. You can’t use the scroll detector at the same time as increasing your spirit energy quicker (needed for ability use). Also the sped up running should have been a permanent unlock, not reliant on spirit energy.

Inventory managing my wisps was annoying, too. Not knowing I could fast travel back to my home meant I was often unlocking wisps I couldn’t collect because my inventory was full. I didn’t want to keep running back and putting wisps in storage, what if I needed them to de-corrupt an Ancient Tree and get an extra skill point (letting me carry more wisps, potentially, and ironically). I appreciate that I could have checked the controls, but there were some tutorials in the game, so why wouldn’t it tell me everything? If I missed it, fair enough, but it wasn’t clear if it was there (I didn’t see it).

Flights of Fancy

There were times I enjoyed exploring the world of Spirit of the North 2. The changing weather system occasionally created some picturesque scenes, making me want to screenshot and use the game’s photo mode. Your fox friend is very cute, and the customisations you can give him throughout are nice. You can find and unlock more fur and eye colours as you play. Often by following mushrooms that lead you to a turtle with a treasure chest on his shell (no idea). I particularly liked making his tail extra fluffy right at the start.

Spirit of the North 2 is set an ruined Nordic area. There are runes scattered around and there’s a lovely change in some of the areas. From the wind and rain lashed Misthaven, the snow-topped Frigid Peaks, down to the ember-filled Ashlands. There’s a good variety.

Some of the cutscenes are lovely to watch too, the ethereal / Northern Light effects are glorious and the contrast between your fox’s blue and the Guardian’s pain, in red, worked well.

The music is non-intrusive but effective. Like Breath of the Wild, it tends to be minimalist, punctuating events and key activities. The change in tone when a swarm of wisps appears is lovely. Some of the sounds I found confusing, your raven companion often doesn’t shut up, but I have been unable to tell if all his noises are helpful or if he’s just chatty. Sometimes he makes a noise and is sitting on something to point it out, and then later he’ll make the same noise sitting on the floor.

Once you’ve completed the game, you can carry on mopping up remaining collectibles and exploring. You also get access to a new rune that lets you turn yourself into a wisp for easier exploring.

What Does the Fox Say?

Spirit of the North 2 has some great concepts and mechanics, set in a varied Nordic world. There’s certainly a lot to enjoy, and I did have fun with my Fox buddy a fair bit. When it clicked, it was great, but the litany of technical issues and some tedious, faffy traversal keep it from reaching the Northern Heights!

Spirit of the North 2 releases on 8 May 2025 and is available PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series.

It was reviewed on Xbox Series X. Many thanks to Infuse Studio and Silver Lining Interactive for the review code.

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Spirit of the North 2 Guides

• Spirit of the North 2: Beginner’s Guide
• Ancient Tree Locations
• “Children of Eona” Guide
• Fox Den Locations
• Light Trader Location Guide
• Obelisk Locations
• Portal Locations
• Raccoon Traders Locations
• Rune Locations
• Skill Point Locations
• Snake Shrine Locations
• Unlock the Ashlands Snake Shrine
• Defeat the White Raven Boss Battle (Misthaven)
• Defeat the Stag Boss Battle (Mosswood)
• Defeat the Ram Boss Battle (Stormvale)
• Defeat the Wolves Boss Battle (Frigid Peaks)
• Defeat the Bear Boss Battle (Ashlands)
• Defeat Grimnir, the Shaman, Final Boss Battle (Fox Island)
• All Lore Scrolls Locations Guides
  • The Fox Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Raven Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Stag Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Ram Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Sun Wolf Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Moon Wolf Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide
  • The Bear Tribe Lore Scrolls Locations Guide