🎮 Is Gravity Rush 2 a Good Video Game to Learn French?
Learning French through video games is one of the best ways to combine pleasure and progress. But not every game works for that purpose. Some are too fast, some have little text, and others lack natural language.
In Gravity Rush 2, you play as Kat, a young girl gifted with the mysterious power to control gravity thanks to her loyal cat, Dusty.
After being swept away into an unknown world, Kat must rediscover her abilities and explore floating cities filled with secrets and danger.
Falling, flying, and gliding through the skies, she fights to free her friends and her clan from the oppression of the powerful, uncovering the truth behind the strange forces that shape this universe.
So, is Gravity Rush 2 a good choice to improve your French?
Let’s dive into it.
🌟 Strengths: Language Learning Potential
One of the biggest strengths of Gravity Rush 2 lies in the way its story is told.
Everything unfolds like a comic book, with speech bubbles popping up during each scene.
That gives you two major advantages as a learner:
The text is simple and accessible. Even if you’ve only been studying French for a short time, you can still follow the dialogues.
You control the pace. You decide when to move to the next bubble, giving you time to read, think, or even take notes.
The vocabulary is mostly everyday French, but you’ll find plenty of idiomatic expressions, things you rarely see in textbooks. For example:
“Tomber dans le panneau” → to fall for it
“Elle va encore me rebattre les oreilles” → she’s going to nag me again
That makes it ideal for the 80/20 rule: you understand about 80 % of the text, and you can easily guess the rest from context.
The side missions are also fantastic for language practice. They use very concrete, situational French you’d encounter early in your learning journey:
going to the market, talking to locals, finding a building with a purple roof, or even selling hot dogs at a stand.
In short, you’re not just reading for fun, you need to understand the French to progress in the game, which makes every mission a mini-lesson in disguise.
🎮 Gameplay: Fun and Engagement
Let’s be honest: if the game isn’t fun, you might as well go back to grammar drills. Luckily, Gravity Rush 2 nails the fun factor.
You spend most of your time flying, falling, and gliding through the air by shifting gravity, it feels incredibly freeing. The gravity mechanics are used in clever ways across various environments: floating cities, deep mines, even sliding along walls and buildings.
According to How Long To Beat, it takes around 20 hours to finish the main story. I’m about four or five hours in, and I can tell you the pacing feels great. If you take your time with the side quests, they’re diverse, sometimes even heart-warming.
The main plot explores themes of corruption and social injustice, while the side missions focus more on the relationships between secondary characters. Simple but charming, they give life to the world and keep you hooked.
⚠️ Weak Points: Where It Falls Short
From a linguistic point of view, the biggest limitation is that there’s no French audio. The developers created a fictional language to make the universe sound more exotic.
That means no listening practice, just reading.
It’s great if you want to focus purely on written comprehension, but it’s still a pity not to hear authentic pronunciation.
Another limitation is accessibility. The game was first released on PS Vita, then ported to PS4. I’m playing it on PS5 via PlayStation Plus, but it’s not the easiest title to find as it is a Playstation exclusivity.
Finally, Sony shut down the online servers. You can no longer share scores or join global challenges. The community side has disappeared, even though the solo experience remains excellent.
🧭 Final Verdict
So, is Gravity Rush 2 a good game to learn French?
Absolutely. It’s relaxing, beautiful, and full of accessible French text packed with everyday expressions you won’t find in your coursebook.
I’d recommend it from A2 level, even if you’ll probably learn some expressions even at a more advanced level.
If you’re looking for a story-driven game that makes learning feel natural, Gravity Rush 2 is a great pick.
And if you’d like to see how I play and analyze games live, join me on Twitch, we’ll learn French together while gaming : https://www.twitch.tv/darv_levelupyourfrench
See you there, and happy learning! ✌️