Spirit of the North 2 Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

Spirit of the North 2 Developer: Infuse Studio Publisher: Silver Lining Interactive, Merge Games Website: https://infusedstudio.com Genre: Adventure, Indie Platform: Xbox (also available on PS5, PC) Age Rating: 12 Release Date: 8/5/2025 Price: £24.99 A code was provided for review purposes.

You had me at ‘there’s a create a character screen for your fox’…

Introduction

Spirit of the North 2 is a somewhat open world adventure game littered with beautiful vistas and neat little platforming. The obvious appeal right out of the gate is that you get to play a wonderful little fox. Not just any fox, though. You’re your own, surprisingly customisable fox! That was charming out of the gate and set the tone for a wonderful little journey. 

Gameplay

The moment-to-moment gameplay in Spirit of the North 2 and it’s this minimalist approach filled me with intrigue. Video games have been around for a hot minute. They often make assumptions on things like inputs, mechanics, and ways to play. Spirit of the North 2 is refreshing in that you play as a fox that can jump. That’s the crux of it. There are some light additions, such as being able to leap to a specific ledge or point, indicated by little blue arrows that make leap targets clearer, but the rest of the units from the player include a reset button that respawns the fox to its last rest spot and the ability to bark. I think it’s a bark. Do foxes bark? Or screech…? It’s a ‘make fox noises’ button.

This minimalism leaves space for the philosophy being presented by the team at Infuse Studio. The world feels vast and exploration is the heart of my time with the game. It journeyed through scampering through fields, mountain ranges, and misty coasts and working my way through tombs and caverns. The latter offered some puzzle elements but never anything too demanding. 

Comparisons

In 2025, the gameplay experience of Spirit of the North 2 is a breath of fresh air. I mentioned at the top that this game felt like a mix of Death Stranding and Okami. That’s a bit reductive. The Okami stuff is because…well, fox. You’re running around on four legs. There’s a flow and lightness to running around the world that I adored in Okami. That energy is certainly present in Spirit of the North 2. When I talk about Death Stranding, it’s the vast, mossy, grand feeling that is present here as well. It offers me the magic of wandering around a beautifully realised world, without any of the complexity of Kojima’s work. 

Story and Characters

The story of Spirit of the North 2 is a minimal masterclass in environmental storytelling. There is no dialogue, no NPCs, outside of an adorable little raccoon vendor, and no egregious cutscenes. Despite this, Spirit of the North 2 tells a heartbreaking story of violence, conflict and mutual destruction. 

There were once five tribes in the world of Spirit of the North 2. At some point, the bear tribe turned on the rest, and from there, things went about as expected. As a little flex, you’re exploring this world several, maybe hundreds, of years later and discovering this story by encountering the aftermath of it all. Through a series of events, you end up reviving the leader of said bear tribe, and this leads to varying ‘corruptions’ to drive you out of your home and has you coming into naturalistic dangers throughout the game. Evil thorns, spooky poisonous mist, that kind of thing. 

Where Spirit of the North 2 succeeds most is how it draws you towards an interesting structure of ruin, only to have you dissect skeletons and bodies, wasted away by time. You see these bodies, ruins, temples, and occasional codex entries and are left to piece together what happened yourself. Perhaps you come across destroyed boats on the coast. It’s not until later that you find abandoned camps from one of the tribes, or enter a room with the bodies that clearly fell while fighting one another. It’s a wonderfully intriguing and simple way to tell a story and excels in letting you piece it together yourself at your own pace.

Graphics and Design

When vast and open, Spirit of the North 2 is an undeniably beautiful game. I was always surrounded by some kind of ‘natural’ beauty to bounce through and explore, and there were several breathtaking moments as I came over the crest of a hill or stepped out of a cave. It all benefits from some adorable little creatures. Little raccoons and birds all felt friendly and cute to have around. Being able to customise my own fox and chonk them up was a welcome treat too. 

Unfortunately, with scale comes complexity, and while I loved my time with the game, it was occasionally hampered by odd graphical missteps. Pop-ins were present throughout the open areas, which, while the game is beautiful, these little hiccups did detract in places. 

Performance and Technical Aspects

Performance overall was good, and considering the scale of the game and the size of the team, it’s really impressive to see what Infuse has built with Spirit of the North 2. Unfortunately, with scale and scope come technical challenges, and there were some present. 

As mentioned, pop-ins of things like foliage were present here and there. There is a specific set of challenges that ask you to purify sets of trees, which will heal a bigger tree and remove a sort of red, misty rob from the nature around the area. I saw a few frame dips here and there during these sections, and the little cutscene that showed these areas becoming pure was particularly choppy and inconsistent. 

There was another Monet where I found myself bugged through a wall and suddenly trapped in an out-of-bounds area inside a ruin where I clearly wasn’t supposed to be and couldn’t get out of. After a few minutes of quitting the game, loading back in, and still being stuck, I remembered the ‘reset’ button. After pressing this, I was thrown back to my little fox’s hide-hole and continued on. 

Neither of these issues were game-breaking as such, and they didn’t do much to take away from an otherwise wonderful experience. Well done.

Sound and Design

True to its ethos, Spirit of the North 2 works with a beautifully minimal and natural soundtrack that rarely, if ever, oversteps it. The music swells as I chased will-o’-wisps through fields and rested in an uneasy hum as I journeyed through temples and ruins. It’s hard to put into words the effect of sound design that is this well designed, but that is probably its strength. It adds to the sense of wonder as I explore, makes me nervous when things get tense, and slips away when I needed a moment to reflect on my discoveries. 

Conclusion

Spirit of the North 2 is a beautifully put-together, minimalistic adventure. It let me explore a beautifully realised world and discover its tragedies on my own terms and at my own pace, with a freedom that feels rare for video games in 2025. A few technical itches aside, I adored my time with chunky little fox and their various wildlife companions and found myself a little disappointed to go when it was time to wrap up this review. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

4 out of 5

4

You can learn more about Spirit of the North 2 HERE and purchase it on Xbox HERE