Eternal Strands, Dumb Name, Great Game
Eternal Strands has been a surprise new favourite, if you’ve got game pass then you’ve got no excuse not to just jump in right now and give it a thrash. There’s also a demo on Steam with carryover data so you won’t lose any progress when you decide to buy the full game. Made by old bioware and Ubisoft devs this game has put all the emphasis on fun, giving your character a sandbox kit of spells to play with when you get bored of hacking and slashing. It feels like an action adventure game that’s had to justify it’s existence in a world where Monster Hunter, Breath of the Wild, and Shadow Of The Colossus exists. The end result is a very sessionable game that respects your time.
The game is broken up into open zones with unique enemies and materials for gathering as well as a centerpiece boss you need to climb and grapple with Shadow Of The Colossus style to take down. Materials gathered from bosses can be used to re-spec your armour and weapons with the most gracious crafting system I’ve seen in my life. I’m allergic to crafting benches, but being able to quickly swap out a material on your armour to give it a slight stat boost and aesthetic change is a joy to do and makes the loop worth it. No materials or time are ever wasted, everything has a use.
Your mana regens in seconds so it really encourages you to keep fights dynamic. Bringing down a dragon might require you to use ice to freeze his wings, or a particularly swashbuckling player might abuse the Gravity pulse attack to throw themselves half way up a Titan. Half the time I do this I get batted straight back into the ground by a 10 story tall staff but it’s worth it for the sheer spectacle.
It feels very AA, but for a new studio, they’re off to a hell of a start. The story is fully voice acted, and done well in that regard, however conversational cutscenes are done with PNGS rather than sticking with the ridged 3D models. I get the feeling the devs understood their limits in this regard and took the bandaid approach.