Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn

I know, I know. I don't really have either a growing or intrinsic interest in what we're now forced to call a "soulslike", which in many cases involves a rather soulless and generous use of borrowed mechanics and systems that have given FromSoftware titles their iconic status.

But at the same time, it's almost impossible not to find yourself in a more receptive mood when this specific set of systems have worked together to give so many games an exciting premise and engaging gameplay. In other words, all these studios may not have come up with this particular playlist of FromSoft bangers themselves, but it doesn't matter if they're dancing along to the tune when it sounds so good, does it?

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn combines an easy-to-understand revenge motif with a suitably interesting gunpowder-punk (self-invented, admittedly) fantasy world and, you guessed it, a host of FromSoftware-esque mechanics and systems that most people will find relatively recognisable, and perhaps even slightly tedious by now. Your primary currency is Reputation, which is used for everything from core skill upgrades to upgrading individual pieces of gear. You lose this resource if you die and must return to the place of your death to recapture what you've lost. This is done from activated Lodestones (which we all know are Bonfires), and it's these landmarks that mark your progress through a challenging gameplay experience filled with enemies that punch hard, hide around every corner and vary quite a bit in attack patterns and visual design. From HP bars, to UI elements, to the overall flow of combat, the source of inspiration is as clear as the glint of the projectile fired from the old-fashioned musket as Nor Vanek takes aim at an undead soldier.

It may sound like a scathing criticism, but it's actually not - not what it seems, after all. Because even though developer A44 has really scrutinised FromSoftware, they, like many others, have managed to add a thick layer of flair that makes Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn something relatively unique, or maybe just... good.

The world of Flintlock is dark and brutal, where a mysterious doorway has removed the boundary between the world of the living and the so-called "Great Below", from which a steady stream of undead pours out. Nor Vanek has already taken her turn as a Sapper in the trench warfare against the endless stream of zombies, but in a desperate attempt to close the door forever, she and her companions end up letting the gods out, and they are neither particularly sympathetic nor interested in doing anything for humans other than forcing them into absolute submission. Nor sets out to slay the gods that now enslave humans at all costs across three gigantic zones that are not only relatively open, but borrow liberally from games like God of War: Ragnarök and again a number of FromSoftware games that balance on the knife edge between open and linear structure.

Nor moves from Lodestone to Lodestone, using a mix of melee and firearms to take down a variety of enemies, each with relatively unique movement and attack patterns. Scanning your surroundings for enemies, strafing while learning these patterns and executing quick and decisive attacks is crucial and if you lose lives you have a limited number of potions to heal with - which are replenished at each Lodestone.

It's all relatively recognisable, but again, it would be unfair to write it off based solely on where these various elements come from. First and foremost, Flintlock has a rhythm, a loop that is immensely satisfying pretty much from start to finish. The wide corridor, which we can more pragmatically call "linear+", is conducive to exploration, and the three rather large worlds are great at both allowing and encouraging you to dig for a hidden weapon, a small miniboss or some extra crafting resources. Furthermore, these worlds are surprisingly vertical in their design, and while it doesn't approach No Rest for the Wicked, or even Shadow of the Erdtree, the world is layered and impressively structured throughout. There's always a significant upgrade waiting if you're curious.

Flintlock also has a rather different idea up its sleeve. As you move through the world, you earn Reputation by beating up enemies, performing combos and generally using your abilities to best effect, all the while increasing both Reputation earned and a multiplier on that Reputation. You can choose to "end" this multiplier whenever you want, and the end total is calculated, but if you get hit just once, just once, you get your Reputation, but without the multiplier. It's a constant cost/benefit analysis, and Reputation is the one key resource used to upgrade gear, buy Skills - it's crucial that players continuously earn enough, so managing your multiplier and avoiding enemy damage suddenly means much more.

Furthermore, the combat is quite satisfying, if not a little derivative. You've seen many of the individual elements before, such as strafing around an enemy in lock-on while trying to read telegraphed movements for individual attacks. There's a dodge, there's a parry, and you combine a melee weapon with a pistol and a rifle, as well as selected abilities from your companion Enki. There are relatively rich opportunities to express a unique strategy on the battlefield, both through a fairly extensive skill tree and a range of buildcrafting options. Combined with relatively reliable physics, there are actually some pretty epic experiences to be had in Flintlock, and neither narrative, world design or sheer combat are the game's real weaknesses.

In fact, the game looks pretty impressive most of the time. Yes, the more granular you look at it, the more this "AAA-lite" quality becomes apparent, such as lip-sync, facial animations and particle effects. But A44 has got away with this quite well with nice vistas and imaginative art design. No, the problem is probably the connective tissue that technically holds all the game's actual components together. For the sake of simplicity, let's just call it what it is: jank. There is jank here and there in Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, and the sound mix, UI elements and aforementioned physics, among other things, have trouble maintaining immersion at times. It's not a dealbreaker, and the thing about jank is that it can, in the long run, be greatly improved by updates. But at the time of writing, we have to place a game like Flintlock in a group with games like Vampyr, which also suffered from jank but had a robust, honest Soulslike heart beating under the hood.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is a massive achievement by A44, let's not forget that. This is a relatively small team that has spent years realising a game that in almost every way competes far outside the team's normal weight class. In that sense, it's amazing that there aren't more compromises or failed design attempts, because there are very few things you can point to that really don't work here. It's not for everyone, but for me this has been solid summer entertainment, and for that reason it's pretty easy to recommend to anyone with a penchant for this formula, as long as you can overlook the jank.