With a lot of freedom, a battle system worth seeing and great ideas for the open world, Flintlock prepares to roll up the genre from behind.
Comparing games to each other is the most natural thing in the world, but also terribly unfair, especially before release. Especially when a new game is announced, the phrase “is like xxx” is a handy shortcut to quickly give potentially interested people an idea of gameplay and atmosphere. At the same time, however, it also raises certain expectations that the finished game may later disappoint.
Therefore, please do not put the following description of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn on a gold scale. First of all, we haven’t played the big new open-world role-playing game from the Ashen makers (which, by the way, was like Dark Souls …) ourselves yet, but only looked at it, and secondly, well, comparisons are sometimes brutally unfair.
But what we’ve seen so far and what developer A44 told us about his game in the interview sounds a lot like a mix of the open world of Elden Ring (but with more story), the fluid combat of Batman: Arkham City (but more challenging), a bit of The Witcher 3 and a touch of … Doom Eternal?! *checks notes* Yes, Doom Eternal.
The beauty of Flintlock: so far, everything looks like the action-heavy role-playing game can stand on its own two feet, even apart from these templates.
In our big plus preview, I tell you why I’m very optimistic that the open-world title could be one of the biggest positive surprises of the gaming year 2023!
Table of Contents
Storytelling, as frowned upon by From Software
Dark Souls (insert comparison here please) has a problem. If you like good storytelling when you play, you’ll have to find it yourself in From Software’s masterpieces. If this frustrates you, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn could be just the thing for you. Because in terms of storytelling, A44 is more oriented towards The Witcher.
The story begins with heroine Nor Vanek preparing an attack on the city of Dawn as part of the human coalition army. There, the undead have been manning the walls since the gods ascended from the afterlife and left the gates open for the souls of the dead. Now those same evil gods and their undead spawn terrorise the land; only when the gate to the underworld in Dawn is closed again will the nightmare come to an end.
A44 relies on classic storytelling with cutscenes and multiple-choice dialogues in which you get to know the other members of your combat squad. Then you immediately lose some of them, because the attack on Dawn fails horribly and one of the gods murders part of the troop. Nor swears revenge and from then on has a very personal reason to chase the supernatural beings from her world.
The warrior is assisted by the mysterious creature Enki, a kind of flying fox that can also teleport over short distances. Enki can speak and accompanies you for the rest of the game after the prologue. His true motives, however, lie in the dark. Again and again, heroine and sidekick are supposed to have automatic conversations while you travel through the world in search of a power to defeat the gods.
The beauty of Flintlock: So far, everything looks like the action-heavy role-playing game can stand on its own two feet, even apart from these templates.
In our big plus preview, I tell you why I’m very optimistic that the open-world title could be one of the biggest positive surprises of the gaming year 2023!
Storytelling, as frowned upon by From Software
Dark Souls (insert comparison here please) has a problem. If you like good storytelling when you play, you’ll have to find it yourself in From Software’s masterpieces. If this frustrates you, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn could be just the thing for you. Because in terms of storytelling, A44 is more oriented towards The Witcher.
The story begins with heroine Nor Vanek preparing an attack on the city of Dawn as part of the human coalition army. There, the undead have been manning the walls since the gods ascended from the afterlife and left the gates open for the souls of the dead. Now those same evil gods and their undead spawn terrorise the land; only when the gate to the underworld in Dawn is closed again will the nightmare come to an end.
A44 relies on classic storytelling with cutscenes and multiple-choice dialogues in which you get to know the other members of your combat squad. Then you immediately lose some of them, because the attack on Dawn fails horribly and one of the gods murders part of the troop. Nor swears revenge and from then on has a very personal reason to chase the supernatural beings from her world.
The warrior is assisted by the mysterious creature Enki, a kind of flying fox that can also teleport over short distances. Enki can speak and accompanies you for the rest of the game after the prologue. His true motives, however, lie in the dark. Again and again, heroine and sidekick are supposed to have automatic conversations while you travel through the world in search of a power to defeat the gods.
The world is getting big and open
This same world is Flintlock’s big selling point and has been significantly undersold in the trailers so far. Three major continents comprise the game, similar to GTA, these are unlocked bit by bit. But it’s not a bridge under reconstruction that blocks your way to a certain point in the story, instead you have to find a ship that will take you across the sea.
In the beginning, your freedom of movement is mainly restricted by the fact that Nor must first diligently kill enemies and collect experience points in order to unlock new abilities. Some of these are also linked to plot progress, such as the double jump or a double dodge roll, as well as the possibility of triggering a black powder explosion in the air and thus catapulting Nor even higher or to the side. Similar to a Metroidvania, this gradually opens up more possibilities to reach places that previously seemed inaccessible.
Little helper Enki is particularly useful for getting around quickly, because the creature can teleport heroine Nor over short distances when golden triangles are floating around in the air. You unlock these anchor points by finding certain bones in the game world – this is how a highway will literally be created little by little, a close-meshed network of teleportation points until, according to A44 managing director and creative director Derek Bradley, you can fly over half the continent without touching the ground once. ”
“This has a certain puzzle feel to it. It looks scripted, but actually the player has a lot of control over where he goes next. He can go forward, up, down or pause briefly in mid-air”
In initial playtests with an early version of the game, testers have already been able to take advantage of this to advance into regions that are actually delineated, such as by dropping from the top of a mountain fortress and catching the impact below through the teleporter triangles. Artificial borders? Should be very sporadic, says Bradley: “The Flintlock world is designed to be very open, whereas Ashen was much more linear.”
Side quests, optional activities and mini-games are meant to keep you constantly busy, not to mention hidden treasures and secret (boss) enemies. CEO Bradley even describes the open world as “richer than the main story” in terms of variety and playtime. Among other things, there are bandit camps to be cleared out. There is also a card game, which Bradley describes as “like Gwent, but not really like it at all”.
Just like in The Witcher 3, you can challenge NPCs to a game and bet on the outcome in order to earn some money on the side. Furthermore, there are particularly well-fortified forts where a death cult holds hideous rituals. According to the developer, a real strategy is needed to crack these camps, and a whole subplot of the story hangs on them.
How you become aware of these forts is representative of the way Flintlock will present its open world: Instead of finding an icon on the map, players spy a pillar of smoke on the horizon that tells them the location of the camp.
Why do you do all this other than for experience points and loot? To increase your influence, which is by far the most important currency in Flintlock. You get influence when you climb the highest mountain in the range, but also when you pull off a particularly fancy combo in battle or complete a quest. Your influence level determines how much the inhabitants of the world respect you – and you can use it to your advantage in your settlement.
The caravan moves on
Ashen probably very few people have played, even though it’s included in the PC Game Pass – just like Flintlock will be at release. So let’s take a quick look back at one of the coolest mechanics of the action role-playing game: the settlement.
As you progress through the adventure, you’ll periodically return to your camp, which will continue to expand and grow over time. Eventually it’s a small town, with craftsmen busy carpentering and opening new shops. According to Derek Bradley, this was an atmospheric highlight for many Ashen players, which is why the developers are adopting the mechanic in Flintlock, but with a twist.
Because this time your camp travels with you. At fireplaces, which also serve as save and reset points as in Dark Souls, heroine Nor summons her caravan with the press of a button. After a camera turn, you will find all the wagons, horses and merchants of your mobile city around you again.
Over time, new NPCs join, many you can talk to, they have quests for you and you can exchange earned influence points for supplies from army stocks. But the caravan not only has a useful value, similar to Red Dead Redemption 2 (five euros in the comparison piggy bank!) you get to know the travelling characters better and better, they go about their work or talk to each other.
Cute detail: At the beginning, you are only accompanied by a walking minstrel who can play the guitar reasonably well. By the end, the guy is a real rock star. Had enough time to practise. “The Caravan gives players the same feeling of a city that grows and is built by its inhabitants, but this time we don’t have to travel back to it every time,” explains Creative Director Bradley.
Stylish Battles
Commuting back to a central location all the time would probably not fit in well with the flow of the game, which, apart from exploration, is supposed to consist mainly of gripping battles against computer opponents. This is where Derek Bradley himself draws the comparison to Dark Souls in terms of the demands and complexity of the battles. But watching the scenes reminds us of a completely different series: Batman Arkham.
“I think there’s one big point that makes it feel so Arkham,” Derek Bradley says when we ask him about our impression. “Nor’s animations, her movements have so many nuances, they almost seem scripted at times. Nor pulling an axe across someone’s skull, jumping in the air, picking up her gun and putting a shot in another enemy’s face – it looks almost perfect and that’s something our animation team is very proud of.”
Incidentally, to ensure that every move is spot on, the developers have decided to let you play a pre-made character in Flintlock rather than allowing free character creation. For the same reason, you will only ever use axes as your main weapon throughout the game, not swords or spears. However, there is more variance with Nor’s secondary weapon, a gunpowder-powered shotgun, pistol or cannon.
In fact, the battles in the first videos look incredibly fluid, you can chain together axe moves, dodge rolls, slithering across the ground, jumping and the use of gunpowder weapons at will. It seems that Flintlock often sends you into battle against several enemies at once. Then you have to reel off clever combos and find your rhythm. The A44 CEO confides in us in the interview:
“We talk about the battles like Guitar Hero. It even goes so far that we first write the music for adversaries before we incorporate it into the game. […] It’s about dancing around the enemies, learning and not getting hit”
But that’s never meant to be as easy as in the Batman games, Bradley explains: “In Batman, you can press buttons more or less randomly and the character does stuff. You can’t do that in Flintlock.” The combat has a steeper learning curve, Dark Souls is clearly the template here, dying is if not the norm then a commonplace occurrence. After sniping you have to return to Nor’s corpse and pick up the dropped influence, this should also sound familiar.
But: Unlike the games from From Software, there are several difficulty levels to choose from, including a story mode for those who want to be challenged as little as possible. In addition, the open world, like Elden Ring, cushions the level of difficulty, says Bradley: “You don’t have to cut your teeth on one boss. Just go to another place and level up a bit.” For all the hardcore players, there is also to be a mode that is “harder than Dark Souls.
When it comes to combat, Creative Director Bradley brings up a comparison on his own that surprises us: Flintlock has a similar system to Doom Eternal in terms of recovering armour points and ammo. Enemies defeated with the axe drop pistol bullets, gun kills recharge Nor’s shield. But the whole thing is supposed to be nowhere near as essential as in Doom, where you have to reel off special finishers virtually incessantly to replenish the low supply of armour, life and ammunition.
Role-playing game or action-adventure?
A44 calls Flintlock an action role-playing game itself, but the boundaries have long been blurred in this genre. In fact, much of the game is reminiscent of the most recent God of War or Assassin’s Creed, although the latter series in particular has meanwhile changed strongly in the direction of role-playing games.
What is clear at this point is that in Flintlock there is a three-part talent tree and you level up. You can either invest your skill points in expanding your black powder abilities, in which case you can explode things and take enemies under fire at high speed from medium range. The developers compare this build to the third-person shooter Vanquish in terms of speed.
Or else you can focus on Nor’s Axe, which is perfect for all Soulslike fans. Here you can upgrade parries and counterattacks, as well as give Nor more armour, which emphasises the rhythm gameplay of wait, block-or-dodge, strike.
And then there’s Enki, the flying fox, who you can upgrade with skill tree number three. Then he becomes a powerful mage companion who no longer just paralyses individual enemies, but puts several out of action at once. Enki can also transform the heroine into a particularly powerful behemoth form for a short time, which you can use to really clean up the battlefield.
Important: Regardless of specialisation, you can still use all of Nor’s abilities in their basic form, and you should. If only because the combination looks so nifty. “We wanted to create a system where people can really play the way they want to,” Derek Bradley points out. If that succeeds, then Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn could indeed become one of the most exciting open-world projects of the next year.
Editor’s Verdict
I love discovering new games. Not for myself, but for you, my readers. That’s why I was probably one of the first journalists in the world to ask the developers for an interview after the announcement of Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. And lo and behold, in keeping with the new trailer, I therefore now already know a lot more about this RPG secret tip. I know, for example, that Flintlock seems much more ambitious in terms of open world than one might expect from such a title. I like the idea of gradually building a network of trajectories that will allow me to cover large distances quickly later in the game.
I know that the battles feel extremely fluid and dynamic and, as a fan of the Arkham games, I already enjoy them enormously, if only thanks to the slide function and my AI companion. But I also know that, as a Dark Souls-averse, the different difficulty levels of Flintlock will suit me just as much as the stronger focus on classic storytelling with dialogue and cutscenes, where I don’t have to guess or read item descriptions to find out what I’m actually playing.
All this knowledge makes me feel positive that with Flintlock I have discovered a game that has enormous potential and can hold its own against Assassin’s Creed or Forspoken. But I still don’t know how Flintlock will really play in the end. All the more reason for you to stay tuned to the development and to get back to me when I’ve held the gamepad or mouse in my hands. So we’ll read each other again soon. I’m looking forward to it.
