I hadn't expected Receiver of all things to get a sequel, but honestly, I'm glad it did. Everything from the first game was polished, iterated and expanded upon to where I'd argue it's reached full potential.

As a firearm simulator, it's deeply engaging to learn how every gun operates and commit its intricacies to muscle memory. As a stealth game, it's unbelievably tense and immersive, but I'm also extremely jumpy by nature so your mileage may vary.

As a narrative about mental illness and mindfulness, I understand it's quite divisive. I've been diagnosed with clinical depression and autism for almost 20 years, with signs that I might also have ADHD. I've struggled and suffered and continue to do so. How Receiver 2 handles this topic, how it uses its narrative and gameplay to explicitly and implicitly talk about mental illness was very poignant to me for reasons I could talk on and on and on about for an hour or two. Rather than spend half an hour writing an absurd wall of text, I'll simply put it like this: For a game about guns, Receiver 2 is deeply empathetic and encourages coping mechanisms, safety, and social awareness in ways not a lot of media dealing with these topics does.

I'm gonna be thinking about and revisiting Receiver 2 for a while.