Greedfall (PC/XBO/PS4) - Sept 10th

[Ganepark32]

 

Greedfall is the new game from Spiders, the developers who made both Bound by Flames and The Technomancer. Both of their previous games are what you'd consider rough games but what's been evident throughout is that there is the potential for something genuinely great from such a small team and with Greedfall, it looks like they may have finally made that step up to the AA tier.

Quote

The Old World is dying. The continent is polluted, overpopulated, and plagued by a deadly, incurable disease. Its weary population grows desperate.

But there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon – an Island, remote and hidden, has been discovered. Teer Fradee... a land spared by the Malichor plague, a haven of life, wild and untampered by mankind. It is the promise of riches, but also represents the best hope for mankind to find a cure to the Malichor. On the hunt for the cure, explore a fresh new world as, alongside settlers, mercenaries and treasure hunters, you set foot on this remote island seeping with magic.

The world of GreedFall and its visual identity draw heavily from 17th century Europe. The architecture, costumes, weaponry, ambiance all take root in this period of history dominated by exploration, scientific discoveries, and booming culture in general.

The world of GreedFall is not entirely down-to-earth. You will explore an immense island seeping with magic. Its lands, inhabited by magic-wielding locales and fantastical creatures, hide countless mysteries and secrets awaiting to be discovered.

GreedFall is an RPG to its core, with an emphasis on freedom in both character development and how you proceed through the world.

Choose your gender, customize your appearance and select a few starting attributes, building from there to create your own playstyle. The classless progression system lets you tap various branches from an extensive skill tree and create your own skill synergies. With over a hundred skills to choose from, along with thousands of combinations of equipment, you forge your very own experience.

Progress and achieve quests in a multitude of different ways, from combat to diplomacy and deception. The way you reach your objectives depends solely on your choices and how you choose to develop your character. The island of GreedFall is a living, ever-evolving world - your actions will influence its course and, ultimately, shape your story.

In GreedFall, situations are not always resolved by spilling blood. The wits of you and your companions are just as important as your prowess with a blade, and wise diplomacy, stealth, science or a well-used skill may negate the need for combat.

The world of GreedFall is home to numerous factions, each with their own beliefs, territories, goals, allies and enemies. You will forge and break alliances, weaving your way through an intricate reputation system. Every decision you make has the potential to please or anger these factions and their leading figures, as well your companions. Your ability to handle diplomatic encounters, the two party members you choose to bring to encounters, and who you will decide to help or fight, will ultimately impact the geopolitical landscape of the island.

There's also a small web series that goes through the games development and other aspects of the game.

Spoiler

Episode 1:

Episode 2:

Episode 3:

 

Not sure if it's of interest to anyone but it's something that's progressively been catching my attention the more I've seen and heard and contemplating picking it up on release. It looks like a mixture of Assassin's Creed and The Witcher, and though there's still a bit of stiffness about the game in terms of characters I think it's looking great and definitely shaping up to be Spiders best game yet. And recent hands on suggest it's shaping up well enough: https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2019/08/19/upcoming-exploration-rpg-greedfall-has-my-attention

[Sméagol]

Never heard of it (or the devs before), but looks interesting.

[drahkon]

 

[Ganepark32]

So it looks as though this might have ended up being a decent game after all. I was a bit sceptical given Spiders previous games haven't been received the best by critics (though The Technomancer seems to have somewhat of a cult following) but the reviews are better than I expected, with the majority in the 7 to 8 out of 10 region and there being quite a lot of 8s overall. Quite a few of the major sites haven't posted full reviews, simply ones in progress but the likes of IGN are saying it's in the 8 area which is a considerable step up for a developer who has around 30 staff or so and who made the game in a €5million budget.

There's clearly a bit of roughness to the game, as reviews talk about re-use of assets and bad lip syncing and such, but they've been pretty complimentary about the quest system and quests in general having an air of old BioWare about them. That excites me as that's the level of depth that's been sorely missing in the genre for a while. The ACG review gave a good and in depth overview I thought and with the general consensus being more positive than anything (there doesn't seem to be any glaring bugs or anything, just some issues with performance on PC going by the Era thread), it seems like it's another to add to the "diamond in the rough" category for this generation.

Curious to try it out myself. Trying to decide whether to grab it or not, seeing as I've got the Switch Lite and stuff next week, but I'll see. Really want to support the devs team as its clearly been a labor of love from them and shoes good growth.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Ganepark32

[Tales]

Didn't even know the game existed until two hours ago, but the first trailer looked interesting, the description below more so, Ganepark citing higher than average reviews and wanting something new to play I picked up the only copy in the city just now. It's installing now, but I'll have to wait to after work to play.

Edited September 10, 2019 by Tales

[Ganepark32]

Ended up picking up a copy for the Xbox One as it was cheaper out of Argos and I've put in about 3 hours of play so far, to the point I've just left the opening city and arrived in the first city on the island the rest of the game takes place on, Teer Fradee.

Out of the gate, I've found it to be somewhat sedate but I imagine that's simply to help get you up to speed with the systems in place and to help get you to grips with combat and the other ways in which you can circumvent combat scenarios in quests. There's a fair bit to take in with the different factions but the story kind of takes a back set in the opening hours but hopefully now that I'm on the island, things will start to move forward there.

I've had my first opportunities with dealing with the different factions and the way the game want you to think about who you're helping and siding with. I had two quests with the factions you meet in the opening city and was able to take care of them diplomatically and in doing so, you can see how the game wants you to think beyond simply brute forcing quests. In completing them, I lost and gained reputation differentially because of how I decided to reproach the people when handing them in which similarly showed that you'll need to have a bit more tact in conversations to keep people on side, provided you of course agree with their beliefs and politics.

That's the part in most excited about now I'm on the island: getting to see how all the politics and diplomacy interacts and how the conflicts arise and can be resolved when you get into the nitty gritty. I've heard it's not so much black and white, like a lot of the BioWare games, but rather it likes to go deep into the grey area so there'll be plenty of thinking before deciding to make sure that things don't go completely the wrong way for me.

The quests I've done so far were pretty interesting in that they were all different and could be approached in different ways, another thing the game gives you the freedom to do albeit with a caveat. Again, I'm interested to see those develop further.

The caveat I mentioned is the as with other RPGs, you level up and get skill points for every level which is fine. But every couple of level you'll get attribute points for things like strength, agility and endurance but these seem to be handed out ever 3 levels or so. On top of that, you get handed talent points every starting at level 5 for every couple of levels and it's with these latter points that you can be restrained in how you complete quests. You can learn lockpicking, science and other things and these will help you sneak into locations for quests. But because, at least with the starting area, you only get the one talent point, I ended up with a quest I couldn't complete because I needed a science talent point to craft an item but I wasn't able to as I'd picked lockpicking to deal with the large number of chests in the opening city.

You can respec but you need a special item and do I had to progress the story without finishing stuff up because of the weird way the hand out different points upon levelling up.

That was my main annoyance out of the gate really. Things like the combat being clunky and the camera being a bit iffy were expected (though I seem to have found a decent compromise for the camera in turning down the sensitivity which is fine for now) and the couple of graphical glitches don't really bother me. It seems to be fine, not amazing but good enough which is what I expected and that's a big step up for Spiders in my eyes as I last only an hour with The Technomancer.

I'm intrigued to play more over the next few days and see more of it and see if it grabs me fully. I can see the ways it'll try to and I'm really interested in seeing how all the factions interact now I'm on the island, especially with how they interact with the natives. It's got the potential, I'll say that, so let's see where it goes but I'm definitely not regretting purchasing it like their last game.

[dan-likes-trees]

Just landed on the island so not too far in yet but generally.. really enjoying this. Nice to see a proper, meaty, serious western RPG - some great touches of old bioware games with the different ways that you can tackle or resolve quests, morally grey options.

 

Definitely easy to see how low budget it is but I'd definitely prefer more games like this than big budget games with crap writing or no soul. Looking forward to playing more!