Console MMORPGs are apparently tricky affairs: regardless of how much effort developers put into them, something always seems too off — too complicated — and up until now the genre's thus largely remained a PC thing, especially in its purest sword-and-sorcery form. But Neverwinter for Xbox One gets closer to the ideal than any other EverQuest-inspired console MMORPG before it. I’ve played and enjoyed Neverwinter before (when I reviewed it on PC two years ago) but this time its Dungeons & Dragons-themed online action hit almost all the right spots. As a free-to-play game, it blazes a trail for others to follow with generous content and great controls for its fast and fluid combat. I can’t ignore the deafening silence of its community and some potentially deadly performance problems, but Neverwinter stands among the finest free-to-play MMORPGs on consoles to date.

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My own enthusiasm surprises me because I've already done this twice before, when I leveled two characters to the level cap of 60 on PC. Not much has changed about the core leveling process in the intervening two years, apart from the introduction of two new classes and new races, but interestingly, elements that I formerly found disappointing on the PC version have assume an odd sort of appeal on the Xbox One.Take the environments. Neverwinter isn't without its moments of beauty, and only a few hours in, I found myself looking forward to the moment when I could again ride up the haft of Lakkar's Axe, a skyscraper-sized greataxe that forms a bridge across a chasm on Mount Hotenow as though Marvel's Galactus had dropped it while trying to chop down Yggdrasil... or somesuch. The problem is that most of Neverwinter's heavily instanced zones are as linear as that haft, and many consist of little more than long paths as you bounce forward from quest to quest. Sometimes the path widens considerably, yes, but it's an experience that's not terribly unlike the opening 100 hours of Final Fantasy XIII, where the action unfolds across unrelenting, ill-disguised corridors before at last opening up to wider vistas. You eventually get that here at the level cap, but only in the form of slightly less linear instances.But on the Xbox One, I find that's not so much a problem. The focus here is on combat in the style of God of War or Darksiders, and Neverwinter usually keeps me so focused on it that I rarely find cause to miss more open surroundings. I like to smash things, and it obliges with simple controls that make use the seven classes’ diverse abilities.As a person who usually plays warriors in MMORPGs, I tend to judge them on how satisfying they make it to beat things down with a big hammer or blade, and regardless of Neverwinter's other issues, few MMOs beat it in this regard. I might hit the Y button to activate Restoring Strike, and boom, up goes my greatsword knocking back a dead enemy like Babe Ruth hitting a homer. I'll let my Daily powers build up, and bam, I shoot down to the Forgotten Realms with a slam that sends enemies reeling. Using these abilities with the Xbox One controller's rumble would make them even more exciting, which is why it's so bizarre to find it missing in action.What’s missing here is a reliably stable frame rate. Most low-level players will only see the framerates dip consistently in the combat-free streets of Neverwinter itself, where the crowds of players and NPCs sometimes overwhelm the hardware at moments when it can do the least harm. But in the higher and more detailed zones, like Icespire Peak , the environmental detail and weather effects sometimes slowed my Xbox One’s frame rate to a crawl. I can blame at least one death on Neverwinter’s frame rate causing a command to drink a health potion to go unheeded; when the world started moving again, my poor Great Weapon Fighter lay dead on the dungeon floor. To its credit, Neverwinter's combat is fun enough that I found myself looking forward to attempting the battle again, with a more careful eye on my health.The other major letdown is in a lack of communication. Without an equivalent of the useful communication prompts in Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, Neverwinter leaves everything to limited voice chat or text messages. The effect is that I leveled almost to the level cap without seeing a single player ever say anything in group, general, or looking for group chat. I once told a player I was "headin' out" using only my gamepad, but the ordeal took me what felt like half a minute. Connecting a USB keyboard or using the SmartGlass app on my phone was easier, but no one seems to be taking advantage of that.That's a shame, as Neverwinter actually does have some good group content in the form of skirmishes, dungeons, and PvP arenas, but it's hard to make friends and socialize when communication is so unwieldy. (On the other hand, the silence also keeps the trolls who spoil the fun in World of Warcraft quiet.) Voice chat works fine, though, and I had my best time with Neverwinter when I grouped with a pre-existing Xbox Live friend with whom I could chat about life as we quested. Neverwinter does allow you to use voice chat in almost every group scenario accessible through the queues, but based on my extensive experience, almost no one keeps it on.I find myself wondering what this means for the future of Neverwinter's Xbox One community, particularly since this version lacks the player-made Foundry missions that emerged as the most memorable part of the PC version. Without that alternative to PvP and dungeons as a means of filling Neverwinter's inevitable XP gaps as you venture from one zone to the next, I did feel the grind a bit.There is a built-in solution for that, in the form of purchasable experience booster packs from the cash shop. Neverwinter is, after all, a free-to-play MMORPG, but it sports one of the more generous models in that it lets you play through the entirety of the leveling content and beyond without spending a dime. Most everything available for sale is for convenience that I can generally deal without. The drawback, though, is that when you do want that convenience, Neverwinter saddles it with a literal high price. Almost everything in the shop is breathtakingly expensive – the smallest batch of coins costs $9.99. I was most interested in the Dragonborn Legend pack, which unlocks the Dragonborn race and includes a highly useful 30-slot bag among other things, but doing so would require that I fork out about $75. At that price, I'd be afraid of what people would say about me in-game. But then, nobody's talking anyway.