Eternal Strands Xbox Series X Review 7.5/10 "Eternal Strands That Don’t Quite Weave Wonder" 🧶🧵 @YellowBrick_Qc #IndieGame #GameDev

A cel-shaded open world adventure that features deep lore abounds in this release from Yellow Brick Games (comprised of a team featuring several ex-Ubisoft developers), Eternal Strands excels in performance and world-building; but lacklustre, weightless combat and certain design elements gives this the faint air of a game that started in a more MMORPG style that pivoted to a single player experience.

Eternal Strands casts the player as Brynn, a mercenary accompanying a group of travellers trying to find out the secrets of a long-lost civilisation. Your camp with the travellers acts as a hub, whilst Loomgates scattered around the land allow you to teleport to different areas of the world, each with their own biome, items, and enemies. The opening anime-style cinematic is impressive and engaging, although it hints at a slightly goofy humour that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the mostly po-faced game, where dialogue with the fully-voiced cast of characters is rich, but mostly eventless and dry. That’s not to say there isn’t a lot of lore and world-building to discover and learn, more that doing so isn’t a particularly engaging aspect of the game.

As you go off on your jaunts, which include a main questline as well as numerous side quests offered by those in your camp, you’ll come across many enemies that have varied forms of attack (physical, magical, elemental, ranged etc.) and need you to alter your play style to take each one down. You begin with a sword/ shield combo, Ice magic, and a bow – but you’ll unlock other elements of magical powers and hefty two-handers as you progress.

Unfortunately, combat is an often wearying affair, as enemies will soon respawn upon leaving and returning to the area, and numbers appear on-screen with each successful attack /defence, with the enemies briefly flashing but not really responding physically (or even vocally) unless you freeze them into place – this is a major aspect of what gives it an MMORPG vibe, and as combat is so prevalent – it’s a real shame that it doesn’t feel satisfying to wail away on your opponents with your weapon of choice. That said, the towering enemies that require you to mount, climb and attack them a-la Dragon’s Dogma, is a highlight of the experience, and also gives the best rewards, with Brynn clinging on for dear life as she attempts to expose and bash at weak spots as her ever-diminishing stamina bar presents a constant threat in itself.

Speaking of rewards, the camp has various elements that can be upgraded, although the incremental nature of the levelling up and improvements doesn’t quite feel in tandem to the relative paciness of other parts of the game. For example, you have to get supplies that level up the blacksmith, weaver (for your more mystical powers and abilities), and lore-taker etc. but these stop until you progress through certain parts the main quest line, although the items that you need for each individual upgrade for weapons and armour are often only specifically found in regions that are unlocked through the main quest progression anyway, and this ‘level-locking’ only serves to hinder the sense of upping your character and customising her, and means that you can’t get to the point where you have ramped up a weapon or two so that you can tear through the more abundant enemies, so combat will always be a tedious – and constant – affair.

SUMMARY

The game world is brought to life through the lore, and there’s a sense of historic high-magic and epic scale that matches the sweeping musical score, not to mention the pristine presentation of the game engine that provides a smooth experience. 

But, whilst the larger-scale enemies provide memorable battles, the moment-to-moment combat and incremental sense of hindered character progression makes this feel a very ‘by the numbers’ experience that doesn’t reward or satisfy individuality in playstyles, and forces a more linear approach to the game.

7.5/10

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