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Remnant 2is actually the third game dealing with the Root, an antagonistic force that looks to consume everything that exists in the multiverse. This wood-like menace seems to spill out everywhere, and no world is safe from its reaching branches. But what exactly is the Root, and why is it bent on consuming everything on its path?
Its real origins are shrouded in mystery, but if we delve deep into both Remnant games (and their prequel, Chronos: Before the Ashes), we can get a lot of information on what it wants, how it functions, and possibly, where it came from.
As expected, Spoilers Ahead!
What Is The Root?
The Root may look like a bunch of tree branches, butin essence, it works like a virus:it spreads, contaminates, and assimilates everything it touches. Unlike simple viruses, however,the Root is sentient,meaning that it is aware of what it’s doing and can plan and scheme to get what it wants.
Everything the Root touches becomes a part of it, so every minion that works for it (from the ball-like Hollows to the largest Dragons) is an extension of the Root.Speaking of minions,the Root can either create creatures from its wood or fully contaminate other beings to have them work for it.
Some exceptions exist of creatures that maintain their individuality after being assimilated, like with the Corrupted Ravager, but the Root is still aware of everything they do.
The Root is able to communicate with others, demonstrating a great deal of intelligence and the ability to lie.
Even though its methods are violent and often malicious,the Root doesn’t see itself as the bad guy, quite the opposite: it looks tobring peace to the worlds by uniting them as a single entity.
The Worlds And Their Guardians
Nearly all worlds are in danger of being infected by the Root, particularly the ones with the highest number of living beings. To protect themselves from this infection,these worlds had Guardians who worked like gatekeepers, stopping the Root from entering the world at all.
It isn’t known exactly how the Guardians stop the Root, although based on Clementine’s Guardian powers, it seems their mere presence stops it from entering.
The one exception is Earth, which is considered the Core of the universe. It isn’t exactly clear what being the Core means, but as far as the Root is concerned, it is the one place where it can’t reach;that is, until the events of Chronos: Before the Ashes happened.
Chronos The Destroyer
Chronos: From the Ashesis the first game in the Root saga, since the events of that game happened only a few months before the start of the first Remnant title. In Chronos, we find out just how the Root made it to Earth, and it’s thanks to both the Destroyer and Doctor Harsgaard.
In this version of history,Doctor Harsgaard was a scientist in the 1960swhodiscovered an extradimensional signal. This signal taught him how to see other worlds, andhe began research on exploring these worlds through Dreamers.
Dreamerswere, as the name suggests, people whowere put into deep sleep so they would connect to other worlds.Unbeknownst to them,they were connected to the Guardians of those worldsand saw their perspective of these lands.
Doctor Harsgaard was looking for one world in particular, one that achieved absolute peace by becoming nothing:a world consumed by Root. One Harsgaard managed to connect a Dreamer to a Root infested world,the Root was able to use that connection to enter Earth.
After 20 years, theEarth was decimated by the Root and its minions, and this is where Chronos: From The Ashes begins properly. You are tasked with destroying the Dragon, the seeming source of all the evil plaguing Earth.
The protagonist of Chonos allies himself with a talking tree, which tasks him with destroying three Guardians so they can open the way to slay the Dragon.This was clearly a mistake, since we now know that the Tree was the Root itself, the Guardians were the only thing keeping it at bay, and what’s worse, one of those Guardians was from the Labyrinth.
The protagonist is then put to sleep by Harsgaard, becoming the new Dreamer of the Root. For his actions in enabling the Root on its rise,the protagonist becameknown throughout the universe as The Destroyer.
The Labyrinth And The Other Worlds
The Earth works as the Core for the universe of Remnant, butthe connective tissue tying up all worlds together is the Labyrinth, a place that works both as a gateway and as a world itself. While the Keeper of the Labyrinth was able to cleanse the Root that entered the Labyrinth, the damage was done:the Root was spreading everywhere.
InRemnant: From the Ashes, you cancut the Root’s connection with Earth, preventing any new Root creatures from entering.However, that doesn’t kill all the remaining Rooton the planet, proving that,even when cut from the main hivemind, the Root can still function.
The Real Origin Of The Root
Remnant 2 throws a wrench at most theories about the Root and its origins, since its final stages show places that shouldn’t be. At the end of that game, you are told by the Keeper thatyou can travel to the original world of the Root, where it originated and spread to everywhere else: Root Earth.
This is strange for a number of reasons, chief among them the fact thatthis isn’t the player’s Earth, but one completely assimilated by the Root. And it can’t be a future version of the player’s Earth, since the Keeper never said anything about time-traveling.
On top of that is the claim that, as the first world assimilated by the Root, this is where it originated from. Meaning thatthe initial contact Harsgaard made back in the 60s was with another Earth, one that evidently didn’t function as a Core of the universe.
Among other mysteries, it remains to be seen what this all means since, for now, we are still waiting for a few DLCs to drop for Remnant 2. Each of them will likely expand on the lore of each world, so once we get one about Root Earth, we are sure to get even more answers.
