"Everyone thought it was hilarious": Remnant 2 makes good on 'git gud' taunt by giving stuck players their "3 orange slices and a participation medal"

Back in August, Remnant 2 principal designer Ben Cureton told the RPG's players to git gud. In response to complaints about the RPG's punishing, accurately named Apocalypse difficulty, Cureton argued that, "it's called Apocalypse. It's not called 'I get 3 orange slices and a medal for participation.'"

Well, folks, Remnant 2 will now give you three orange slices and a participation medal for playing Apocalypse difficulty, and it's one of my favorite Easter eggs of the year. 

As Cureton revealed in a tweet earlier this week: "I may have been too harsh. In the recent update, we made sure players could obtain three Orange Slices and a Participation Medal for playing on Apocalypse. You do not have to own the DLC, you just need to have the latest build." As a kicker, he teased that you can "use them together for an extra buff." 

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The resulting in-game items are Dried Fruit consumables that provide a little bit of healing, and a genuinely incredible amulet called the Participation Medal, which boosts your health and stamina by 10, your movement speed by 10%, and – this is the big one – flat damage reduction by 10%. This is basically two or three decent amulets rolled into a great one. 

Obviously, I had to find out how this joke came together, and how exactly you acquire these things in Remnant 2. 

Cureton tells me that after the great orange slice gag made headlines and spread around the community, "I talked to some of the other people on the team and said 'OK, so what if we DID award a Participation Medal and Orange Slices' and everyone pretty much laughed and thought it was hilarious. I even told [Gunfire Games CEO David Adams] and he laughed about it.

"It wasn't done to be mean-spirited," he says. "In fact, we made the item REALLY good. It ended up being a very useful item that may help you get over the hump of Apocalypse if you may be struggling. It isn't the best item in the game, but it gives you a nice set of stats that can help where other things may not."

The good news, Cureton clarifies, is that you don't have to beat Apocalypse difficulty to get the medal or the dried fruit. That would kind of defeat the purpose of it. Instead – and I find this hilarious – it's automatically given to you if you play on Apocalypse difficulty and die to any world boss or mini-boss a bunch of times without killing it. 

"With that, the game says, 'OK, you get 3 Orange Slices and a Participation Medal,' much like my original quote on Discord said," he explains. 

"What's funny is we never asked anyone to take down the original post," Cureton says of his initial gamer-slapping response. "I think one of the articles somewhat suggested we may have, but it was just a random Reddit user / Remnant fan. No one asked them to remove it. We actually thought it was quite funny because, as I mentioned, people actually supported the message. Even if you take it somewhat out of context (where it reads a bit more 'GIT GUD BUDDY' as opposed to 'look, it's meant to be hard...') the message is still representing a similar concept. Which is, 'YEA, Apocalypse is pretttttttty challenging, at least if you are jumping headfirst without any real planning,' if that makes sense." 

Now, what about the secret combo buff that the oranges give you? It turns out that eating these while you have the medal equipped actually adds a small stat buff to the already statted-out amulet, which sticks around until you die. "So while the consumable itself feels kinda weak (like an Orange Slice after a loss... lol), there's still a benefit," Cureton adds. 

"It's really just for fun. Give players a nice item for their troubles leaning into the joke. We have no problem making fun of ourselves and rewarding the player at the same time, especially those that may actually be in need of it.

"What I find funnier is that some more experienced players look at the amulet and say, 'No way I'm using that!!! I don't need that!!!' However, to get it, they have to die over and over to a boss. I just think the whole thing is funny and the team got a kick out of it as well, especially the positive response players had to the original Reddit post, the news articles, and then the follow-up where we actually gave them the items.

"End of the day, everything we do is for the players. Crazy amounts of items, lots of build customization etc. Part of the joy of developing the game is coming up with crazy secrets (like Archon, for example). Sometimes, like in this case, they kinda write themselves."

Here's how to unlock the Remnant 2 Archon Archetype, which took some real community digging to find and requires extremely specific gear.