The Siege of Dawn for Xbox Series X

A big action adventure coming to Xbox Game Pass on day one

A44 Games (Ashen Creators) and the publisher Kepler Interactivefinally brings us its new third-person action adventure Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. After some delays, the “soulslite” arrives on consoles Xbox Series and PC, but it is also the case day 1 at Xbox Game Pass service.

It’s been a little over a year of waiting, but I was finally able to take control of this new proposal that has all the attractions to entertain fans of this type of title. It is a soulslite, taking elements of the famous soulslike, but adapting it to the players and other more user-friendly mechanics.

Learn the history of Flintlock

We are on the lands of Kianthey were besieged by a horde of voracious inerts and bloodthirsty gods. The entrance to the Great Abyss opened and the city ​​of Alba It’s on the verge of collapse, but that’s what the Coalition army is for, as it will attempt to retake the city and stop the enemy siege.

Our protagonist, Nor Vanekis a distinguished sapper (trench soldier) who will use her handguns, her pistol and with the help of black powder she will try to reach the bottom of the crack. Will come with us Enkia small fox-shaped “furro” who is actually the God of Death.

And so the game begins, with a short tutorial to teach us the context that led us to the gates of hell, and how Neither meet Enki. We will discover how to join what we have promised to kill, it is the only way to defeat the gods who are trying to annihilate all humanity.

Eye-catching settings but a design that lacks a bit of punch

A44 Games is characterized by developing catchy titles, but far from big productions or AA titles with slightly less austere budgets. However, from here, it will be analyzed from the perspective of quality / price ratio, because I am not going to demand the same from a video game at 60/70 dollars as from another. 39.99$

The design of the scenarios, levels and cartography are those of a game of open areas, explorable to the maximum, but not of an open world as one might think. The landscapes are quite interesting and easy to access, even if freedom is not total. Of course, exploration has a reward, since we can find useful materials, safes or hidden mini-bosses with a good reward.

The characters are not very well developed, with the exception of Nor or the main ones, with a large amount of details and a fairly striking design. However, the enemies are quite generic, the kind that are easily forgotten, including the final bosses and the soundtrack that accompanies the adventure.

I expected the big fights against the game’s main enemies to be epic, but as with everything else, it feels like it could have used a little injection of time and budget. It doesn’t tarnish the end result, but it did leave me with a bittersweet taste (at least on a technical level).

As for graphics and performance, there are two modes like in most titles. A quality-focused mode with 4K resolutions and more details but 30 FPS performance, and another that prioritizes performance, with fairly decent visuals and a very stable 60 FPS. I found a few visual and sound bugs, but nothing that can’t be fixed by restarting the game or going to the title’s main menu.

Adjustable and fun gameplay

Without a doubt, the most remarkable thing about Flintlock is the gameplay, which, defining itself as a “soulslite”, takes things from souls, but adds the mobility of third-person action and adventure games. From the soulslike subgenre, it takes references such as bonfires, called here disasterwhere you can rest or fast travel. Enemies also regenerate.

Additionally, we can lose our experience by dying, here called reputationand then have to search for it to retrieve it. This will be indicated on the map, so it will make things easier for us. With this reputation we can unlock skills, improve weapons and buy cosmetics such as clothes, but the most interesting thing comes now.

In Flintlock, Nor gains multipliers when performing different combos, dodges and other actions. When we are hit, the multiplier is interrupted, automatically adding the reputation that we had stored. We can also store reputation whenever we want by clicking on the D-pad of our controller, so it will be a strategic way to get more points.

As we said, reputation is used to acquire skills, ranging from combat, to Enki’s magic in synergy w ith Nor, to firearms. Since there is no increase in level or statistics as such, it is essential to unlock these new techniques and skills, both active and passive, to make yourself more powerful.

As for the combat, it is quite simple in combos, but with different variables. We have a melee weapon, basically axes, machetes or hammers, a main firearm and also, advancing a little at the beginning of the story, a long-range musket and thus honor the name of the video game.

Flintlock borrows mechanisms like interruption by means of the handgun. But also dodge, block and deflect at the right time (parry) and make a counterattack. Enemies will also be able to attack us with powerful attacks, marked by a bright red dot and impossible to dodge. This is where the firearm comes into action, interrupting the enemy sequence and giving us an advantage.

Depending on the handgun we have equipped, we will have more or less powder charges to use to shoot. These are reloaded by hitting them 4 times, so we must be very careful how we use them. As for the musket or other long-distance weapon, we will have to reload it with each shot, and as it is a slow charger, it has a perfect reload function similar to Gears of War, which if we achieve it will lead us to do more damage.

If they hurt us, we will get it healing bottleswhich will have a certain number of uses until we reload the area in a calamity or die. The number of uses can be increased in cafeterias, located in cities besieged by the intertes.

For the rest, by combining the acquisition of skills, the improvements of weapons and armor, grenades and other instruments, it will be our way of becoming more powerful to face the gods. It is essential to balance our abilities with those of the god Enki, who can also level up by searching for his lost feathers. And this is where we’re going to talk about the deeper side of analysis.

Fun and replayable

This is not a very long title, as it took me a few 15 hours reach the last part of the game. But all the while, it was basically fun. One of those games that you like to play without stopping, enjoying everything it offers.

Exploration is very satisfying due to the character’s mobility, the magical cracks that take us to new secondary areas or shortcuts, or even side quests. There will be no races per se, but favors to collect items or find someone, but all this to get a good reward.

Recording every inch of the map is not tedious, there are not a thousand icons on the map, only the right ones and you will either have to go through them or find your way via an NPC or the manager of the cafes. These “bartender” they tell us rumorsgossip that can lead us to a side mission that undoubtedly greatly enriches the game.

One of the drawbacks that can be done with Flintlock is that when platforming, Nor’s animations make him turn and we don’t direct our body towards a ledge, and therefore, we will fall. However, this bug could be fixed later.

The main game consists of several mandatory patterns and other mini-bosses that we won’t have to defeat, although I recommend doing it at night. rewards. The big confrontations will be a combination of soulslike and some events (not QTEs as such), which will be the key to selling them.

To conclude this section, specify that there exists 3 levels of difficultyand while it’s not extremely difficult in general, it’s manageable. Everyone can adjust the challenge to their liking, so it can be played by many more people than souls.

Conclusions

We have before us a title that if you like adventure, action and platform touches, you will enjoy from start to finish, making it the game of the summer. Although it is not an excessively long video game, it has the ideal duration so that the final feeling is very satisfying and also very replayable.

Despite the inherent flaws of a low-budget AA title that doesn’t reach the quality of, say, Lies of P, I recommend you at least give it a try, because being in Xbox Game Passit would be a crime not to give it a chance. As lost, it was an opportunity to give it a little economic boost and to bring a more complete game in terms of the soundtrack, the design of the enemies and some animations.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn launches July 18 on Xbox Series X|S, PC, Playstation 5 and most importantly, the same day on Xbox Game Pass.