Descent II

This article is about the video game. For the unrelated film, see The Descent Part 2.

Descent II
Developer(s)Parallax Software
Interplay Productions (Mac OS)
R-Comp Interactive (Risc OS)
Publisher(s)Interplay Productions
Mac Play (Mac OS)
R-Comp Interactive (Risc OS)
Director(s)
  • Mike Kulas
  • Matt Toschlog
Producer(s)Rusty Buchert[1]
Designer(s)
  • Jasen Whiteside
  • Mark Dinse
  • Che-Yuan Wang
Programmer(s)
  • Matt Toschlog
  • Mike Kulas
  • John Slagel
  • Jason Leighton
  • Che-Yuan Wang
Artist(s)
  • Adam Pletcher
  • Jasen Whiteside
  • Doug Brooks
Writer(s)Ryan Garcia
Composer(s)
  • Dan Wentz
  • Brian Luzietti
  • Larry Peacock
  • Leslie Spitzer
  • Jim Torres
  • Tim Wiles
Platform(s)
ReleaseMS-DOS
  • NA: March 13, 1996
  • EU: March 29, 1996
Mac OS
  • NA: August 1996
PlayStation
  • NA: May 15, 1997
  • EU: Mid-1997
RISC OS
  • WW: May 19, 2001
Genre(s)First-person shooter, shoot 'em up
Mode(s)Single-player, multiplayer

Descent II is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for DOS by Interplay Productions. A version for the PlayStation was released under the title Descent Maximum. It is the second installment in the Descent video game series and the sequel to Descent. The player controls a spaceship from the pilot's perspective and must navigate extrasolar underground mines to locate and destroy their reactors and escape being caught in their self-destructions, while engaging and surviving infected robots, which will attempt to destroy the ship. Unlike other first-person shooters, its six-degrees-of-freedom scheme allows the player to move and rotate in any three-dimensional space and direction.

Descent II started as a project intended to expand the original using a compact disc's storage, and later became a standalone product. The game received very positive reviews from video game critics, who widely lauded the multiplayer mode and the inclusion of the Guide-Bot, a scouting robot that guides the player to their objectives. The PlayStation version's reception was rather mixed, with critics often disagreeing in their evaluations of its frame rate. A sequel, Descent 3, was released in 1999.

  1. ^ Manual 1996, pp. 68–69.