Fellowship
Preview
Fellowship offers something for RPG veterans and newcomers alike...
EA SCOUT the last line of defense for buying on Steam's Early Access
by Dan Lenois
previewed on PC
Looks aren't everything...
Fellowship may visibly look like an old-school MMORPG. It may play like an old-school MMORPG, but that does not make it an MMORPG. This distinction is worth keeping in mind, as many content creators who have quickly picked up the game in the past two weeks have been creating clickbait video titles stirring the MMO community into a frenzy. Fellowship's Steam forums are full of players complaining about the lack of certain MMO features. (As well as the far more inexcusable crime of allowing female characters to exist.)
Having the right gear for the occasion...
As a dungeon crawler, having fun, visually-distinct dungeons is the ultimate make-or-break component here. Grinding your way through dungeons time and time again isn't just encouraged, it's required. While Fellowship does not have a traditional leveling system, it does have a fairly-straightforward gear progression system.
By completing dungeons, players can acquire equippable gear which they can upgrade over time by consuming in-game resources. Most pieces of gear can be upgraded seven consecutive times, up to gear level 8. For every upgrade, the stats associated with the gear, (improving things like your health, armor, stamina, etc.,) will jump in value. However, you can only upgrade your gear so far.
Higher-level gear can be acquired by completing capstone dungeons, which upon completion will unlock a higher difficulty level with correspondingly higher-rarity loot.
With twelve dungeons currently in the game, Fellowship's biggest problem moving forward will be its content offering. Twelve visually-distinct dungeons with their own unique set of enemies, and of course final boss, is no meager content offering right out of the gate. However, even the most committed grinders will eventually get tired without new challenges to face.
Heroes are born; A fellowship is made...
Another area that Fellowship gets mostly right is its lineup of playable characters. As a support main, I experimented with both of the currently-available healers, Sylvie and Vigour.
After about 6 hours on Sylvie, I ended up swapping off, as her passive AOE-focused ability kit didn't feel particularly engaging. Luckily, Vigour fit like a glove. A burst healer at heart, Vigour allowed me to make some game-changing plays, keeping my team alive at pivotal moments, removing negative effects, healing damage, and dealing direct damage to any individual enemy who managed to slip past my tank and DPS teammates. 40 hours in, I'm still just as invested as I was during my first hour as Vigour.
Server failure inbound...
While most modern games experience turbulent day 1 launches, Fellowship is regularly guilty of various server outages and connection errors. It's not uncommon to find yourself unexpectedly booted back to the main menu at least once or twice in any given play session. While developer Chief Rebel has been putting out regular patches containing bug fixes and general improvements, players should expect server stability to be an ongoing issue for the foreseeable future.
Final Verdict:
Fellowship represents the best and worst of Early Access. It offers a fun, innovative concept, backed up by great gameplay, visuals, SFX, and all the other typical earmarks of a good game. Conversely, it's also riddled with bugs, and in need of additional content, as well as other general quality-of-life improvements.
Fellowship has what it takes to one day stand as a Game of the Year contender, with the right amount of effort from its developers, and the ongoing enthusiastic support of its community. Only time will tell if both of these things ultimately prove to persist.
Recommend
There are no guarantees - but we'd bet our own money on this one. If you're going to take a chance with yours, odds are good this one will deliver.
