The Falconeer Review

There’s a sense of serenity that sets in when you’re soaring high, far above the ocean atop a magnificent giant falcon. The waves may be crashing and maelstroms circling in the waters below, great steam engines may be chugging away towards their destinations as sea winds howl with a terrifying ferociousness, but none of that can reach you up there; up in the sky, everything’s just fine. The conflicts and political turmoil that dominate the thoughts and dictate every action of the seafaring residents below are but distant whispers among the perfect silence of the clouds. Struggling to relate? Then you’ve clearly yet to play The Falconeer, the first solo project of developer Tomas Sala. Yes, this game was made by one person. I know, I can’t believe it either.

Seriously, the fact that this was a solo project puts us all (or at least my lazy arse) to shame. Almost nowhere is it apparent that The Falconeer was the product of one pair of hands hammering away at a single keyboard. Movement is polished: gliding across the aquatic open world is a joy with tight flying controls and a satisfying mechanic which sees you charging up a boost meter by flying downwards before soaring high with a newfound thrust of speed. The game’s writing is stellar, using relatively brief dialogue sections to bring a completely new fictional world to life, one full of combat, treachery and genuinely interesting ideological conflicts. There’s even an upgrade system, which lets players spend their money—earned on missions—on various upgrades, combat boosts, ammo types and more powerful canons.

Of course, this does lead into the one downside of The Falconeer, the one thing that doesn’t quite fly as high as everything else: the combat. Every mission you’re assigned over the course of The Falconeer’s 10 to 15-hour campaign involves aerial combat—dogfighting—atop your warbird. While this isn’t inherently negative, and there are a variety of enemy types thrown into the mix to liven things up, these enemies mainly just offer aesthetic and HP variations; the core combat never meaningfully develops beyond the game’s opening minutes. Canons feel near-useless at the start and only begin to feel slightly less so in the games closing hours (and even then, they don’t feel genuinely powerful). Furthermore, tactical choices don’t extend much beyond a single “attack” and “dodge” move. When every mission is a combat encounter and every combat encounter plays out the same way, it can begin to get stale.

Still, this game doesn’t seem to want anyone to focus on its gameplay: more than anything, The Falconeer exists to tell a story, one of a semi-surreal waterlogged world known as The Great Ursee. It’s a world steeped in mythology, mystery and endless conflict between its various disparate factions and settlements. There’s the Northern Imperium, the greatest single power of The Great Ursee; the Mancer Order, a powerful tech-cult who hoard knowledge and harbour powerful secrets; Freebooter Rebels, disillusioned citizens who seek revenge on the powers that banished them to live in underground caverns; and independent freehouses, smaller settlements which exist tangled in the web of conflict between larger powers. While most of the world is dominated by uninhabitable waters, these factions take control of cities built upon the few rocky outcroppings emerging above the ocean.

This, naturally, means that there’s a lot of empty space to traverse between missions. Thankfully, there’s an automatic fast travel mechanic that you can choose to engage with upon embarking on lengthier journeys. You’ll inevitably end up making use of this feature relatively often, but whether you do it every single time is less of a certainty. Why? Well because the minutes of flying above the water are some of the most visually outstanding moments the game has to offer. The Falconeer has that marvelous quality that some films and games have; you know what I mean, the ones where you can take a screenshot at almost any given moment and capture a shot worthy of a desktop wallpaper. Sure, it’s not the most technically impressive game, but it’s got style and an understanding of how to make a sunset (or rise) look damn good.

Throughout the game’s campaign, you’ll play as several different agents (known as Falconeers) with contrasting allegiances and affiliations. Despite their different motivations and roles in the game’s central conflict, they’re all united by their shared penchant for riding and fighting upon the backs of giant warbirds. So, with no single protagonist, no clear hero or villain, the central character of The Falconeer becomes the conflict itself and the revelations that come to light as it unfolds. By swapping characters and playing a central role in the various’ movings and shakings’ of each side—either in terms of combat or espionage—you grow to understand each side and ultimately gain a better sense of perspective for the game’s story as a whole. Oddly, though, while the game takes place over four chronological chapters (well, six, if you include the Prologue and Epilogue), they can be played through in any order right from the start. I don’t know why Sala made the choice to let the player experience the game’s story out of order; furthermore, I can’t imagine why anybody would actually choose to take him up on that offer.

There are undoubtedly flaws with The Falconeer, but when I think back upon my time spent high above its mysterious world, I’m left with a distinct feeling that I’d witnessed something special. Its presentation, story and the sense of—as I mentioned earlier—serenity that comes from flying through the clear ocean air overshadowed any flaws in combat and mission variety. While those flaws are very real and, for some, may appear glaring, they felt trivial to me. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that The Falconeer is going to revolutionise gaming or usher in a new era of narrative-based aerial combat titles, but I also don’t think I’ll ever play another game quite like it. For that, I can’t help but praise it.