Oh boy, I get to write another article about Spiders! I love games made by Spiders. Everything they make is sticky and full of bugs, but somehow I always get tangled up in them. I’d seriously struggle to call any of their games “good,” but I’ll be damned if I didn’t play through every single one of them. Of Orcs and Men, Bound by Flame, and most recently The Technomancer. There’s an undeniable charm to Spider’s quirky and strange RPGs. They clearly don’t have the budget to compete with the Dragon Ages and Fallouts of the universe, but bless their heart if they don’t try. And to their credit, even through the wonky game design and dialogue run through the blender of repeat translations, they manage to punch well above their weight class.

What’s also admirable is that their games have managed to get better with each release. Sounds reasonable, but this isn’t always the case in the world of video games. It’s difficult to go back and play Of Orcs and Men, but if you manage to struggle through it you’ll see the slew of improvements in Bound by Flame. One aspect they’ve never slacked on is the worldbuilding. From their sentient good-guy orcs to the weird mutant space wizard technomancers, there’s always something new and interesting to find in a Spiders game. Which is why I’m so excited to see what a whole continent of weird Spiders shit looks like in GreedFall.

Now I already talked about GreedFall when I first saw it at E3 2017, but there was only so much I could substantiate their claims with no gameplay to actually witness. Well a year has passed and here comes Spiders again, now with actual gameplay to show me. So I got to check some out sweet ol’ fashioned colonialism, complete with magic, monsters, and flintlock.

In typical Spiders fashion, the premise of GreedFall is compelling enough to get my to buy the game. You play as De Sardet, a protagonist of your own design sent to the island of Teer Fradee. Back home on the Old Continent, a mysterious magical plague called Malichor has given a lot of people a bad case of the being deads. However, seems like the natives of Teer Fradee aren’t effected. De Sardet is sent to meet with the natives—known as the Yecht Fradi—to try to find a cure. As we all know, colonialism always leads to peaceful cooperation and the betterment of all parties involved. Never genocide.

The brief glimpse we got of GreedFall was split equally between dialogue and combat. The game from the start has stated it will have a heavy focus on diplomacy, so it wasn’t a surprise to see the dialogue trees make an appearance. We actually didn’t get to see a whole lot of the political wheelings and deelings they promise, but I did get a fact sheet with some of the details. There will be six factions to align yourself with in the game, comprised of three nations, two guilds, and a federation of native peoples. Each has their own aims, goals, ideals, and powers. Aligning with one doesn’t necessarily put you at odds with all of the others, and many of your actions in the game can improve (or deteriorate) the relations between the factions. You can go whole hog with one, wipe the others out, the choice is yours. Ultimately, the fate of the world is up to you.

Now the real deal gameplay we got to see was the combat. I had been wondering how that would all pan out, given that the combat in Spiders games has always been the least compelling part. Given what I’m used to in The Technomancer, I was pretty shocked by how good GreedFall looks. It’s a typical action-RPG combat system, complete with dodges, light attacks, heavy attacks, etc. Equipment is pretty much what you’d expect, with an assortment of swords, pistols, hammers, etc. If you’ve played Risen 2, you know what to expect. There’s also a magic system that lets you cast some magic light stuff. While none of it is unexpected, it was all very fluid and smooth. For a game this ambitious in scope and storytelling, it’s good to know that the fundamentals of thwacking things in the nose are solid.

One exciting moment came when the group encountered a boss monster. A towering mystical creature known as the Nadaig Magamen, the group had to pull out all the tricks at their disposal to take it down. According to the developers, these magical guardians will patrol the island and make sure no one is doing anything naughty. So they aren’t initially aggressive, but might become so if you do some Captain Planet level crimes against nature. You can also just kill them for the fat loot. These roaming bosses add to the living world of GreedFall. There’s a life and ecosystem beyond your current level, and the freedom you have in movement lets you sometimes get yourself in over your head. It’s up to you to explore, adventure, and grind your way to victory.

I wish I could tell you more, but aside from a few neat cutscenes that didn’t mean a lot without context that was all we saw. It’s a hard game to show off, as I get the sense that a lot of what makes it special is in the grander design. It’s relatively difficult to actually see how a complex diplomacy system effects the world in a quick 15 minute presentation. I’m sure we’ll see more as GreedFall approaches its 2019 release date for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

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