How do glider drones work in Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon?

Remnant 2 is no stranger to complex and engaging exploration opportunities, but the new Dark Horizon DLC really plays to the game’s best qualities. Notably, The Dark Horizon map is extremely vertical, and the only way to move about from one island to another is to use glider drones.

Glider drones are, in my book, one of the most interesting new features of Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon. They’re not extremely mechanically deep by a long shot, and it’s not even hard to get a sense of how to best make use of them. They do, however, massively open up the explorable area and add a huge amount of verticality to what could’ve been just one more Remnant 2 area. My only real complaint about glider drones is that they’re limited to The Dark Horizon‘s new regions, meaning you won’t find them anywhere else.

How to fly using glider drones in The Dark Horizon?

The Dark Horizon‘s agricultural region instantly drives home and you won’t get very far without making use of the glider drones. The new playable region is mostly torn apart, with a huge number of areas being completely inaccessible without these hovering little buddies. Using one is quite similar to how you’d fly with a Relter in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, in fact. You just need to approach a glider drone’s ground station, and it’s going to pop right up for you to grab onto using the Interact key.

Now, admittedly, glider drones are somewhat janky and awkward in The Dark Horizon. Not quite as much as Survivor‘s Relters, but still. You need to hold the Forward key for the drone to push onward, and the weight of your character means the drone won’t be able to fly straight. Instead, it’s genuinely just going to glide downwards at a somewhat forgiving angle.

The trick to moving about with a glider drone lies in not attempting to fly backward (which just results in an awkward, animation-less loss of velocity and a change in direction) and in keeping an eye out for strong gusts of wind coming from the roiling fluid underneath you.

You’re not always going to want to fly straight, note. Remnant 2: The Dark Horizon is no less loaded with secrets and extremely well-hidden items than any of its predecessors. Except, this time, you’ll often need a glider to reach certain areas and ledges. So, always keep an eye out for curiously detached cliffsides and glowing doors, as they’ll denote a potential loot spot.

It won’t take very long for you to get used to The Dark Horizon‘s glider drones, but they are somewhat awkward and unwieldy. Yet, the possibility they open up for exploration really makes me wish they were found in the rest of N’Erud, at the very least.