Greedfall II: A Dying World Early Access Impressions

The original Greedfall was well liked by our reviewer Anthony, and fast became a favourite of contributor Graham later on, thanks to its in-depth story, world, and mechanics. I’ve not played the game though, so when we were given a chance to check out the early access of sequel The Dying World, I figured I’d put that right. I’ve spent a handful of hours with Greedfall II now, and there’s certainly potential here with some intrigue in the setting and characters, though I’m yet to be sold fully on the experience as a whole.

Set a few years before the original story, Greedfall II sees us playing as a native of Teer Fradee by the name of Vriden Gerr. After creating our own version of Gerr (in build, stats, and class) we join them as they begin on the path of the ritual to become a Doneigad. Meeting with the Elders, we’re given a couple of quests to fulfil before the initiation can begin. After a bit more chatting and a combat tutorial, we’re set free to follow the quests, or simply wander off and find our own.

It leans very heavily into exposition from the off, and I found myself waning a bit at times; partly because of the mix of native (and hence subtitled) language (that we can thankfully skip through as fast as we can read the subs) and English, and partly because it just didn’t seem all that interesting to start with. It’s all very dour and moody, and the performances aren’t tremendously enjoyable either. 

Things got more interesting when we were able to explore, and I found myself engaging in more conversations than I’d expected as I played further into it. Some are vital for quest progression, others just small snippets of conversation, but while the overall quality of performances hasn’t improved so far, it’s not enough to ruin the experience yet. 

Exploring the world felt a bit janky at first, our character feeling very heavy to control, quite happy to stumble about the place and take a bit too long to adjust to our inputs. As the game is in Early Access things like this are no doubt going to be looked at and adjusted, but it was fairly often I found Gerr stuck on scenery or refusing to turn as I moved the analogue stick. I got used to the feeling after a while, but there’s work to be done to make it feel more enjoyable to move about the world. 

The map, at least what I’ve seen so far, is large but not overly so. There’s a few hidden nooks and crannies to find, but for the most part we’re traversing a series of corridors – it’s not a fully explorable open world where we can make our own pathway, and there are invisible walls (as bushes or rivers) at every turn. 

Combat mixes semi-real time movement and actions with a tactical mode, whereby we can zoom the camera out and order our party of three characters either by pausing the action and cueing attacks up, or letting them fight as we move the camera about and order them in real time. I haven’t really used a system like this since the original Dragon Age, and wasn’t initially sold. However, as my party levelled up I started to get the gist of the mechanics, and while I’m nowhere near the point of steamrolling groups of enemies, I can at least get the team working as a unit (mostly). It’s a system that will reward proper investment and planning, and one I’ll be very keen to hear Graham’s thoughts on when he plays it on Xbox next year.

Where Greedfall II started to win me over was in one of the early missions, where we needed to convince a group of trackers to leave the local wildlife alone. There are a few ways of achieving this outcome, and while this was a fairly simple (and easy) example to complete in a non-violent way, the options were there to either placate the trackers with money, speak to the Elders about giving them pelts as payment, use our conversational skills to convince them they would lose in a fight, or to simply fight them outright. Actions always have consequences, and by convincing them to go rather than fight or give up our supplies I should see a tangible benefit down the line. 

A later mission sees us needing to get into a mining area that refuses to let us explore, and this is where stealth comes into play. Sadly, at least in my experience, the stealth is a far cry from much cop at the moment. It’s got the elements there, but it’s too basic and easy to fluff up, always ending in my party absolutely decimated at the hands of the entire mine crew and their dogs. 

Conclusion

Greedfall II: A Dying World certainly has potential to be a deep, intricate RPG that will have players losing hours upon hours to it. This Early Access release highlights a few issues that need addressing – certainly the idea of EA – but if they can sort these out before the full release next year, this could turn into something rather compelling indeed.

This game was previewed on PC (via Steam). All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by the publisher.