Greedfall 2: The Dying World | Early access impressions
I’ll admit to being just a little bit bewildered by Greedfall 2: The Dying World. I’ve stated before that I’m a huge fan of Spiders Studio, a company that I have always believed will eventually put out a masterpiece. With the first Greedfall they almost had it, particularly when it launched on current-gen consoles. They fixed a lot of the jank, refined the combat system a bit, and basically bolstered the foundations of a genuinely entertaining and enjoyable adventure.
And it felt like an adventure, too. From the first few hours before your haughty explorer set sail for the mystical island of Teer Fradee, to the far-reaching consequences of multiple power struggles and poor decisions you made in a snap. It wasn’t perfect, by a stretch, but it was reflective of a company like BioWare and told an interesting story in a cool world.
Greedfall 2: The Dying World spins the narrative around, which immediately feels oddly wrong. The message in the first game might have faltered a little between anti and pro-colonialism, but for the most part it was handled well enough. The Dying World almost feels like too loud an answer to the last game, this time positioning the player as one of the natives fighting against the invaders, with an almost Avatar-esque approach to its plot. The big problem is that it feels way, way less interesting.
I sat bleary-eyed through the opening scenes as characters talked in a made-up language that had almost no flow or form. It’s just a lot of odd words jumbled together, spoken without the right tones or infections, so you don’t get the sense anyone knows what they’re actually saying. There’s nothing emoted or conveyed outside what the subtitles say, which causes an awful sense of dissociation.
Things didn’t improve much when I was invited to take part in a “ritual” that involved beating animals half to death using some uncomfortable hybrid of turn-based and real time combat. It feels something like Dragon Age: Origins’ combat, but that was some time ago, and there’s a reason it hasn’t been done all that much since in the third-person. Greedfall’s combat was clunky in places, but the mix of ranged, magic, and melee attacks and the ability to utilise your party directly felt so much better than clumsily queuing up attacks that go off with a pop and fizzle.
Maybe I’m being harsh on an early access title, but that’s another issue worth examining: I can’t understand why this is in early access. Spiders have an opportunity to listen to the consumer during development, but did the team need that for SteelRising, or the first Greedfall? The studio traditionally makes quite story-heavy games, often with intriguing worlds and backstories. Spiders’ games have a jankiness to them that the fans often accept, if not embrace, and their biggest crime is usually ambition – hardly the worst sin to commit.
Spiders always felt to me like a studio who knew what they wanted to do and pulled the trigger, which made their games feel special. Perhaps the team is trying a new approach here to deliver something that doesn’t have to be launched in such a devil-may-care way, but these guys and gals are veterans now. You’d perhaps expect them to be a little more sure of their product.
Because Greedfall 2: A Dying World doesn’t feel like the product of a veteran studio. And that’s a shame to someone like me who has championed them every release since Of Orcs and Men, and wants to see the developer on top form.
On the positive side, Teer Fradee is still a great place to adventure in. The mix of real world elements and magical tribalism is a heady concoction, the bizarre wildlife and slightly otherworldly topography making it a joy to explore. It’s a shame there’s not more of a catalyst for that exploration. Open world games generally need either a sense of urgency or a sense of wonder. You’re either going after something or you’re heading into the unknown to face whatever you find. Greedfall 2: The Dying World doesn’t really have either.
People are suffering from a mysterious illness that seems to coincide with the arrival of dangerous outsiders, but as a lowly tribesperson with no clout or authority, it kind of happens around you while you do things like complete trials of initiation or wander about looking for quest objectives. A sequel should up the stakes, build on the systems and beats of the original, but Greedfall 2 approaches from a much wider angle. The intention is perhaps to make you feel more a part of this world, so you’re more affected by its slow invasion, which will likely be more keenly felt later. But if that’s the case, a little peril wouldn’t go amiss.
Again, though, this is an early access release. Many of the bugs and texture issues will be fixed over the coming months as the story is fleshed out and features are added or tweaked. I still have faith that Spiders will produce something solid here, but this just isn’t a stellar first impression. As a Spiders fan who loved Greedfall and SteelRising, I know there’s potential in Greedfall 2: The Dying World, but only time will tell if it can make something of it.
Greedfall 2: The Dying World is in early access now on PC via Steam.
