Greedfall 2: The Dying World Preview

Greedfall 2: The Dying World is the follow-up to the decently received Greedfall, which we gave a 70 in our review. This time with a new publisher (Nacon instead of Focus Entertainment), long-time RPG developer Spiders is trying to build a franchise, with a prequel set three years before the first game. However, a significant number of changes for this early access launch from the first game have me questioning if this is the right path for the series.

You are a native Teer Fradeean, brought to the Old Continent against their will and left within a land of foreigners to navigate your way around the land, dodging political schemes and using them to your advantage. The goal being to take back the freedom that was stolen from you and protect your people.

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The beginning of your journey in Teer Fradee.

It’s hard to judge the story at this point with this early access release as 30% of the final product is here, missing the entire other 70% of the story and world. However, the introductory moments did keep me intrigued, especially during the slow opening quests. Quest design is also strong, opting for less of a directed approach and encouraging you to explore an objective area shown on the map and make the discovery yourself.

But cracks started to show after an hour or two. Those quests and the main narrative during this early access release parallel European Colonialism, and it’s hard to escape that feeling as you are playing. It’s embedded into the DNA of the game. But, as the story progressed, I began to doubt more and more if Spiders and Nacon have the deft touch to be able to pull off a story reflecting these real-life events, as the game feels clumsy with its themes in moments right now.

The game can sidestep it all it wants by putting up a fictional veneer, but a number of dialogue moments and questionable character interactions made me raise an eyebrow or two. In particular, it can feel like the Greedfall 2 was made in a vacuum, not drawing upon consultations, opinions, and perspectives from experts in this area of history, leading to some of those key missteps.

That set-up also has a dramatic effect on gameplay. As the vast majority of characters are speaking Teer Fradeean, you can’t understand anything they are saying, instead having to rely on subtitles. Reading subtitles isn’t a bad thing in a cutscene. But during gameplay, if you want to know what your companions just said or what the random NPC in the back of a village said, you have to take your eye off combat, your character, and the center of the screen to try to catch what was being said before it disappears.

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A look inside the opening settlement you find yourself in.

It’s an incredibly baffling choice, and while it helps add to the lore and world-building, that isn’t always the best decision when you are making a combat-centric RPG. Despite some of the combat flaws I will mention in a second, this is what stood out to me the most in my time playing. It represents an early sign of what Greedfall 2 could become upon launch if Spiders don’t resolve some of these problems. An RPG focused on its world, sacrificing its gameplay in order to service it.

Choices here also have their problems, with the overall narrative and character beats during quests feeling repetitive and painfully unoriginal, falling into tropes. A lot here on the narrative end, while intriguing, feels like a game stuck in the past.

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Major concerns linger in my mind about how this game will handle its themes.

About those combat issues. Instead of building upon the real-time combat in the first game, Spiders have entirely switched it up, opting for a real-time combat system and a turn-based combat system smashed together to create something that just doesn’t work.

You and your companions abilities are all bound to options on a hotbar that you can choose in real-time combat; when not using these abilities, your character will use a basic attack when locked onto an enemy. However, at any point you can pause the action to enter a Final Fantasy VII/Dragon Age Inquisition-style tactical mode, allowing you to combine abilities between your characters and synchronize skills. In theory, this is a fine concept that has been done before, but in practice, these two combat systems and aspects feel bolted onto each other poorly. It is hard to keep track of the attacks you have lined up, with no clear actions list that displays the abilities and skills you have used in a timeline/action feed.

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(1 of 2) The conflicts and choices fail to bring anything new to the genre.

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The conflicts and choices fail to bring anything new to the genre. (left), The themes here made me raise an eyebrow several times. (right)

Skills and combat overall lack impact, and it all feels generally flat. This is something that can be improved during early access, but nothing here right now has a single ounce of pizzazz or flair that makes me want to spend time with the game’s combat system. It feels ignored in the current release, remains dull throughout, and I always rolled my eyes when I was forced into it.

The one shining area from my time with Greedfall 2 are the visuals and sound. The world looks stunning, and I didn’t have any major performance issues while playing. Landscapes are brought to life with impressive detail when compared to Spiders’ previous work, and the soundtrack really does a lot of heavy lifting.

But, as I wrapped up my time with Greedfall 2’s early access, I was left with one overwhelming feeling. This feels like “another Nacon game”. What do I mean by that? I mean a game that is firmly in the double-A market, with ambitions beyond its budget and the blemishes to show it.

Greedfall’s 2’s early access release feels like a way to help fund the rest of this gigantic project (which is fine). But with so much content, polish, and significant system reworks needed, I have a lot of doubt about whether Greedfall 2: The Dying World can be on par with the original game’s quality, let alone surpass it.

Pack in the narrative choices that are already locked in and reports that the studio’s working conditions and situation are poor, and you have a game that feels at the start of a long hike to release. A release that might just run out of road.