Greedfall II: The Dying World

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Greedfall II: The Dying World

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Dying...but can still be saved

EA SCOUT the last line of defense for buying on Steam's Early Access

Early Access


Greedfall 2: The Dying World flew under the radar for me until about 2 weeks until its release into Early Access. I played a little of the first and enjoyed it, but never finished it due to a busy schedule. When I heard of Greedfall 2, and how it is directly inspired to one of my favorite game – Dragon Age Origins, I found myself suddenly on the hype train. Now let's see if Greedfall 2 is worth the ticket price or if its a actually just a train wreck.

Acting as a prequel to the original Greedfall, The Dying World sets up an interesting narrative in the world of Gacane. While the first instalment found you travelling away from what is essentially Europe to the new world of the Americas, the prequel flips the roles and you're now essentially a native travelling to Europe but through a fantasy lens. These are not Native Americans nor Europeans, mind you, but are what seem to be part of the template that inspired the games world and narrative. I found this immediately more interesting than the first primarily for the characters motivation, as having your land desecrated and your people kidnapped and torn from their family is an extremely compelling narrative. I also fully understand that this is a weighty topic and one that a video game will probably miss the nuances of, but at least it was trying. The narrative is interesting, but what about the gameplay?

Combat


If you played the original Greedfall, then you might be surprised to see the drastic change in combat. Forgoing the more action style combat of the first, The Dying world adopts a more turn-based system, allowing, ideally, for more strategic maneuvering during combat. It's not completely turn-based like Baldur's Gate 3, but instead feels more akin to an MMO that allows you to pause during a battle to select attacks when you're overwhelmed. I'm no stranger to MMO's, having extensive time spent in both World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV but, at the moment, Greedfall 2's combat doesn't share their flow nor their user-friendliness. Once a new skill is learned, the game requires you to bring up the combat bar, then enter the "assign to toolbar" screen, select the new skill and then map it to your combat bar. It's been more than a decade since games have automatically assigned your newest skill to the nearest open slot on your combat bar. Companion AI is close to brain-dead, and will often times bare the full force of an enemies AOE (Area of Effect) attack that can take out 1/3rd of their HP. There's also a stamina-like system during combat that allows you to do any attack that isn't the auto-attack, but it drains extremely fast and it's regeneration is slow to non-existent, so you'll have have to rely on potions mid-battle if you intend to do any sort of real damage. This can easily be remedied by removing the stamina system altogether and replacing it will a cool down timer on attacks.



The most egregious roadblock I found in my desperate quest to enjoy my time with the Early Access version of Greedfall 2, was during an early boss fight. Now, glitches and bugs are to be expected when it comes to games in general, but especially in Early Access games. Typically I find them quite charming. I saw my fair share of miners breaking rocks using what I assume is the force while their pickaxes hang idly by on their backs, or blood shooting out of my player character's chest while in mid conversation with an NPC, and I laughed along, enjoying the ride. The roadblock came during said boss fight with a giant crab elemental. My first fight with it had one of my companions fall through the floor, while my other companions just took full force the monsters hits – leading to them being knocked out and the only one who can revive them falling somewhere through a technicolor limbo. These things happen and, although frustrating, I reloaded my save and tried to move on. Second attempt went a little better, I manually moved each character out of the way of the big attacks, made sure each character stayed healed and had full stamina, and chipped away at the overgrown crustaceans health bar. Around 1/4th of the health bar left to go and something happened – another companion fell through the floor. No big deal, we were doing relatively well, we just had to push it a little further and... we're not doing any damage. The crab is frozen in spot, cycling it's idle animation, and none of my character's can lock onto it anymore. So after some trial and error, I do the only thing I can do, I leave the area. Once far enough away we disengage in battle, and, because I actually want to proceed through the story, I try to head back and (hopefully) continue the fight. I'm able to lock on again and do damage, but the crab isn't fighting back. It's a little unfair, but my plan is just to get past it and move on with the game. Suddenly, the crab just starts... walking away. I assume he's had enough of my shenanigans and decided to leave. Once he reaches the wall of the cave we've been fighting in, the game crashes and I lose my patience.

I've unfortunately had my fair share of problems with the quests as well. For example, one quest needed you to find treasure for these mercenaries that have a fellow tribesman held hostage. They'll trade us him if we can find them some sort of rare treasure. Easy. I followed the map to the whereabouts the treasure should be, finding various items and objects, helping NPCs, and fighting ruffians and roustabouts aplenty, but no matter how hard I looked I was never notified that I had anything that the mercenaries wanted. I, for the first time in a long time, had to find a walkthrough to inform me that I already had a few items the mercenaries would want, and I found them almost immediately.

Potential


I desperately wanted to enjoy my time with Greedfall 2: The Dying World, as there's so much potential. I wholeheartedly did not want to go into this review with negativity, as I enjoy most of what the developer Spiders creates. There's so much potential here, it just needed more time to bake. As of right now, I can only suggest picking up the game if you're a diehard fan and want to support the further development of the game, otherwise wait until it's finished.


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The game has potential, but we're not ready to jump in with both feet. If the game interests you, look, but don't touch - yet.

Hooked Gamer's Steam Early Access forecasts are intended to help you differentiate between Early Access games that have the potential to blossom and those more likely to fail. We look at the team's ambitions, their track record, and the state of the latest build to predict if opening your wallet will help fund a potentially great game, or is better used to light other fires.