Focused Gameplay

Unlike prior versions of the game with huge quantities of maps, Red Eclipse 2 focuses on providing the best possible levels to play on, at the expense of map volume. There are seven main deathmatch maps included with Red Eclipse 2 and one race map; this is multiple times fewer maps than RE 1.x has shipped.

There is also a focus on making the core gameplay more accessible to new players, with a tutorial level and interactive setup menu to get players to understand the interfaces of the game better. In addition to this, the user interface has been simplified to get players to quickly be able to play standard modes without having to know too much about the sausage making behind the scenes.

The weapons in Red Eclipse 2 have also been significantly revamped compared to 1.6. While the same number of weapons remain with similar names, the weapons have all been retuned to better suit the changes in physics and the addition of pickups. The inclusion of pickups allows for more potent weapons that can be put at a disadvantage by their ammo dependence.

Steam Integration

Red Eclipse 2 launches from Steam, a platform few open source games manage to launch on (and no prior Red Eclipse game, for that matter). In doing so, Red Eclipse 2 is easier to install than ever and reaches a broader base than the Linux-heavy community that Red Eclipse 1.x drew upon. With Red Eclipse's permissive licensing scheme, the GPL conflicts with proprietary integration do not exist and it is possible to provide a well integrated game with the Steam ecosystem.