Descent II is a 1996 first-person shooter game developed by Parallax Software and first published for DOS by Interplay Productions. For the PlayStation, it is known as Descent Maximum. It is the second installment in the Descent video game series and the sequel to Descent. The base of the gameplay remaining the same, 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 IIs development started as a project intended to expand the original using a compact disc's storage, which 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. Gameplay Like its predecessor, Descent II is a six-degrees-of-freedom shoot 'em up game in which the player pilots a fighter spaceship from a first-person perspective in zero gravity. It differs from standard first-person shooters in that it allows the player to move freely across three-dimensional planes and rotate on three axes, often termed pitch, yaw, and roll. Besides the keyboard, Descent II features a wide range of supported hardware configurations with which to play it, including the Gravis Gamepad and certain brands of joysticks, some of which support force feedback—making it one of the earliest PC games to support force feedback. Virtual reality and stereoscopic graphics are also officially supported. In the game's single-player mode, the player must complete four levels in each of six differently themed star systems where different types of robots attempt to hinder the player's progress. In each level, the player must find and destroy the mine's reactor and then escape the mine through an exit door before the mine self-destructs. Every fourth level has a boss robot that takes the place of the reactor. Each level is composed of rooms separated by doors, most of which can be opened by shooting or bumping into them. Some other doors are colored