GreedFall II: The Dying World Preview

There was something to be said about GreedFall, the RPG by Spiders that was released in 2019. It wasn’t the biggest game in the world, but it was certainly the most ambitious release for the company. I remember picking it up and completing it, something of a novelty for me, and I remember enjoying my time with the title. As such, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out there was a sequel, GreedFall II: The Dying World. I played the Early Access to see if Spiders was in line to capture the same generally okay magic as the first game. 

The plot has you fill the shoes of a native of Teer Fradee, the island new world from Greedfall. Set three years before the first game's events, the sequel sees your character kidnapped by the invaders and taken back to the old continent. It’s interesting to see more of the location from the Old World, and there’s plenty of room for the plot to grow, however, I’m not the biggest fan of the language. What I mean is that Spiders has crafted an entirely fictional language for the natives, and it's what you will hear spoken for the majority of the opening. It’s an impressive undertaking, but it leads to just reading the subtitles and skipping past all the talking, so you lose some immersion. 

So, the first thing that any RPG needs is a good character creator, and this one is… fine. It’s nothing amazing, and some of the facial models look really weird, but it's pretty serviceable. You can select from several set classes (warrior, wizard, etc) or build your own with multiple different skills. I wouldn’t recommend trying to multiclass much as you need specific weapons to do specific things, and you can't quickly swap in the actual combat, making it a bit pointless. However, it does everything you need it to do, so with my character created, it was time to enter the world of GreedFall again. 

GreedFall II: The Dying World doesn’t quite play like the original game… or like any RPG I’ve played in a while. The biggest distinction is the combat, which is a bit hard to comprehend at first. You have health, armour, and Action points (AP) as you would expect, but attacking doesn’t count as an action; instead, it restores your AP. This is made easier by including an auto-attack option, so you don’t have to constantly tell your team just to hit things and build up AP.

You will need AP because they allow you to use your special skills. As you level up you unlock new skills, each of which has different uses in combat. They start pretty basic, but there’s some depth to making the right choices based on what you’re fighting. It can be a pain to target your opponents when they’re moving around, but that’s where the new tactical mode comes into play. When you press the spacebar, you freeze everyone in place and get a detailed breakdown of all the recent combat actions as well as the health of your team and your opponents. You can also queue up your, and your team’s, special attacks. 

It works pretty well, but it takes some getting used to, and there’s an argument that the fact that the real-time alternative isn’t as good kind of ruins the illusion of choice. However, it reminds me of Dragon Age: Origins, which lets you pause the game mid-fight to quickly queue up some attacks. Of course, combat isn’t all you’ll be doing in GreedFall II: The Dying World as you’ll be doing a lot of exploration as well.

Like any RPG, there is a lot of walking and talking to be done here, which is the draw for many. GreedFall II: The Dying World has an interesting world to explore, especially the combination of fantasy and 18th-century aesthetics. I will say that it all felt a bit, well… I don’t know how else to put it but “pathy”. What I mean is that you have to follow the paths to get around, which makes it feel a bit old school.  

In truth, the graphics and the music for GreedFall II: The Dying World are the real standouts, with the characters' voices ranging from serviceable to downright good. The music is easily some of the best, with it capturing the feel of the locations that you are moving through. Weirdly, Spiders has kept the same strange root motif on the native people that can look downright odd sometimes. 

Aside from the classic bugs, there’s not much that needs to be worked on from what I could tell with my time in the preview. However, Spiders is constantly looking at what Early Access players are saying, so it might be worth holding out until the full release. On the plus side, they have a roadmap in place for content so there’s plenty to be on the lookout for.