January 29th 2025.
Eternal Strands – it's a bit of a long one, isn't it? The creator of the first three Dragon Age games is back with a new title from his own studio, and it's not exactly what you'd expect from a seasoned BioWare veteran.
There's been a lot of concern surrounding the future of BioWare lately, and it's completely understandable. Dragon Age: The Veilguard didn't quite hit the mark as a hit, and the new Mass Effect game is taking an alarmingly long time to develop. On top of that, many key staff members have left over the past few years, from the founders themselves to the directors of Mass Effect and Dragon Age, Casey Hudson and Mike Laidlaw.
Some have even left the gaming industry altogether, while Hudson's attempt to start a new studio ended in disaster when it and its first game were shut down due to lack of investment. After leaving BioWare, Laidlaw briefly joined Ubisoft before forming his own independent studio, with Eternal Strands being their first release.
When developers leave a big-name studio, it's not uncommon for them to create something similar under a different name. However, Eternal Strands differs greatly from Dragon Age in many ways. It's primarily an action game, with some unexpected influences, and surprisingly, the storytelling is one of its weaker aspects.
Eternal Strands is an action-adventure game with light RPG elements, clearly influenced by Shadow of the Colossus. However, it isn't trying to copy any specific part of the game, but rather the idea of battling enormous enemies that require climbing to reach their weak spots.
In Shadow of the Colossus, the protagonist only had a sword to wield, but in Eternal Strands, you have a wider range of abilities. Thanks to your magical powers, you can manipulate both ice and fire, freezing minor enemies in place and creating walls and bridges out of ice. You can also summon a fiery spirit or use telekinetic powers to grab and throw objects, similar to a Tolkien-esque Darth Vader. Although some abilities lose their luster later on, there are still some clever ideas, such as burning off enemies' fur or making metal armor brittle and easier to break.
The game truly shines when fighting the giant enemies, each with multiple ways to defeat them. Unlike Shadow of the Colossus, you can battle them more than once, with extra rewards for finding their core and attacking it instead of randomly attacking them.
As exciting as this sounds, the problem is that there are only nine of these giant enemies, and fighting the smaller ones is far less entertaining. They have less interesting designs and limited melee combat options. The game includes a crafting element, which is one reason to revisit the big bosses, but it's complicated and doesn't make much of a difference.
Unfortunately, the game's plot only adds to the disappointment. It's a formulaic collection of cliches and confusing lore that feels like a parody. For the record, you play as a Weaver, a magic user on a quest with a group of allies to discover the cause of the Surge – a magical disaster that has caused others to despise magic users.
Your journey involves breaking through the Veil to reach the Enclave, but that's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of proper nouns. Frankly, it's all quite dull and unimaginative. It reminded us of Immortals of Aveum, not in terms of specifics, but in the fact that the developers could have created any fantasy world, yet they settled for generic concepts.
The game also struggles with storytelling, with mundane party interactions and slow pacing between major plot points. Given the amount of dead time between events, the game should have been much shorter, especially considering the backtracking and dull fetch quests.
The open-world exploration, where you can climb almost any surface, is heavily inspired by Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, there's not much to discover, making the large map more of an annoyance than a feature.
There's also a bizarre weather system that seems designed to make your life difficult. Areas can suddenly become freezing or scorching hot, affecting your magic abilities and forcing you to change clothing and take potions, similar to Breath of the Wild. However, it's never clear how hot or cold you are, and the effects are inconsistent.
The miasma events are even worse, blocking certain routes and forcing you to find another way, which makes the game even longer and ruins boss fights if they happen to be occurring at the same time.
Visually, the game is decent, similar to a low-budget Fortnite. However, it lacks a distinct personality of its own, mirroring the unoriginal plot. The game tries to do too much on a limited budget, resulting in glitches and inconsistent physics. It's madness to think that an indie studio's debut game could emulate Breath of the Wild, a game that took one of the most talented developers years to create.
Despite some clever ideas and mechanics (we particularly enjoyed the ice powers), Eternal Strands is a slog to get through. The first dozen hours are enjoyable, but we doubt many players will stick with it beyond that. It's a suitable game for Game Pass, but with its high price, it's not something we can recommend to anyone else. Unfortunately, this is just more bad news for BioWare fans.
Eternal Strands Summary:
In short, you can't fault its ambition, but this game is too small for the large open-world map it's stretched across. With repetitive enemy encounters and tedious storytelling, outside of the core action, the game becomes a slog. On the positive side, battling the giant enemies is fun, and the magic abilities are often clever and versatile, especially the ice powers.
However, everything outside of the core action is a chore, with boring minor enemies, unengaging crafting, and too many fetch quests. The storytelling is also dull, with a predictable plot, uninteresting characters, and sluggish pacing.
Score: 5/10
Formats: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £32.99*
Publisher: Yellow Brick Games
Developer: Yellow Brick Games
Release Date: 28th January 2025
Age Rating: 12
*available on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass from day one
Attempting to copy Breath of the Wild was a bold move indeed.
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