HIGH Excellent worldbuilding. Engaging combat. Fantastic art direction.

LOW Frequent crashes and freezes, slow loading screens. Sparse, unpopulated areas.

WTF The way Vrann says “faces” sounds an awful lot like “feces.”

From the moment I stepped foot into my first dungeon, I was fully immersed in Questline’s Tainted Grail — a dark fantasy take on what can best be described as a “Scrollslike” due to its Elder Scrolls-adjacent gameplay with lore that borrows concepts, places and characters from the Arthurian mythos.

The adventure begins on the Island Asylum. It’s a vast, cavernous compound run by Red Priests who treat their inmates much as inquisitors would heretics, subjecting them to the rack and other means of torture as well as experimenting on them with an otherworldly force known as the Wyrdness.

Once the player finishes creating their character from a disappointingly short list of customizable features, a guard will approach the cell and ask them a series of questions to determine how they landed themselves in the dungeon. The player’s class is based on how they choose to respond. For instance, responding with “I was hunting” granted me the Ranger class, deadly with a bow and arrow.

After the player has been freed from their cell by a mysterious NPC, they’re free to explore the linear but dynamic dungeon where they’re presented with many opportunities to lockpick or crawl through tunnels. Along the way, they’ll encounter cells containing inmates afflicted by the Red Death (a plague with mysterious origins) who share some juicy lore bits with the player. There are also back rooms where they can beat down Red Priests and acquire loot before finally escaping and boarding a ship bound for the shores of Avalon.

This process of effectively rolling a character followed by the trope of escaping from a dungeon and setting out on the main quest will be familiar to longtime CRPG players. The similarities between Tainted Grail and The Elder Scrolls series in particular are countless, but more significant are the similarities in gameplay, worldbuilding and level design — and arguably, it improves on all three.

The gameplay is largely the same (first-person ARPG with the option to toggle third-person on and off) but the movement in Tainted Grail is surprisingly fluid and responsive, even on mouse and keyboard. The inclusion of mechanics like parrying and dodging, as well as a wide variety of interesting spells and powerful weapons — all equipped with light, heavy and charged attacks — make combat equally challenging and rewarding.

Things like upgrading weapons, using skill and ability points to buff the player’s build and gaining passive XP (the player can boost their agility level just by running) all manifest in a similar way to Scrolls but there are enough differences to function as quality-of-life updates to the formula established by Bethesda.

Being able to chop wood, dig for treasure, fish, mine for ore, forage for mushrooms, cook various dishes and brew potions (as one can also do in Scrolls) makes the resource-gathering aspect of Tainted Grail a bit more lifelike, although the places where one can handcraft weapons and armor or chop wood on chopping blocks were a little too rare.

The open world aspect of Grail was also a significant strength, as I felt like I could look at practically any distant point on the horizon and eventually be able to make my way to it. There always seemed to be a new path to explore, whether tucked away in a forest, in a cavern, or hiding in plain sight. If I got frustrated with an area, I could easily fast-travel somewhere else.

The level of creativity that’s gone into the art direction is remarkable, from the Giger-esque Archspires to vast highlands that rival the verdant beauty of Scotland. Speaking of which, it’s apparent that much of Grail is influenced by ancient Celtic culture — hence the presence of druids.

The druids were easily my favorite NPCs because of their many idiosyncrasies, such as one named Therrov who dabbled in alchemy but consistently botched his potions with one particularly humorous result: I had my PC imbibe one of his potions which caused his speaking voice to sound like a chicken until the effect finally wore off.

I felt rewarded by their change in demeanor as they went from being hostile to warm and appreciative once I helped their comrade in a quest, and I also admired their fierce loyalty to each other (mostly) in the face of total annihilation, as they were hounded by both the Red Priests and a certain Knight of the Round Table. Some of their lines of dialogue doubled as compelling lore dumps and heart-wrenching soliloquies about genocide, thanks to Grail‘s excellent writing and exceptional voice acting.

Though it was satisfying to continue to meet NPCs, explore the world and fill the map in, there was a point at which I felt Grail start to lose its magic — and partly, it was due to technical issues.

The concept art featured in the loading screens is gorgeous and horrific in equal measure, but one can only look at it for so long before the length of the load time erodes any enjoyment of the piece — and Grail‘s loading times are long. I would watch the clock as seconds turned to minutes, the pause in gameplay long enough to make me want to check my phone, and even after looking at emails and such, the game would still be loading.

Worse, nearly every time I tried to boot Tainted Grail up, it would either crash or take a lifetime to verify the integrity of its files. On a recent attempt, I had to download the latest patch (which took only a minute or two to install) but then had to wait for almost a half an hour for the integrity of the files to be verified before it finally started… and then immediately crashed.

The developers are clearly trying to address many of these issues by fixing bugs and adding slight changes and modifications, but the patches never seemed to do quite enough. Even after downloading the latest patch, I would run into weird glitches such as the afterimage of my short sword cutting in and out after sheathing it to enter dialogue. There’s also often stuttering in higher-density areas and sometimes combat will cause the game to freeze, which is especially frustrating during a boss fight.

All this leads me to say that I think that Tainted Grail could have benefited from more time in development even though it had already been a couple of years since the demo dropped. Though it often stumbles over the technical weight of its own creative ambition, Tainted Grail has the makings of a phenomenal RPG — but readers just might want to hold off until that weight has been lifted.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon — PC

Disclosures: This game was developed by Questline and published by Awaken Realms. This game is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBS/X. It was obtained via the publisher and reviewed for PC. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the campaign mode. The game was not finished. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is not yet rated but it’s a dark fantasy RPG so one can expect a high level of graphic violence and gore, foul language and disturbing imagery.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for dialogue but no visual cues to warn the player of incoming attacks from the side or from behind, which makes it not fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Tainted Grail Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Exploring an open world that was made with passion and densely packed with content.

LOW Some bugs, old and new, rear their ugly heads.

WTF Why are the atronachs so hot?

I was born 30 years ago, and for four of those years, I have reviewed titles here at GameCritics — but during all that time, I have never played the original Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

That admission is perhaps a bit surprising, since I’ve played every singleplayer Elder Scrolls RPG that has come out after 2006, which is… just Skyrim, but also every Bethesda Fallout, and these are essentially post-apocalyptic versions Elder Scrolls, for better or worse.

In any case, I enjoy open-world games greatly when done right, and what better excuse is there to check off a game from my backlog than a fresh remaster? I’ll begin with items specific to the remastered version.

The most obvious changes are visual. An incredible level of detail has been added to textures and lighting throughout, which can look impressive on hardware capable of rendering the higher-level settings. Even at low settings, many details from the 2006 version have been modernized, from the rigging of facial models to the (seemingly obligatory) desaturation of colors from the original.

As for performance, I played on two different setups.

On the Steam Deck, it held an average framerate of ~40fps on low settings and struggled to hit 30fps consistently on medium settings, with heavily forested areas hitting the system especially hard. On my PC, running with a 2080, it managed a steady 60 in most situations with a mix of medium/high settings. I only experienced one crash during nearly 30 hours of play — one freeze on a loading screen.

Bugs were not too common, but they were… present. Most of the ones I encountered were visual, but one did affect a main quest and effectively froze progress until I looked up what I was supposed to do next –this specific bug was apparently present in the original. Besides these few bumps, I had a fairly smooth experience that let me become engrossed in the world, easily losing track of time.

For those who want more than the lowdown on the performance bump, Oblivion opens with the player trapped in a prison cell, being goaded by a fellow inmate. The player then gets to make their avatar, who is fully customizable thanks to a fairly robust character creator with many choices, both visual and with those that pertain to gameplay, such as various racial options, each offering different boons and drawbacks.

The introduction plays out with an escape through the sewers as the player fights everything from rats to elite mage-assassins. At the end of this tutorial, the player is released into the world and told very explicitly that they can pursue the main quest or whatever else they want, and the adventure’s design embraces and supports this player freedom.

For example, dungeons and ruins are almost never linear paths, but instead winding labyrinths that can be completed via multiple routes. The experience system encourages players to find their playstyle by rewarding them based on the skills they use. If one uses bladed weapons, then the Blade skill will level up, and so forth. Many skills not tied directly to moment-to-moment action-oriented gameplay, such as lockpicking or speech, offer engaging interfaces that ‘gamify’ the experience.

I did discover some oddities during my time with Oblivion. Shopkeepers have a listed supply of gold (much like in Bethesda’s other RPGs) but the number does not change no matter how much I buy/sell, and I am under the impression their gold supplies are infinite. Followers have limited behavior options and sometimes choose odd pathfinding or will arbitrarily decide to wait at a location and need to be found and told to follow again. I am unsure if these are instances of bugs or perhaps idiosyncratic NPC behavior, but things like this did not substantially impact my experience.

In fact, that sort of oddness found in these characters and the larger world around them are incredibly charming. The world is densely packed with things to do and places to explore, unique quests were easy to come by, and if I ever saw a place and thought “that looks interesting,” I could go there and find out that it usually was.

This fresh version of a beloved adventure from the 2000’s is as good as it ever was, and those (like me) who have yet to make the journey will find it well worth the time, even all these years later.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Buy ES IV Oblivion Remastered – PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game was developed Virtuos and Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is currently available on PS5, XBO/X/S, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC and Steam Deck. Approximately 27 hours were devoted to the game, and it was not completed. This is a single-player-only title.

Parents: This game has received an M rating from the ESRB and contains Blood and Gore, Sexual Themes, and Violence. From the ESRB: “This is a role-playing game in which players assume the role of an escaped prisoner navigating the world of Tamriel. As players explore open-world environments, they can perform various quests that guide and impact their character’s storyline. Players use swords, arrows, and magic attacks (e.g., fireballs, blasts of ice) to kill various enemies (e.g., rats, monsters, human soldiers and bandits). Combat is highlighted by cries of pain and frequent blood-splatter effects. One sequence depicts a room with assorted limbs, torsos, organs, and heads among blood-splattered walls/floors. Dialogue and game text contain some sexual material (e.g., “It was no secret that they were all prostitutes, and after the March and the Flower Festival that evening, they would be available for more intimate business;” “She…raped their men as cruelly as [he] had ravished her;” “Remember when you thought [he]…was hiding being every tree with lewd intent, intent on making you…into his personal sex slave?”).”

Colorblind modes: There are no colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles are available for all dialogue and the text can be resized. There are some sound cues during a few puzzles and combat that have no other tells, visual or otherwise. This means that this game is not fully accessible.

Controls: Controls are fully remappable.

The post The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Goodbye “Quests”, hello “Leads”!

LOW Shallow gameplay mechanics.

WTF They “say less is more” but isn’t it too little!?

Atomfall is Rebellion’s timely break from the Sniper Elite franchise.

Officially called a first-person survival actioner, this work of historical science fiction is a reasonably-sized double-A project that does not want all of a player’s time and attention, instead offering a short, mysterious adventure filled with conspiracies and moral dilemmas.

Atomfall‘s story is set five years after the UK’s (real life) Windscale Fire nuclear incident of 1957. In this alternate take, a military quarantine protocol is enacted and players control of someone who’s had an accident that left him unconscious for five years. Upon waking up, the protagonist discovers that he’s lost his memory and now must find the truth behind the incident and a way out of the quarantine that’s been in effect for all this time.

Atomfall is played from a first-person perspective, and employs stealth and shooting elements. In the early stages, firearms and bullets are rare and combat is mostly focused on melee. Later on, different types of firearms such as revolvers, marksman rifles, and bows can be acquired through looting, exploration, or trading. The world consists of four areas that are connected through a hub-like facility called The Interchange. Different factions reside in each part of the world, and as one might expect, the factions can consider the player either friend or foe based on their choices.

Atomfall can largely be seen as two halves — the gameplay and the narrative.

Though there is a barebones skill tree that improves combat, stealth, and survival capabilities of the player, it doesn’t provide any active special abilities. As such, Atomfall largely plays the same at the end as it does at the beginning, resulting in the combat and stealth feeling shallow, especially since the mechanics (in general) are on par with something from the early 2000s.

For example, players can crouch or hide in bushes to prevent being detected and to take out enemies silently from behind but that’s all there is to it. The awareness of enemies is also incredibly high, which makes it nearly impossible to stealth without it eventually turning into a shootout. The same goes for combat. Melee is tanky and slow because there’s no dodge or deflect, and shootouts are all about hiding behind a rock and returning fire. There are no cover systems or special abilities to add depth or strategy to any of the action. In fact, the only good thing about combat is the weapon variety and the ability to upgrade later in the campaign, increasing a weapon’s stats and their looks.

With such straightforward action, Atomfall‘s narrative and story are certainly its strongest suits, and to be fair, its opening is a good one — imagine leaving an underground bunker, suffering from amnesia and the very first thing in view is an atomic powerplant on the horizon surrounded by strange cyan auroras. Before that sight can be properly digested, a nearby payphone rings and a monstrous voice on the other side requests the death of someone called Oberon! Just five minutes into the experience we’re already faced with so many questions — what happened to that powerplant? Who is Oberon? Who are these people living in this mess? And what is my role in it? Mystery is a classic way to kick off an adventure, and the team at Rebellion have nailed it.

Atomfall also tries to redefine the notion of quests and rebrands them as “leads” — and they don’t start and end in a traditonal linear way. Some of the leads players find at the beginning of the story will continue to get updated until the very end. Sometimes finding an object updates the log for multiple leads and adds entries about them. Every lead might be as important as the next, and players will find themselves in a web of interconnected leads whose value and importance are sometimes revealed only after their conclusion.

Further, Atomfall doesn’t believe in handholding when it comes to exploration and lead design. Players must follow visual clues such as a bloody set of footprints that lead to a waterfall to find a hidden cave behind it. Such do-it-yourself encounters are the basis of exploration which might result in finding rare resources, weapons, quest items, or more leads.

While Atomfall‘s ending isn’t a top-notch example in the genre, it is highly reflective of the choices players make and their interactions with NPCs. Supporting characters met along the way are well written and each have characteristics that make them feel like unique human beings with agendas and aspirations, and very often they’re in contrast with what someone else wants — for example, one might be focused on accepting what’s happening in the zone, another NPC asks you to fight against the odds, while yet another might suggest jumping ship and leaving everyone else to their fate. Credits will roll accordingly.

Atomfall is ultimately what I call a “chimera” game — it incorporates elements from different genres, but keeps their influence on a surface level. It has resource management and crafting mechanics of classic survival titles, multiple endings and choice-related story and gameplay outcomes akin to classic RPGs, and an emphasis on exploration usually seen in action-adventure counterparts. These are all good things at first glance, but the lack of depth in most regards makes it hard to recommend to dedicated genre fans while also making it relevant to any discussion on traditional boundaries of defining genre.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Buy Atomfall: PC – PS – XB

Disclosures: This game is published and developed by Rebellion. It is available on PC, PS4/5, and XBO/X/S. This copy was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 14 hours were spent in single-player and the game was completed. There is no multiplayer.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M for Blood, Language and Violence. The site reads: Battles are highlighted by gunfire, cries of pain, and blood-splatter effects. Players have the ability to attack/kill bystanders and civilians, snapping their necks and/or slashing them repeatedly, with large blood-splatter effects. During the course of the game, players can encounter bloodstained corpses and/or blood on the ground. The words “sht” and “prck” appear in the game.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are not present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles and visual options available in the game, all of which can be adjusted. There were no audio cues of note. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Atomfall Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Effective world-building and imaginative game design.

LOW Gameplay and visuals lack variety. Some pretty egregious bugs.

WTF Money floating around waiting to be pilfered is truly the stuff of fantasy.

Dread Delusion is a delightfully retro open world first-person CRPG for fans of The Elder Scrolls or King’s Field series but with a much weirder, trippier look and feel.

Many CRPG veterans will applaud the sole developer at Lonely Hellplace, James Wragg, for his commitment to replicating the sort of graphics, combat, lore and music they associate with the genre while lending it a more modern sensibility and quality-of-life improvements, whereas newer players might be annoyed by the foundations being laid in old-school game design.

The early access version of Dread Delusion has been out for about two years and received mixed reviews, but the publisher, DreadXP, has now released the full version including new areas, NPCs, creatures, side quests and a long-awaited ending to the main quest.

The adventure starts as the player wakes up in a cell and chooses their stats and background by answering some questions to determine what kind of character they want to be. Sadly, there is no opportunity for cosmetic customization, as the player never sees their character.

After choosing my stats and corresponding backstory, I was released from prison — but not before an “Inquisitor” made me a “Confessor,” forced to do penance for my crimes by suppressing Wikkan (worshippers of the old gods) activity throughout the land and ultimately, stopping the most wanted mercenary captain, Vela Callose of the Dark Stars, from bringing an end to the Apostatic Union.

For an organization that is so tough on crime, the Apostatic Union is surprisingly lax about the level of supervision that should be required to make sure their prisoners stay in line, because from that point on I had free reign to go wherever and do whatever I wanted in the world — and what a vast, fascinating world it is.

The Oneiric Isles (an archipelago of sky islands) are home to a plethora of strange flora and fauna scattered throughout various regions that the player can explore. Most of the NPCs are strange too, stricken by famine or madness as a result of dabbling in the occult or taking too many magic mushrooms.

During my first mission set in a castle, I came across artillery weapons that had fallen into disrepair, documents that were scattered on desks detailing what had happened to the land, and other artifacts from a war between the humans and gods. As I fought my way up to the battlements, its roots in older games made it feel a bit like stepping into an old pair of shoes, but the combat using a rusty sword I received at the start was too simple. After a few quests, I found a spell that allowed me to return to my last save point, which proved useful whenever I ran low on stamina or health potions.

In every town I explored, there seemed to be a treasure trove of lore (and sometimes a literal treasure) waiting to be unlocked via the dusty tomes found in the world, and NPCs who were more than happy to tell me anything I needed to know — and often, many things I didn’t need to know. Such opportunities for learning more about the world of Dread Delusion should be especially satisfying for lore-curious players.

In the open areas between quests, I encountered many foes — some of which felt totally original, like the autonomous cannon enemy in the Clockwork Kingdom (an industrial dystopia dominated by machines that warrants its own game) and I especially liked the disturbing “goblin” enemy I found near Hallow Town. It was a furry blue creature wearing a red mask that rests above its gaping mouth, but the mouth is located in the center of its chest.

Later in my playthrough, I started traveling by airship so it was exciting to find that the adventure was not limited to the sky islands — there was an entire overworld (known as the “under lands”) still left to explore below.

Maybe I’m seeing things through rose-colored glasses but looking back on my own experiences with a few of those games in particular, I remember how eager I was to explore all the curious landmarks dotting the horizon and how fascinated I was by all the lore that informed what I was experiencing along the way. Dread Delusion never quite managed to trick my brain into believing that the world it depicted was real in the way that the best CRPGs manage to do — through careful, consistent world-building coupled with enchanting visuals — so I never felt nearly as invested in turning over every stone the game had to offer.

Technically, there were moments when things stuttered or glitched out (in one extreme case, the entire island disappeared from under me) which reflects the jankier elements of the CRPGs I grew up with, but it’s much less endearing when considering that it was released in 2024, not 2004. I also abandoned several quests because I had accomplished the objective, but the game didn’t recognize it. It would then fail to give me the next objective, or just not show that the quest was completed.

Like many CRPGs in the past, it’s likely that I will never beat Dread Delusion and I’ll be totally alright with that. Still, I’ve largely enjoyed my time in its world and I look forward to exploring more of it because to me, open world games are (and always have been) more about the journey than the destination — and I suspect the developer behind Dread Delusion would wholeheartedly agree.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Disclosures: This game was developed by Lovely Hellplace and published by DreadXP. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher. Approximately 10 hours were devoted to the single-player mode. The game was not finished. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The game is not rated through the ESRB. This game is set in a dark fantasy world where players will fight monsters and some humans using weapons and spells but there is no gore. Beer is a usable item and players can ingest psychedelic mushrooms, both of which can induce a drunken state. NPCs will sometimes use expletives in their dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no voiced lines in the game, it’s all text. There are no audio cues. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: The controls can be remapped.

The post Dread Delusion Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

In 2009, my future wife (then girlfriend) got me the best present I had ever received – a PS3. I did not deserve this present. I was a 30-year-old man who was a walking collection of red flags. My shelves were milkcrates. I had recently gotten out of a long-term relationship. My employment history was heavy on “barista” and “dog walker” and light on “jobs that provide health insurance and lead to lucrative careers.”

Dragon Age: Origins had just come out. Having grown up on Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, I was a bit of a lapsed gamer but occasionally checked in on the medium from afar. I lacked a computer or a console at the time but the gift of a PS3 solved the problem, and before I knew it, my girlfriend and I were playing Origins over the holiday break. My idle curiosity transformed into deep obsession.

When Dragon Age II released in 2011, the pivot to more action-focused gameplay irritated me, initially. Despite two years as a console gamer, I had yet to truly embrace twitchy titles, but DAII won me over despite its gameplay, mechanics, and obviously rushed state. In fact, the most compelling things about DAII were its inner contradictions. There was the game it wanted to be, and then there was the game it was. The inspirations of the series were still being worn on its shoulders, even when the work itself seemed to have different goals.

The big epic adventure of Origins had given away to a smaller, personal story about a refugee and his merry little band of bisexual weirdos. I loved it, and these internal tensions made it infinitely more compelling than its predecessor. Despite some egregious plot and story choices (why is every mage a secret blood mage who turns into a demon even though the text clearly wants to recognize mages as normal, decent humans?), Dragon Age II is easily my favorite in the series.

As we come into the era of The Veilguard, I can’t help but notice the discourse – the myriad of reactions to the trailer and a completely different set of reactions to the gameplay demo. The “Baldur’s Gate 3 is what I wanted from Dragon Age 4” hot takes giving way to the “Hah, you never REALLY liked Dragon Age at all if you wanted Baldur’s Gate 3 to be Dragon Age 4” backlash felt so… scripted. We’ve seen this
before. We see it a lot. This is what fandoms do now.

Ten years of expectations — bottled up and suddenly spilling out. Ten years of nostalgia to file off the sharp edges and smudge Vaseline on our memories. Plus, just for kicks, ten more years of videogames (and entertainment writ large) culture trying desperately to make products out of art.
 
What we expect from our art and entertainment says a lot about us, but how we react to our expectations not being met says even more. I would argue that expecting a toaster to toast bread is reasonable, but expecting a creative work to cater to your every specific desire and preference is not. Getting profoundly mad about either isn’t great behavior, but I have more space for folks who are angry at the toaster not working.

Keep in mind, there’s a lot of potential joy in art and creative works not giving you what you want. Some of my favorite moments as an audience member in a theater or as a videogame player on my couch have come from having to sort through my feelings about what I was experiencing. The toxicity we see in gaming from (ostensible) fans is based in a narcissistic impulse — people getting angry at even the slightest perception that something might, in fact, not just be for them. This is why the Worst People You See Online are yelling about jawlines or whining about Rook’s merry band being composed entirely of pansexuals.

This is why we can’t have nice things!

Of course, I’m not saying all preferences are bad or that all discourse is useless. Preferences are fine and good! Talking about things is healthy.

If you go to a horror movie to be scared and the movie doesn’t scare you, it’s normal to have feelings about that. Talking about it with other folks might help you better understand what the movie was doing and engage your brain in a healthy fashion, even if you end up, ultimately, still not liking that flick. It’s also okay to have a general preference for an idea or mechanic, absent any specific context. I like turn-based combat. Dragon Age has never had that, but I tend to enjoy it! With that said, having preferences and discussing them is a far cry from the kind of toxicity we’ve now grown used to seeing on the reg.

Algorithms have spent years conditioning us by rewarding anger and outrageous behavior, and an abundance of right-wing reactionaries are desperately trying to control art and culture – areas they have historically failed at influencing because they’re more interested in the politics of grievance than noticing and processing things that might be beyond their own personal experience.

Another driver of toxicity is that the horrors of the world are overwhelming right now. It’s almost too big to wrap our feelings around, so, instead, we feel very deeply about things that are easier to hold in our heads — like a videogame franchise. Throw in the collective trauma of a global pandemic and huge problems coming on the horizon, and we’ve got ourselves a nice little despair stew. It makes total sense that, amid all of this, feelings of people losing ‘control’ over their favorite series would be weaponized.

I don’t think any one way to be or any one set of actions can solve the problem of gamer toxicity, because the toxicity of fandoms is a symptom of larger cultural forces that require a myriad of solutions to overcome. But I do know that, as an individual, I can acknowledge my own specific set of expectations and preferences.

I’m going in to Veilguard open and graciously ready to receive whatever the creative team has put together, no matter how I ultimately end up feeling about it. Frankly, if it upends my expectations and challenges my preferences, that’s probably a positive sign. I’ve enjoyed plenty of things that were exactly what I wanted them to be, but I’ve only ever been transformed when I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone and I let go of my expectations.

This openness is key because art’s ability to make unseen things – new ideas, new perspectives – accessible is one of the greatest things about it, but we aren’t going to see any of it if we’re busy yelling that things are ‘different’ than what we got last time. We need to be strong enough to actually look, which is hard to do since we live in a terminally-online society that rewards being fragile, closing your eyes, and doubling down on rage.

Change is scary, but it’s also inevitable. Maybe that’s the disconnect. This resistance to change – this nostalgia – is a trick we play on ourselves to say, wasn’t there a time when things were fine? And wouldn’t we rather go back to that time instead of wrestling with the horrible things happening right now?

Sometimes I think about what I’ll be nostalgic for from this era. I can easily imagine taking a swig from my last container of water during triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures and desperately wanting to relive that quaint, cool summer of 2024 when temperatures were mostly 80s and 90s, I played the Elden Ring DLC and got excited about Veilguard.

Hopefully, it will be a pleasant sort of nostalgia, not one that drives me to post rant after rant online, but something to keep in mind is that too many fandoms today are prone to unhealthy engagement, and our society is too broken to fix it easily. All we can do, as individuals, is to love loving things and practice being open to the new. A healthier relationship with art could translate to a healthier society because it means understanding who we are and what we want, and also being ready for the inevitable change that’s coming next, whatever it is.

The Veilguard could be a return to form for BioWare. It could be the elegant swan song of the creative team that made it and then got unceremoniously laid off. It could be the best Dragon Age game yet. It could also be a total mess that doesn’t work. Critically, it could be all of those things at once.

…And who knows? Maybe engaging with it will be good practice for approaching the things that actually impact the material conditions of people in our society. Here’s to hoping.

— Rich Lovejoy

The post The Toxicity Of Modern Fandoms: The Veilguard appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Blast through the past

LOW Inconsistent voice quality

WTF …is that monster?

Role-playing games offer players the chance to explore fantastical worlds unlike our own, such as far-off planets in some distant future, or magical realms filled with wizards and dragons. The Thaumaturge does these one better and takes its basic foundation to an even more unusual place for many – Warsaw, 1905.

Although it may first appear to be, this isn’t quite the real world as magic abounds in the form of thaumaturgy – the reading of emotions and thoughts left behind on objects. Practitioners are able to manipulate others through this mastery while also bonding themselves to Salutors, sublimely-designed demons of folklore and mythology that are drawn to the flaws of individuals.

Players take on the role of Wiktor Szulski as he returns home after 15 years in exile. He’s a thaumaturge who was only recently able to gain control over his powers and his first familiar, a Slavic folklore creature named Upyr. Upon his return, he finds his father (also a thaumaturge) has died under mysterious circumstances and is then quickly drawn into a web of conflicts, both personal and political.

That political aspect is integral to the plot as Poland writhes under the boot of the Russian Empire. Revolutionary socialists, the Russian secret police, and real-world historical figures – including Rasputin as a central figure – all have their role to play.

But on a less grandiose level, questlines are typically centered on investigating instances of Salutors feeding on (and taking advantage of) the flaws of individuals. As Szulski, players use the power of thaumaturgy to read traces of thoughts and emotions on objects, figuring out the story of a salutor’s victim before a final confrontation and possible capture of the demon in question. How that plays out will depend on what information the player’s gathered and what they select for dialogue options – and choices actually do matter here.

The game isn’t just text and point-and-clicks, though. Presented in third-person format, The Thaumaturge has a unique turn-based combat system based on timeline “rounds” where certain moves take longer than others, and the player can try to delay or stop the enemy’s forthcoming attacks. 

In battle, players can freely switch between the various demons they’ve collected, and certain enemies will have buffs that can only be curtailed by a specific Salutor. Szulski himself has a limited moveset that can be augmented between battles by selecting additional effects – things like 50% chance to slow an enemy’s attack or 60% to do double damage – that allows for a great deal of customization. 

Will the player focus on dealing more damage? Or how about inflicting the “suffering” status effect that chips away damage every turn from an opponent? All while watching “focus” points, both Szulski’s and enemies’, which if depleted allows for the opposite party to use special high-damage attacks.

Obviously, it’s not all fighting though. Exploration around Warsaw is a key facet, as evidenced by the way experience for leveling up is gained both through combat and by simply interacting with any and every object. Neighborhoods are finely-detailed recreations of luxurious mansions or dirt-road poverty, brimming with NPCs going about daily life with differences depending on what time of day the player visits – there are more drunks perusing the gaslit streets at night, for example. Appropriately, there are dialogues to discover that have no narrative purpose other than immersion into this historical reality, and it all works in setting The Thaumaturge apart from others within the genre – while Szulski’s story and relationships are interesting enough, the real strength here is the setting. 

The known future from actual history also hangs over events, some more explicitly than others. The First World War, Polish independence, and the Russian Revolution all factor in.

While The Thaumaturge offers up a fascinating experience, the experience overall is not without demons of its own.

While every dialogue is fully voiced in English, the quality varies. It’s not just that some lines are poorly voiced, but that delivery can sound tonally inconsistent – some characters come off like they belong in another game entirely. Coming from a Polish developer, though, it could be a very different experience if the player chooses its native Polish for the voice track and follows along with the subtitles.

Finding the right path to pursue a quest is often reliant on a magical guidemarker activated with a button. Following the trail can sometimes feel rote and dull, but there are seldom few alternatives. Yes, it makes sense because the player is following ‘magical intuition’ in the form of this marker, but that means there isn’t typically any in-game logic used to piece a sequence of events together — there’s nothing to do except follow the highlighted breadcrumbs to the next story beat.

Despite these pain points, I found myself very willing to dip back in. I completed the campaign in a first run that took around 17 hours, but got a rather bittersweet ending. The narrative has real tension between the player growing in power and making ‘good’ choices, meaning that certain decisions can come back to haunt the player. For instance, at one point I backed out of a bargain with a character to ensure Szulski picked up a certain salutor, meaning that this same character refused to help when I need them during the final act. I already have a slew of save points at various points, and I plan to check back in to see if I can muster a more positive conclusion.

In a medium full of spaceships and crumbling castles, The Thaumaturge is a singular sojourn to a time and place that many players will be unfamiliar with, presenting a dance through the sights and sounds of a turn-of-the-century Warsaw imbued with magic and terrifying creatures. Backed up by a solid combat system, compelling main narrative and diverging decision points, this supernatural adventure is one well worth taking.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Fool’s Theory and published by 11 bit studios. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 18 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the main storyline was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: At the time of review, this game had not yet been rated by the ESRB. However, the game depicts death, violence (supernatural and with weapons like knives and guns) and swearing. Nudity and blood can be turned off. Supernatural creatures found in the game may scare young gamers.

Colorblind Modes: There is a colorblind mode available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be resized. There are no audio cues or effects necessary to play. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers partially remappable controls. Keyboard controls can be customized but controller controls cannot be changed.

The post The Thaumaturge Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

In this special pre-holiday episode, Carlos is away on assignment so Brad’s holding it down on his own with some terrible poetry and an abbreviated assortment of games, featuring:

Terra Nil

Long Gone Days

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

And more! (But not much more!)

And remember, join us next week for the 2023 GOTY extravaganza in episode 369! NICE!!

You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify!

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

The post SVG 368: The Pod B4 XMAS appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH Incredibly immersive RPG experience.

LOW Persistent technical hiccups.

WTF The game can’t render as fast as my horse can gallop…

Though it caught my attention when it was released back in 2018, I was correct to assume that diving into Kingdom Come: Deliverance would demand a clear schedule. This open-world first-person adventure is a behemoth of an RPG, with a ton of systems to learn before one can truly appreciate it. As such, it’s a rare example of a title that boldly swims against the current, aiming to evolve with the player while never ceasing to offer a huge, fat zero in terms of immediate gratification. Instead, it’s up to us to carve a path through the obstacles and pay attention to the rich world that can actually meet our aspirations.

Set at the start of the 15th century in Bohemia, we play as a young lad named Henry whose destiny soon becomes dominated by the ensuing war between two princes that divide the land, both offspring of the legendary King Charles IV. In the utterly engrossing opening (and tutorial) that exceeds an hour of dedicated play, we glimpse the main foundation of Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s world – we get better only by actually performing the thing we intend to get good at.

For example, leveling the strength stat requires completing laborious tasks, upping agility equals spending more time sprinting, improving horsemanship means we’d have to get a horse first, and so on. Interestingly, gaining levels in any of the dozen categories earns us the right to pick one of the many perks that slowly unfold. Though most of them offer convenient bonuses like being able to carry more items at once or using sturdier lockpicks, some of these cancel each other out — we can either gain charisma bonuses while in the wilds or when in a village, but not both places at once. Regardless, the perks don’t funnel us into a specific ‘build’ due to Kingdom Come‘s fixation on realism above all else.

While it may seem that this attempt at strict realism can only result in a game that steps on its own toes, Kingdom Come: Deliverance wastes no time in becoming a playground for us to find appropriate joy in.

An early lesson comes when Henry’s mom interrupts his wish to sleep ’till noon, so we take control of our slightly-hung-over hero as he tries to explain (or cover for) last night at the bar. In this exchange, I quickly learned to carefully weigh how my answers may sound to the other party, since the NPCs are not simpletons and will make accurate deductions based on what Henry spits out. (Naturally, correctly assessing how to shape the conversation’s outcome will earn the player a level up in the Speech skill tree.)

Once our forgiving mother directs us to speak to our father (the local master blacksmith), Kingdom Come frees us up to tackle the first of the many story quests. Due to plot-related reasons, the passage of time and the day-night cycle are halted at that point, allowing one to wander around the beautifully-realized town of Skalitz, perched atop a small hill next to a narrow river. The quests direct us to haggle with at least three merchants of various guilds, trying to produce a sum of coins equal to what a certain local drunkard owes Henry’s father (but refuses to give to his timid-looking son.)

Personally, I headed to the nearby prairie and collected herbs and flowers, which I later sold to the correct merchant. This raised both my Herbalism and Speech stats. However, Kingdom Come: Deliverance doesn’t hinder the player’s creativity in the slightest. There was nothing wrong with borrowing a few lockpicks from Henry’s mates and breaking into said drunkard’s house to rob him blind. Similarly, there was nothing stopping me from doing a favor for my three buddies before asking them to join me in a hand-to-hand fight against the poor fellow, and looting the key once we knocked him out.

This level of interactivity is the most potent quality that prevents this ambitious title from ever falling prey to mundanity. Supporting it is a superb level of writing, with characters that seem like actual people who can’t help but be themselves, and quests that evolve in organic and logical ways. I often opted to indulge the plea of a mere passerby, only to uncover a long chain of side-quests that took me for a ride.         

One of the biggest highlights I can share without spoiling the story was the time when I had to find a cure for a plague-like curse that had befallen one of the neighboring villages. Trying to uncover the root of the issue meant taking the time to interview all members of the townsfolk that were not yet bedridden. Next, I headed to another, bigger settlement to confer with the scholars before inspecting their library. There, scouring through handwritten parchments that make up the limited medicinal knowledge of the era, I was able to identify what I was dealing with. At least, I think I did? After that, a monk explained how to brew the potion that might cure the ailing villagers, but to do so I had to find an alchemy table and carefully follow his recipe, grinding the herbs and bringing the base liquid to a boil.  

Once I had the potion in my backpack, I went to the village and administered it. Still, I wasn’t sure whether I had chosen the correct medicine for a very long time. Just like in real life, several in-game weeks had to pass (or I had to progress the main quest to a certain point) before Kingdom Come presented the resolution. Until then, all I could do was hope, and that’s what made the whole affair so memorable.

Yet, even if similar adventures that led to mastering pickpocketing, alchemy, and lockpicking were all fantastic quests that demanded incredible nuance, Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s greatest strength lies in its unique combat mechanics. Swordsmanship is so vividly translated here that, at first, I had to get used to swinging or blocking from a first-person perspective – I had to learn how to fight like a medieval knight with a literal hands-on approach.

Just like Henry, I couldn’t hide my utter lack of experience in this area once events began in earnest. Trotting around the woods and stumbling upon a camp of bandits quickly spelled death, and such rapid defeats began chipping away at my spirit. Even as someone who’s platinumed most FROM Software games, I was woefully unprepared for Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s mechanics. Thus, there was no other way to pay back the grinning bandits than to beg one of the men-at-arms to show me the ropes.  

Once he agreed, I spent the next two or three real-time hours in a ring with him, practicing with a wooden sword, shield, ax, mace, and halberd. Though he never hesitated to knock me on my ass, after a while I got the gist and could hold my ground. I noticed how each weapon type differed in speed, reach and stamina consumption. Also, I had to learn how to position Henry optimally before starting the next swinging animation. This gradual change was followed by a feeling of elation and further strengthened my willingness to dig deeper. At the same time, I started paying attention to what type of armor, undergarments, and helmet I wore, since they do impede speed and vision. The result of this invested effort was being able to challenge a handful of bandits and masterfully wipe the floor with them. Pure joy!

While there’s no doubt that Kingdom Come is an incredible achievement, what bogs down the sky-high immersion level of this experience are numerous technical hiccups. Merely booting it up takes full two minutes, and while there aren’t many loading screens after that, the act of reloading a situation to try another approach is far from smooth. On top of that, we can’t even save whenever we feel like it, since creating a separate save file is tied to a drinking mini-game, and doing so in rapid succession will leave Henry in a sorry state.

Similarly, Kingdom Come (on the PS4, the version reviewed) renders at an alarmingly low pace, especially in more populated areas. This didn’t bother me much at first since I expected as much, but after I spent a lot of cash on a heroic-looking white stallion, I was disappointed to witness it galloping through empty streets as the engine struggled to make its assets pop into existence. 

Luckily, such shortcomings don’t mar Kingdom Come: Deliverance’s many strong suits. The historically accurate locations and events paint a somber and genuinely interesting tale of revenge and friendship. The fighting system is so memorable and immersive that it won’t take long before the player starts feeling like Henry and eagerly striving to make a name for themselves. This title certainly takes things slow, but it runs so deep and expands in so many directions at once that it’s hard to label it anything other than a true achievement.

I whole-heartedly recommend it to anyone who might consider themselves an RPG fan.    

– Konstantin Koteski

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Warhorse Studios and published by Deep Silver. It is currently available on PS, XB and PC.This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PS4 Pro. Approximately 80 hours of play were devoted to the game and the game was not completed. This is a single-player only experience.

Parents: This game has received an “M” rating by ESRB, and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content and Use of Alcohol. The official ESRB rating for the core content reads as follows: This is an action role-playing game in which players assume the role of a man on a quest for revenge against invaders in 15th-century Bohemia. From a first-person perspective, players explore open-world environments, complete objectives, and engage in melee-style combat against bandits and enemy soldiers. Players use swords, knives, and bows to kill enemies; large blood-splatter effects occur during combat, leaving blood stains on bodies and the screen. Players can also injure/kill non-adversary characters, though this may negatively affect players’ progress via a penalty system (e.g., fines, jail). A handful of sequences depict additional acts of violence and/or gore: a prisoner executed by decapitation; an eviscerated corpse shown at a crime scene. The game depicts some nude female characters with exposed buttocks and breasts. Brief cutscenes also depict characters engaging in sexual activity: a nude woman climbing atop a man; a man in the background briefly thrusting against a woman–sexual moaning sounds can be heard. During the course of the game, players’ character can consume alcohol, resulting in drunkenness (e.g., screen-blurring effects, passing out). The words “f**k,” “c*nt,” and “sh*t” are heard in the dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I’ve played with the sound turned off for around one hour, and it didn’t hamper my strutting around medieval Bohemia. However, some optional side quests revolve around following sound cues.  The menu text and characters’ descriptions are all easily readable, but much of the in-game banter is hard to parse due to white letters drowning in light-blue skyboxes. This game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: This game does not offer a controller diagram, and the control scheme is not remappable. We use the analog sticks to move and look around. The face buttons are for dodging, crouching and interacting. The bumpers are for combat (light attacks with R1, heavy attacks with R2, L1 to block, L2 to parry).

The post Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Royal Edition Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

It’s a difficult time to be an optimist about space colonization. Even as the possibility of human civilization living beyond Earth’s gravity comes closer, the reality is weighed down by the bleak situation at home. In the end, even optimists must concede that the prospects of living under a distant sun are likely impossible if we can’t solve the problems we have here on Earth — And from the look of things so far, that’s the premise of Iron Tower Studios’ in-development RPG, Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-Playing Game.

Though it’s still in Early Access at the time of writing, Colony Ship immediately stands out, both from other classic-style RPGs and even from Iron Tower’s debut, The Age of Decadence. That said, it carries itself with the same air of weary, decayed cynicism. I say that like it’s a bad thing, but in a medium so drunk on heroism, it’s actually refreshing.

The setting of Colony Ship is inspired by the Robert A. Heinlein story Orphans of the Stars. Published in 1941, it gave one of the first fictional depictions of the “generation ship” concept — a spacecraft constructed to take living humans through interstellar space at sublight speeds. To that end, generation ships house their population for that long, with entire generations living and dying within its hull, in the hopes that their distant descendants will arrive at their destination, hundreds or even thousands of years later.

One can already see the potential for a story in Orphans of the Stars, and by extension, Colony Ship. With so much in a human society capable of changing in the span of a single generation, the chances that a generation ship could even remember its original mission seem laughably slim. What group of people, faced with the prospect of living out their entire lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren aboard an enclosed capsule forever on its way to somewhere else wouldn’t succumb to despair or recklessness?

That’s exactly what happened in Colony Ship. The player’s massive craft has been on its way to distant Proxima Centauri, and things have been off the rails for a long time. The society on board has mutated in ways that nobody could’ve anticipated, and after a violent mutiny, onboard life is riven by factions in an enclosed mimicry of what might happen after an Earthbound apocalypse.

Colony Ship‘s enclosed world is run by three main factions. The Protectors of the Mission are an arch-conservative organization fixated on turning back the clock to before the mutiny broke the former hierarchy. The Brotherhood of Liberty is a fractious democracy descended from the original mutineers, but cracking under the weight of democracy’s impracticalities. The Church of the Elect is a militant religious movement that sees the very journey of the ship to distant Proxima Centauri as a holy ordeal, one that only the chosen will survive.

The three factions (and several more minor ones) drive events as players begin the game in the Pit, an anarchic town belonging to no specific group. It’s here that Iron Tower’s clear love of older, more hardcore RPGs from the days of Fallout comes to the fore. Players are tasked with creating their own character, assigning detailed attributes and skills in a classical “point-buy” system. Like the games of yesteryear, it’s entirely possible to royally mess up a build and render a character unable to accomplish anything, only to then die an embarrassing death from a failed skill check.

Speaking of skill checks, they make up the majority of interesting play in Colony Ship. Old-school challenges like picking locks and dialog challenges are par for the course, and plenty of options are provided for players to work their way through. As a bit of advice for players thinking of jumping in, try not to spec too much for fighting. Perhaps it’s a matter of taste, but I found the turn-based combat system too fiddly and antiquated to hold my interest. Driven by action points and aim checks, I found little joy in trying to empty crude pistols at point-blank range, only to miss and eat a leaded pipe to the face.

With the combat carrying little dramatic weight, I found it more satisfying to play the opening hours as a silver-tongued rogue of sorts. I was capable of talking my way into and out of most situations, and equipped to unlock most doors I came across.

Of course, I folded like origami at the prospect of violence, but that made trying to find alternate routes more satisfying. It also exposed me to more of Colony Ship‘s well-written dialogue and descriptive text. Iron Tower was clearly trying to make an experience in the mold of older RPGs, but perhaps a few hints from newer games like Disco Elysium would help drive home the notion that such combat systems aren’t quite the draw they used to be — at least not playing the way they do in this version of the game.

At the moment Colony Ship isn’t fully complete, but what’s there is well-realized and surprisingly light on technical issues. My one major complaint was a constant skipping I noticed in the background music, which forced me to silence it. Losing the music meant that I could hear every instance where a sound effect was missing or held by some placeholder file, and much of my run felt like I was playing on mute. This is obviously a temporary Early Access issue, and I expect it to be ironed out well before full release.

Colony Ship could be a delightfully gritty RPG experience when it’s complete. Players looking for an old-school, skill-check experience should keep an eye out for its eventual launch.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Iron Tower Studios and published by Nacon. It is currently available for PC. This copy of the game is based on an Early Access preview build provided by the publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 15 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode. There is no multiplayer mode.

The post PREVIEW Colony Ship: A Post-Earth Role-Playing Game appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH It’s more Wasteland 3. That’s great!

LOW Most of the new additions and ideas sound interesting but don’t really work out.

WTF There’s no way to stop companions from slaughtering factory workers?

My verdict on Wasteland 3‘s base game was that it’s pretty incredible. It offers a great story set in a bizarre world with lots of memorable characters, and the solidly engaging battle system on top of it made it one of 2020’s best. When I learned about its first DLC, The Battle of Steeltown, it seemed like a great excuse to hop back in to see how inXile have shaped the game since launch.

Coming back to it after all this time, I found that the various bugs and performance issues I previously experienced were all but eliminated. It was a great experience then, and it’s in much better shape technically now. Wasteland 3 remains one hell of a game, and any role-playing fan who hasn’t jumped yet in should get on it, pronto.

The central location of the Steeltown DLC is a factory which produces the vast majority of Colorado’s weapons and technology — or at least it used to, since it’s recently come to a screeching halt in production. This isn’t a good thing in a world infested with bandits and raiders, so the Rangers get an urgent request from the Patriarch of Colorado to go and see what the hell’s going on.

Upon arriving at their destination, the Rangers are greeted with a chaotic scene. The gates of Steeltown are closed, gunfire and alarms can be heard within the walls, and a large group of angry refugees are demanding the release of relatives who’ve been trapped in the factory for weeks, contradicting the company employee telling everyone that their loved ones are just been doing some very extended overtime.

New to The Battle of Steeltown is a class of less-than-lethal weaponry designed to overload the cybernetic augmentations of workers the player will encounter without killing them. Since the factory workers may be getting a teensy bit exploited, it ‘d be bad form to slaughter them all on the spot. These weapons are a little harder to use than simply shooting someone in the skull, so weighing the additional risk of their use is a consideration during the strategic turn-based battles.

There’s a very strange problem with this non-lethal approach, however — early in the campaign, it’s mentioned that the party’s animal companions will rip innocent factory workers limb from limb if the team gets into combat with them nearby. It’s therefore a good idea to dismiss them back to Ranger HQ’s comfy kennel before things kick off. That’s a great option for any pets on team, but the human, robotic and/or synthetic companions are just as indiscriminately murderous as the animals.

As someone who always strives for the optimal ‘nice guy’ outcome, it’s a little dispiriting to have the Rangers aim to use non-lethal weaponry to bust up a riot, only to see the companion toaster launch flaming toast at a factory worker, or the robot chicken ripping their eyes out with his terrifying chrome-plated beak.

This unstoppable team aggro is a hell of an oversight. Encouraging nonlethal approaches, yet having no way to order squadmates to be dismissed or to stand down seems like a ridiculously obvious problem. I was almost sure I was missing something initially, but a cursory online search revealed other players were having the same issue and I’m sure as hell not killing any of them as a workaround.

Something else that’s questionable is the difficulty of the battles here in Steeltown. It’s been a while since I played through Wasteland 3, but this DLC seems a bit… well, brutal.

This new content features scalable difficulty, so the challenge should theoretically adjust to the team’s current strengths. I loaded an old save and came in at level 25, only to be absolutely steamrolled by the opposition despite having no issues with the main story quests. Some of the new battle mechanics are a little overdone for my taste too, such as the tar-thrower’s stacking movement debuff and the various shields that enemies now employ.

It’s also not the lengthiest DLC. Even after retrying some battles numerous times, I’d clocked it all in the region of four or five hours, and I wasn’t hurrying. Given that Wasteland 3‘s base content was so damn generous, Steeltown does feel a little bit inconsequential, rather than a significant undertaking for the Rangers to get stuck into.

The writing still remains excellent despite these issues. After undergoing a rigged medical to see if our Rangers were suitable job applicants clear to pass into Steeltown, we were given the highly important job of tightening any loose nuts that we might come across and given our own wrench. Sweet! Then there’s the toaster full of toasters, a talking toilet seat that can be used for its original purpose, and various zany moments that help spice things up.

So there are a lot of small, amusing moments scattered throughout, but the main quest doesn’t have much nuance to it — the workers are getting screwed over in Steeltown by the people in charge, and it’d be hard to find anyone who’d seriously argue otherwise. As a result, it’s a very one-sided situation as to who the Rangers should be helping out from an ethical standpoint. That said, this doesn’t mean the Rangers have to be particularly ethical when tidying up this mess. It’s just a bit more cut and dried than usual.

The Battle of Steeltown is a well-written piece of additional content for Wasteland 3 that doesn’t quite live up to expectations due to its experimental approach to combat and short running time. It’s a pleasant enough playthrough for a few hours despite the difficulty spikes, but it’s ultimately a compelling enough reason to come back to Colorado.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by inXile Entertainment. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. 0 hours of play were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language and Use of Drugs.

Colorblind Modes: There are no global colorblind modes available, but there is an option to apply colorblind settings to icons during battle.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles and the subtitles can be altered and/ or resized

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Wasteland 3: The Battle For Steeltown Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.