GreedFall

TLDR : If you are interested in playing Greedfall, you can play it, but you should know in advance that it lacks polish in some areas.

Although I've ticked the “recommend” box, I'm a little disappointed with the game. I find it lacking in many areas, and that's a shame.

I'll start with the positive:
- Greedfall's universe is very interesting, and that's what immediately drew me in.
- The factions are, on the whole, quite interesting, and the dynamics of cooperation and/or confrontation that drive them are well understandable. Particular attention has been paid to the various native clans, which despite their cultural and visual similarities, have their own motivations. There is one drawback however, but I'll return to it in another section.
- The companions are all from different factions, which encourages us to regularly change them according to the quests we're doing. This allows us to benefit from additional information, and sometimes to have easier conversations with NPCs from the same factions as our companions.
- Although the island of Teer Fradee is not a true open world, and some of the scenery is repetitive (especially the buildings and interiors), the developers have taken great care to create the different regions and give each one its own “vibe”.
- The story is interesting to follow, at least for the first two-thirds.
- The system for upgrading weapons and armor is a nice touch, allowing you to continue using the weapons/armor you want as the game progresses without losing too much in stats. The visual upgrades are also nice, even if they're often the same from one outfit to the next.
- Side quests, while not having exciting objectives, (go to point A, talk to X, go to point B, kill Y, etc...), tell very interesting stories.

On the “mixed” side:
- The story runs out of steam in its final third, and unfortunately becomes far too predictable towards the end. There are no real surprises or “wow” moments. The game also suffers from the “Fallout New Vegas” syndrome, as the ending is rather abrupt and showed by Powerpoint slides.
- Although the factions are interesting at first glance, nothing concrete is done with them. Several of them are at war with each others in the lore, but apart from a few skirmishes (for some of them), there's no concrete change in their interactions.
- Our character occupies the role of a diplomat, but has little true impact on his own faction or others. It's easy enough to keep everyone happy, and I haven't come across a situation where being too supportive of one faction made me permanently angry with another. I literally lost 9 relationship points with the natives at one point in the main story, without any change in the dialogues.
- I'm supposed to believe that the Nauts are the only ones who can cross oceans? Has no faction been able to steal, this knowledge from them by espionnage or corruption before? And no faction has managed to master the seas, despite the fact that literally one of them is a scientific faction? As for the Coin Guard, I find it strange that mercenaries can work for all factions at the same time without causing internal tensions or conflicts of interest.
- The companions combat dialogues are too repetitive and will be engraved in your mind forever. Those who played the game know what I am referring to.

BUT despite these complaints, I enjoyed playing this game, and will play the second one. I understand that Spiders is not in a position to make a AAA game, especially since they seem to have some internal issues. I hope that some of these issues will be fixed in Greedfall 2, and that the choice to release the game in early access will give the developers the feedback they need to do so.

Great game, carries spirit of RPGs from 2000-2010 era. Graphics could be better, but maybe it's part of the charm.

Pretty good game just sad that there are still bugs that people have been complaining about still in the game even thought the devs have moved on the Greedfall 2

Your first side quest is given by a diplomat and alchemist of a foreign nation. Why are you talking to him, and he to you? Who knows! The game doesn't tell you. He complains about a competitor in your city selling potions that harm those imbibing them and asks you to investigate. Why would you do that? What is your occupation? Where does your authority to investigate and enforce laws derive from? Who knows! The game doesn't tell you.

So, you go talk to the allegedly bad alchemist at his stand, where he is attempting to sell what he claims is a potion that cures everything except for original sin, or whatever the disease is that as afflicting a significant portion of the population like the plague. He denies wrongdoing but refuses to imbibe his own potion to prove it isn't harmful. Having deployed your best investigatory strategies, you're ready to give up, but then your sidekick--a warrior-class type of guy--has a great idea. While you two literally stand next to the perpetrator-alchemist, who is still attempting to sell any of the many vials there in his immediate vicinity--your side kick says let's go to where this guy stores his stock of potions--10 feet away--steal one, then force him to drink it. Wow, that's a great idea, your character says, that's totally different than what we just did.

So you travel to a place about 10 feet away and proceed to murder the alchemist's armed security guards, who have done nothing wrong, and steal a potion. Then you go back to the alchemist--who did not hear the ruckus of State-sanctioned (?) murder and theft--and proclaim, oh ho! We stole a potion and now you have no choice but to drink it to prove it isn't harmful. Then the Alchemist does something you would never expect, but you don't see it. Instead, your character and their sidekick talk about it. Oh no, that 100 year old man of wisdom and science fled on foot without making a distraction or hindering us in any way. Surely, there is nothing that we--young specimens of the region's finest martial ability that we are--can possible do to give chase. Anyway, we did follow him or watch the direction he went, so we have no idea where he could be. Maybe it will be a mystery the player must solve by following leads, talking to people and examining evidence. Just kidding, we're going to tell you where to walk to to find the next cut scene. So, then you go there.

In the next cut scene the alchemist promises the potion is completely safe, but not for him because he used it too much. He claims to believe that with additional development his potion truly could cure original sin. Therefore he's been selling it to run a patient-funded human experiment--so it's kind of like an early access game on Steam. Also, he's innocent because his competitor, the diplomat/alchemist, holds a grudge against him because they were faculty at the same school, but the victim-alchemist thought the wrong thoughts and complained about the unethical experiments being ran on people, which involved torture for some reason. Then the game requires you to make a decision to either arrest the alchemist and hand him over to a foreign nation, which will result in his horrible torture and demise, or to aid in his immediate escape from the city. Is there evidence to corroborate the accusations against him, or his defenses? No! Why hand him to a foreign nation instead of trying him under the laws which justify his arrest? No idea! The game doesn't say.

So, I give Greedfall my highest recommendation if role playing as a brain damaged idiot child is your fetish.

It feels like an old school bioware rpg. The story is engaging, the voice acting is good, I actually enjoy the dialogue and the menial side missions which pay off with more lore or relations with the factions. It seems like a good replacement now that Dragon Age is going down hill. I think they handle the cultures well, if maybe they are a little biased on the native side.

The combat is action based and it's serviceable. I think the best part of the game is the voice acting, story telling interactions and the relationships with the companions and the factions. The fact that you can use different skills to solve problems is also nice. I also like the fact that you are a diplomat so the role play of a charisma/dialogue focused run makes sense.

On the cons maybe in the later game, some of the mainline quest missions are not aware of things your character should know. I understand these combinations are hard to code and provide little pay off, and this is a double A game, I am not expecting BG3/Divinity Original Sin, but that would've been a nice to have.

Overall I recommend it and I will be checking out the next one in the series when I am fully done with this one.

"What he wants? Eternity. Strength. Power. It is what they all want, those who take without looking beyond themselves."

I first encountered GreedFall in April 2022, on the tail end of the pandemic. I had just received word that, after nearly a two-year 'exile' of sorts, I was finally able to return to Montreal, QC; my island, my city. In some ways, the saga of de Sardet -- the confident, fearless, yet personally rootless legate whose role we assume -- inaugurated the next stage of my life. In other ways, it revealed and accentuated what was already there, and what I was already passionate about. Naturally, I could write an entire novel about my love for the game, but this is neither the time nor the place for a retrospective. This will be a 'proper' review, as the reception of my impromptu piece about GreedFall II changed something within me. Most of my review will be me waxing poetic at a fever pitch, so I will try to get the 'important' stuff out of the way first, just for the discerning gamers.

TL;DR?

Probably.

I 100% recommend GreedFall. I cannot recommend it enough, actually. It was created on a budget with a skeleton crew, and the gameplay and mechanics can be a bit janky and exploitable, but it is beyond worth it for the story alone. A tech de Sardet with a well-crafted gun can breeze through the game and delete just about every enemy -- which is ridiculously fun -- but if you're more into swordplay, then there's more to pay attention to. The parries are very satisfying! All of this said, though, if you're looking for a very refined gameplay experience, then I'm not too sure you'd enjoy the game as much as I did, but if you want a magical and politically volatile story that presents an unflinching and scathing pronouncement on the folly of man, as well as the consumptive nature of greed and its destructive trappings, then you have met your match.

PROS
+ The characters -- absolute standouts. Every single one of them, from de Sardet themself, Constantin, the companions, the various native leaders...
+ The story itself and the constantly grey morals of everyone involved, including de Sardet...!
+ CHOICES MATTER
+ Gorgeous landscapes and sound design
+ Cape physics. I've spent a lot of time in the game just spinning de Sardet around to watch her cape flutter.
+ The game encourages exploration and forces you to figure things out for yourself -- your hand isn't held past the combat tutorial
+ Chockful of early modern historical references, and plenty of Shakespeare!
+ You're free to be a horrible person, but you have to live with your choices (and you'll feel guilty about it, too)
+ In-depth and interactive crafting system

CONS
- The combat can be exploited quite easily
- Textures often clip and there are shading issues
- Animations in dialogues are sometimes choppy, but ones that we see in cutscenes are very fluidly done
- Companions can get stuck on invisible hitboxes and teleport off the map...
- Burrowing nadaigs can likewise throw companions into the fourth dimension
- The cities of the different colonial powers feel rather samey, especially the palaces

In short, most of the hang ups and reservations that I can share about the game have to do with the shoestring budget they had for the first game. I recall reading somewhere that it was only $5mil. If you can forgive that, it's an unforgettable game, and I really can't say enough good things about it.

Flintlock fantasy's apogee

It's a shame that Steam reviews have a rather paltry word limit, as I could sing the praises of this game incessantly. I'll do what I can to keep it succinct and relevant, though; maybe one day I'll have a whole retrospective series in my group/cult. But very, very briefly, the three highlights I'd like to visit here:

The story
I don't want to spoil a thing about the story, so I'll share a very brief rundown. You assume the role of de Sardet, a member of the nobility in Serene, the capital of the Merchant Congregation. You are to assume the position of legate and accompany your whimsical cousin, Constantin d'Orsay, to his new position as governor on the faraway isle of Tir Fradi, in hopes of finding a cure for the malichor, an insiduous plague that is rotting the old world, and cementing the standing of the Congregation on the colonial stage. Political machinations await de Sardet and company at every turn on Tir Fradi. Every choice is meaningful, and they all culminate in a dramatic, morally challenging conclusion that will leave you to wonder 'what if I did this differently...'

The characters
There's a reason why I mentioned my absolute love for the cast of characters in GreedFall immediately. They are all fantastically written and designed. Perhaps one of the most unique bits of the character interaction in GreedFall is that they do not begin as trusting or friendly towards de Sardet, but rather suspicious of them; even your bodyguard, the deceptively gruff and stoic Kurt. Think about it: although you trust him, clearly, you've done very little so far to give him any reason to trust you. The native princess ("you are most confusing, but thank you") Siora treats you kindly but coolly at first encounter, the renegade botanist Aphra has reason to believe you're out for her head and holds you at gunpoint the very second she lays eyes on you, and poor Captain Vasco is obliged to relinquish his position among the Nauts after he is finished transporting you from Gacane to Tir Fradi. You have to earn your companions' trust, and there are consequences if you fail to do so. This said, the romances are expertly done. Before GreedFall I would go out of my way to avoid romances in games, as I usually find them cringing or saccharine. In this case, however, if you do choose to pursue a relationship with a companion -- and you're under no obligation to do so! -- it is in-line with their own personality, arc, and their perception of de Sardet. The treatment of the companions is realistic, and in giving them their own agency, so to speak, the story becomes much more vivid and immediate.

De Sardet is easily my favourite protagonist in just about any piece of media I've consumed. As a born-and-raised member of the nobility and a skillful diplomat, one would expect for de Sardet to be a distant character, someone to whom the player would struggle to relate. But the swagger and bravado belies a universal experience; de Sardet struggles with duty, allegiance, identity, morality. As de Sardet, you inhabit a living, breathing world that you can impact. Yet, you are never given the impression that you alone are changing the world, but changing alongside the world. Just as with the companions, de Sardet's character arc from start to finish is complete and -- hopefully! -- satisfying.

The choices
There is no "good" ending for GreedFall. There is a horrible ending, a few okay endings, and the best ending, but there is no "good" ending. Your choices immediately begin to shape and construct your own fate. Acting on impulse and emotion, no matter how well-intentioned, can ruin your goals. Failing to parliament with your companions and listen to their complaints or worries can lead to absolute catastrophe or result in minor, yet irritating loses. Choices as seemingly minor as taking the low road instead of the high, or entering a hangar from the backdoor versus the front can have massive repercussions for the resolution. In many ways, you are forced to assume the role of a diplomat, constantly assessing, thinking, considering how your choices can impact and influence those around you.

The Final Verdict

Overall Rating ★★★★★
Story ★★★★★
Gameplay ★★★★☆
Graphics ★★★★☆
Sound Design ★★★★★
Replay Value ★★★★★
Difficulty ★★★☆☆
Bug free? ★★☆☆☆
PC Requirements ★★★★☆
Game Length ★★★★★

I thought this game was amazing. I loved the story, the combat is fun, the world is immersive, story is original, and the RPG elements fit nicely. I can’t really think of a bad thing to say about it. The graphics even hold up very well to this day. I don’t understand the negative reviews at all. Maybe it’s just not their type of game?

Extremely good game
I love that its full voice acted, i lost myself in the story at times and completely ignored the stream.
took about 51 hours to complete the game, That's listening to everything and doing all side missions.
i got to the point that one of our team mates tried killing us. i made a save then went back and done his side mission and then he no longer tried to kill us in the mission later on.
The interactions between the companions is pretty cool aswell.

I was looking forward to playing Greedfall 2 but the combat system in that game is a big pass from me.
I'm not a fan one bit and will not be getting the game solely for that reason.

I absolutely love this game. It's an expansive AA rpg where you can tell every cent of the limited budget went to the right place. It has a really good story and 17-thish century setting that is a much, much needed break from the bog standard, run of the mill, generic medieval fantasy.

It's pre-industial, Age of Discovery style world is inhabited by several factions, each with it's own politics and lore, that you'll have to manage relations with as you complete quests. The quests do involve a lot of talking and back and forth between characters, but they do also offer a lot of opportunity for choice and consequence. Perhaps not always in the grand scheme of things, but on an individual quest level the game often shows impressive attention to detail and account for player's actions.

Down side is factions can be really one-dimentional and many of their members carry their shtick to absurd proportions, making them difficult to sympathize. They would've benefitted from a lot more nuance. Companion characters though are really well done. You get one of each faction along with their own quests and opportunities to engage deeper into the lore. 

RPG mechanics are well implemented and meaningful. Depending on the character build you'll have different options to traverse the environment or handle quest related situations. On top of that there's more than decent crafting and upgrade systems that allow an impressive amount of functional as well as visual customization. 

Combat is simple but functional. What it lacks in depth it more than makes up for in variety. You have a number of melee weapons to choose from, you can shoot guns,  you can use magic, throw grenades, set traps, dodge, block, kick. And best of all of that on the fly, switching between different weapons and tactics, depending on the situation.

You can tell where they had to cut some corners. It show mostly through the very limited enemy variety and a lot of repeated assets. But despite that, the game manages to create a very pleasant and distinctive atmosphere. The music is not particularly memorable, but it serves it's purpose.

Overall, despite a few hiccups - an extremely solid title.

It really is a very solid game, with great story and environment, and I love the combat for a game like this, despite its imperfection. If you like soulslike combat, or games like modern God of War, this is pretty similar, with some jank and age. Turn difficulty to 11 ("extreme" in game) and you have a game with story, characters, and dialogue like old Dragon Age, and combat that compares well to typical challenging, thrilling active-combat games. Parrying, dodging, varying forms of attacks and abilities. My only gripe are the controls, which took major remapping on my end as I consider using facebuttons for major combat actions archaic nowadays, and it took some work to get things into a good format where I have my hands on the important buttons and thumbs on the sticks all (or most of) the time, but it was possible (with remapping software - the game does not support it). Other than that accessibility issue, it really does play surprisingly well. It isn't polished like Elden Ring, or God of War, but it is very solid for what it does.

I loved Dragon Age: Origins combat as well (I considered it my favorite game for most of my young life), and I hear Greedfall 2 will be going that route (tactical party control with emphasis on pausing), which is fine. I personally also greatly enjoy the difficulty and thrill of this game's highest difficulty combat. I would have liked to see them stick with their guns and innovate on this system rather than abandon it for more traditional rpg combat, but I know this mashup of active-skill combat with a dialogue-focused rpg was likely relatively divisive in the intended player-base, and I respect they are trying something new. However, this game plays very well, and is actively fun for me, despite coming off the backs of games like aforementioned God of War, or Lies of P . It shows some age, but the fundamentals are there, and they are completely sufficiently realized for me to enjoy even after the top-end active combat games I mentioned.

The world is also very pretty and immersive, and the characters and dialogue are all pretty well written. I loved DA:O, and nowadays play largely soulslikes/active combat games, and this is a nice mashup of those ideas.

The storyline and voice acting is very good. The graphics are beautiful, even thought he game is old now. A big thumbs up to the creators.

Not perfect, But a damn good game. I really liked the story line and enjoyed learning about my companions.

I've played a fair share of Spiders games and this one seems to be the best RPG they've made to date. Amazing visuals, great setting, decent combat & build variety, and some of the quests could rival a whole written novel. Yet I'm hesitant to give this game a good or bad review because of how repetitive it gets after 10-20 hours. A lot of the tasks are just fetch-quests and there's a lot of back-and-forth travel in this game, like A LOT (if the developers simply put fast travel to the locations you've been at as one of the default modes of travel this wouldn't be such an issue). I do understand that this game is supposed to be about diplomacy first, which involves a lot of traveling and talking, but the game simply can't keep up with ways of making the dialogues interesting enough for an average player to care. Closer to the end I started skipping a lot of the dialogue options because of how much talking was happening without being engaging enough. I feel if spiders would've chosen to follow the path of a more traditional RPG this game would've scored better. But with all of this out of the way I still think that this game is worth playing since it has a lot of potential that I hope will be put to good use in GreedFall 2.

This is a very immersive game, I found it easy to get into the characters. This game has a rich story line and many quests. I have only played it on the easy/story mode but it was still fun and challenging. This game will provide hours of entertainment for anyone who likes role playing games.

I played the game for a bit and found it interesting had to uninstall it do to not having enough space in my hard drive for other games.

i reinstalled it wanting to play the game only to have it crash over and over, do to apparently some scene coding issues.

The only way to fix the issue is to use a third party app(real damn shady for sure) to disable those settings.
i am very distrusting of using third party apps in general.

With due honesty i would not buy this game since the developer seemingly left this game to the back burner, with no bug up date to be seen.

Its a big bummer. since tyhe game play was neat:if this issue persists i may have to order a refund which is the last thing i want to do.

If you trust the third party app to fix this game go ahead at your own risk.
i bought to a game to play not to take up space.

Animations are lazy if not just bad. Character models are used over and over again and their speach animations, again, are just horrifying. Combat is a mass, the AI is really stupid, the game just send a bunch of creatures in big numbers, but they don't know how to move, it's lame. Characters join your party at random with no reason at all, some cuts in the game are brainless, you are doing something and then the game cuts to some dialog in a place where you were'nt even there. Places are also all the same but in diferent positions, lazy work once again. Bough it cheap, but still, absolutelly not worth my time.

I love everything by Spiders. I've played Mars War Logs, The Technomancer, and GreedFall. Definitely getting Greedfall 2. Every game this studio puts out builds on the first one and I've loved watching their gameplay and narratives get tighter and tighter. These game may not be perfect but they're clearly made by gamers for gamers and that gives them a lot of soul. I've played through GreedFall 3 times and can't recommend it enough for action-RPG lovers.

In Short:
You play as a charismatic sword wielding diplomat, trying to manage and surmount interests of various parties in a world where questions of magic, colonialism, and a plague are a key elements of the story.
7/10

Additional Thoughts:

The game has plenty of strong points, but there are times when they miss the mark:

The dialogue is clever, offering smart alternatives and witty comebacks, but some lines are delivered crudely and could use some refinement. This can lead to a pause in immersion.

The visuals are decent, but they would’ve been more impressive if you were playing in the mid-2010s. For a game released in 2019, it falls short. There's a noticeable amount of copy-pasting, especially in the buildings and their layouts, as well as the outdoor design. Still, there’s just enough variation to keep it tolerable. (Same goes for some background NPCs)

The game’s "Open World" concept feels more like a suggestion than a reality. You're constantly hemmed in by map boundaries, whether in tight corridors or open areas. Sure, it's an RPG, but the world could use more life—echoing a theme of superficiality. This becomes painfully obvious when you try to pass through bushes or climb over a rock, and the game essentially says, "nope." AC3 did a better job, and its from 2012!

Fast travel feels clunky, especially frustrating when missions demand a lot of back and forth. Instead of offering a direct travel option, you're forced to rely on camps that are close—but annoyingly not close enough—to key areas.

On rare occasions (happened three times), when you tackle a mission your own way and reach a checkpoint, the story doesn’t load—apparently, you were supposed to follow a specific path. Sometimes mission areas also fail to highlight. Luckily the Reddit community is there to help!

So, why a 7/10? Despite its flaws, the story and characters are strong enough to carry the game. It offers a unique experience, drawing you into a world where societies clash and competing priorities collide. You find yourself at the center, playing kingmaker while rediscovering your own morals and sense of belonging. On the gameplay side, your teammates are genuinely helpful in combat—you can customize their equipment and swap them in and out depending on the mission. Plus, relationships feel meaningful, earned through your actions and accomplishments.

As a whole, the game has its quirks and demands a bit of patience, but I’m excited for the sequel and hoping they’ve taken note of what needs polishing.

Pros:
- extraordinary main story, good side stories
- beautiful views, spectacular graphics
- deep characters
Cons:
- invisible walls and corners, overall strange movement in some areas
- repeating textures, every city looks exactly the same, also the inside of the buildings look always the same
- combat is not as smooth as I hoped for
- controller layout is a disaster, needed a mod to make is playable (cannot be changed in settings)
- talent system is annoying, needed to put a lot of points on unneeded places to reach skills I wanted. Need to investigate points to be able to jump to places or crawl over, really? :D

Summary:
The extraordinary story and spectacular graphics tip the scales towards a positive review from me.
However there are a lot of annoying flaws in the game, like repeating objects, places and the overall gameplay.

I actually wanted to like this game the world setting is pretty cool but the combat is so stale I played as a mage and hearing "you're out of mana use a potion" every battle over and over gets really annoying after you can also get stun locked pretty easily the hit boxes for your character don't make sense even if you've dodged out of the way. you can unlock pretty much everything your class has to offer around level 10 theres about 3 or 4 main skills or spells and most of them are pretty boring.
The quests are pretty much all go here talk to this person go back talk to this person go there talk to this person fight a random battle then go back and talk to someone i wouldn't mind it if had better fast travel system also some quest make you wait in game time to progress meaning you have to sleep to fast forward time and if you go over that time you can fail the quest. I can see why some people would like this but its just not for me

Beat the game, and I just can't recommend it. Stale combat, quests are nothing but "run here, talk to x" X500. The only truly memorable character is your brother and he falls apart toward the end of the game.
The DLC is also a ripoff, it's bland as hell.
The game starts promising, but once you reach the island you realize the best part of the game was the intro - and then everything starts to fall apart.
I desperately want Spiders to succeed, but they should stop trying to make Bioware games and instead make the best Spiders games.

Greedfall is an amazing RPG title from Spiders. I totally recommend this to all that love adventure, stories, magic, and fantasy worlds. I don't want to spoil too much, so I am leaving behind a surface level review below. And my sincerest thanks to all those who built and published this beautiful game (I hope you guys and gals get a huge raise, the respect you all deserve, and a favourable work environment - Spiders you owe them atleast that much).

What I loved about this game:
+ Detailed world building
+ Factions & reputation
+ Politics & diplomacy
+ Creatures (both wild and supernatural)
+ Capes
+ Freedom of building your own combat style
+ There are multiple ways to approach/complete every mission
+ NPCs that you will actually care about
+ Map
+ Secrets
+ Camp sites and accomodations
+ Lore
+ Art and visual style in general
+ Voice acting
+ Multiple endings

What I didn't like about this game:
- Limited character customization (can't even name your own character)
- The lack of save separation between different playthroughs.
- Combat system (it is functional, but pretty basic)
- No control over companions during combat, can't choose their abilities, or make them use our consumables
- Repeated environments/assets
- Weapon sheathing bugs
- Lack of a mount
- Lack of the ability to customise your camps or homes
- Some huge gaps in lore/reason for existence of some groups (I am looking at you coin guard)
- Can't swim or use boats for a game that is situated in a giant island/small continent.
- Rewards or the lack thereof for completing missions
- The way you award unique faction gear in the most f*** you player way (those that played the game will know about this)
- Getting stuck in bushes and terrain gaps without being able to come out
- The lack of more DLCs (This is a world with a lot of potential. You could have capitalised on this with your talented team of developers).

Recommendations:
- Don't read the story or watch game vlogs before you play. This way, it will be an entirely new experience for you, and the story will definitely excite you. Also, get some of the working mods from Nexus to fix some the obvious bugs.

Here's something I hope: I sincerely hope that the decisions we made in the first game will have an actual impact on the second one (which will drop soon). I also hope that we learn more about the De Sardets.

Verdict: Definitely a great game made by a small team with a small budget. Much better than some AAA games out there. So get it!

GreedFall is a great start to a new franchise, but it's got a lot of painful flaws which really detract from the incredible story. This is one of the few games where every quest is significant and adds to the overall story. The game play feels similar to the original Bioware style in Dragon Age & Mass Effect, but it's technically limited with a ton of annoying barriers. For example combat is always limited to an incredibly small radius and if you move out it just resets the encounter. Within minutes of playing you'll notice every single door in the game requires you to walk through it with a tedious animation which becomes painfully apparent when you're moving back and forth talking to various NPC's. The navigation is also broken because it will recommend you use travel points on the other side of a map when you're standing directly next to one. There's even more annoyance because every single time you fast travel you have to go to your camp first, then walk out to proceed, which again is a clear technical limitation of the game engine but it becomes horribly time consuming. I honestly think without the door animations, traveling delays to compensate for load times, and having to walk through areas repeatedly just to find the same NPC who sent you to talk to a different NPC, the game would maybe take 6 hours to finish but it's artificially longer and ruins the pacing.

At this point the game is easy to find heavily discounted and worth playing, especially with GreedFall 2 coming out soon.

I can sum this game in one sentense: "Do you need anything else?"

And now for the real review (Ill make it short):
- World looks amazing
- Its a fantasy story which you can compare to how modern civilization forced it self on the USA grounds and the natives with war and blood... only this time they suffered consequinces due to monsters and plagues and you are trying to help both sides...
- The stories are interesting, too bad they NPCs dialogues seem and look like as written purely by AI?...
- There is no real "epic adventure" here, only do that come back, go there, come back, do this find him go there and come back...
- Few bugs but its ok, not dramatic, combat system too simple too easy, not much of a variety...
- No consequinces for stealing stuff, bad lockpicking mechanics, not fun being sneaky or a thief...
- And one of the worst: no such thing as Jumps.... one of the most hateful "features" i see in gaming...
- False/fake "Open world", and choices mechanics, very linear...

GreedFall slaps together a beautiful map, complex quests, good decision making, an in-depth setting and a really cool storyline with good character building. But some of the places like the palace looks duplicated. Battle system is better than other RPG's. The armors and weapons is impressive. What i hate about this game is the fast travel its very confusing. Overall its a Great game!

I'm really sad to give a game with this much potential a negative review. Especially when there really is a lot to enjoy here. First, the setting and concept are fascinating. The idea of playing a diplomat having to navigate the delicate balance between several warring factions is rich in story possibilities. It is also very interesting seeing a colonial world where magic coincides with early modern rifles, blunderbusses and dueling pistols. The aesthetics of the different factions also have a lot to admire. The colonial cities and environments and most of all, the lost world elements (e.g. the Guardian Beasts) have very solid art direction that goes a long way towards giving them character in a game with a (noticeably) limited budget.

Going along with that, the weapon and outfit progression and customization system was especially well fleshed out. Not only do the weapons have a nice variety and are fun to customize (you could tell the game devs had a lot of fun designing the different swords, spears, guns and outfits) but also go a long way to help you get immersed into the world. The idea of allowing you to sneak into factions' bases by wearing their outfit is a very nice touch. Finally, I really like the sword and gunplay. It's not super innovative or anything, but its still very satisfying (which is good, because it gets very repetitive after a while--and ultimately the stat progression system doesnt make up for it).

Ok. Now the bad.

I'll start with a nitpick. The low budget for this game shows more than it should. There are way too many prefab buildings. All throne rooms, secret bases, taverns, native huts, your house, etc. are as copy-paste as a pokemon center. It's unbelievably jarring to walk through an immersive Ottoman-Arab-inspired cityscape of Hikmet only to head into the governor's palace and see the same generic throne room you see in every other city, filled with empty rooms full of NPCs that you can't even interact with.
This is actually why i bring this nitpick up first-- it segues nicely into the actually biggest problem of this game: its only half finished in terms of what it aspires to be. This is because, at its core, Greefall is an RPG with very little human interactions. There are people in places, but you can't meaningfully interact with them--they only exist because it would look odd walking into a city with no people (except a shopkeeper and a governor). There are quests, but they are usually pretty by-the-numbers and you know what is going to happen before they are over. There are romances, but they basically amount to checking a (very limited) dialogue box. There is a morality system, but the moral choices are so unambiguously black and white that it essentially amounts to "be evil, which is boring" or "be good, which is repetitive."

Nearly every single quest has the same plot: A rude colonial power did something mean to the natives, now you have to resolve the situation. Every faction gets one--and only one-- personality trait (except the seafaring Nauts, which get roughly zero): evil zealot Spanish Inquisitors (Theleme), unscrupulous Gunpowder Empires scientists (Bridge), scheming German mercenaries (Coin Guard), "why cant we all just get along" Swiss merchants (Congregation) and helpless, pure-as-the-driven-snow natives (Teer Fradeans). Most diplomatic missions dont involve actually trying to negotiate a settlement between two sides with legitimate interests and viewpoints, so much as scolding the not-Europeans for being jerks for absolutely no reason at all. Regardless of your politics, this gameplay loop is just flat out boring. I couldn't imagine, say, Mass Effect softball pitching you a 'morality' system like this. It absolutely destroys the drama that makes morality systems work in RPG games to begin with when the devs basically look at the camera and tell you which choice is the 'right' choice...and then do it again 50 more times.

There were a few interesting moments in the plot (I wont spoil them), but ultimately they ended up getting buried in a mountain of poorly fleshed out people. Not only were the factions one-note and unsympathetic, but the actual characters werent much better. First, you don't really get a ton of time to actually speak to the side characters. They have loyalty missions, but it isn't like a BioWare game (Mass Effect, Dragon Age, etc) where you get to have extended conversations about their motives, feelings, personality, etc. You get a few sidequests out of them and you can tick a box to romance a few of them, but you never really feel close to them as characters, which is a catastrophic failure for an RPG.

This is ultimately why I can't recommend Greedfall. As a by-the-numbers gun and sorcery game, it's fine. B+. But as the RPG it sells itself and that asks you to get invested in it as, it is utterly lacking.

SO I bought this game the week it came out I think? But I hated the first boss fight so much I shelved it til today. The combat in that fight is possibly the worst combat I have ever seen a game in my life (I am 48). The inability to actually run in any direction, the incredibly tiny space to walk slowly around in, the massive number of pots you have to take to stay up, the fact that you can't do anything to get away and that your only move to get away to not take damage at least as a caster is a shield that lasts what seems like .00005 seconds and no matter where the boss was aiming it's range attack will hit you. AND YOU DON'T EVEN GET TO LOOT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am going to keep playing because they make the intro long enough to make it so you will probably not be able to return it. And they have sat on my $ for the last 3 years. But as much as I desperately wanted to like this game so far it's a turd.

Well I've just completed one of the best RPGs I've played in my life.

It took me approximately 60 hours to thoroughly explore the game and complete like 95% of the quests.

The game is set in an original and unusual fantasy universe with magic, strange creatures and "17th century vibe" to it. Its themes reminded me of a table-top RPG called "Symbaroum". It's a compliment :). Also due to environments and music I sometimes felt like playing an RPG set in one of the Civilization series games, where humanity development took a completely unexpected turn. This is also a compliment :))

The combat system reminded me of the Witcher. But it is somewhat less polished and intuitive. Luckily you can somewhat compensate that with skill, leveling up, better gear and potions (and changing game difficulty :P) I know some people enjoyed the combat aspect of the game and played it on a very high difficulty. I'm not one of them, but combat felt satisfying and rewarding.

The game really shines in its story and dialog. Beautifully written and voiced. Everybody is polite (17th century vibe, remember). "You are a disgrace, sir! I will have to put an end to your disgusting scheme!" "Come and try sir!" XD But seriously, jokes aside the story and dialogs are brilliant. I loved a huge number of NPCs including all of your companions. Also despite years of gaming this game managed to surprise me with its twist many times.

There were a couple of bumpy quests where I got stuck due to bad quest presentation, but nothing too bad.

All in all -- a great game. A true hidden gem. Wish the developers all the best and hope to see many games in this universe in the years to come!

An indie studio going for the feel of those big budget Bioware games of yore (Dragon Age, Mass Effect, KotOR) and completely overshooting their target in every way I can think of. Most good reviews of this game will tout the voice acting, the writing, and/or the combat which I thought were the weakest points of the game. For me the artistry is what shines. The color palette, the lighting, and camera work work together for an immersive, living oil painting feel which I don't believe any game has equalled yet. The animations are almost as well done what people are calling revolutionary in BG3. Its an "open-world" sort of game but every shot you're looking at feels like it was dialed up by a cinematographer. Despite the sort of clunky combat, the gameplay is really, really fun. The character progression is simple but effective. No waste or good and bad builds, just choices which affect how you will go through the story, and you get enough characters in the story to make it not feel like you're missing something cool on your first play through. The missions didn't feel like running around doing stupid things even though they were functionally similar to the KotOR/Mass Effect sidequests which did for whatever reason. In this game everything feels like it belongs there.

I played a lot on PS4 so my hours here aren't reflective.

This game renewed my withered and depleted soul after playing months of Starfield.

The game is gorgeous. It's fun. The writing is good, the voice acting is superb. Character development is decent, diplomacy rewarding, and the fighting good enough for me (I like Spiders games.) I admit I had to swallow my pride and turn the difficulty down to get through the first boss fight, but after that is was all good. It was a relief to not be dealing with dry, lifeless, nearly unlimited maps of the same procedurally generated stuff without end and without much purpose. I appreciate this game after playing a game like Starfield, creating a fun environment to play in, an engaging story, decent maps that don't actually go on forever and have (thankfully) limits, good visuals and a beautiful environment that doesn't make my pc melt the Arctic circle while turning into a glorified blow dryer. The length of the game seemed just right. And most importantly, it's actually fun.

I never had one crash in nearly 100 hours of game play. To me, this is all I need in a game. It's good enough. A game being fun to play is important - it's a game. I wish there were more games like this. It's easily one of my favorite rpg's. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

This a tossup... I would give a 6/10 which is favorable but not great. The game is not bad but the last half the game is not as fleshed out as the early sections. I played this at release but am making this review after noticing it in my library again.

The game is not bad just repetitive in enemy types, with inconsistent writing quality. Overall my feeling is the game is favorable but not as a must play but good enough to be worth playing. Repeatability I am trying, but I am not seeing a huge value as reasonable plot choices are straightforward leaving a lack of good variation in narrative.

Making a comparison against contemporary titles, I would play first Baldur's Gate 3 or Dragon's Dogma 2 again, but the game is good. As it is at post release discount, I would solidly recommend but not at the full release price I paid. I am being a harsh critic having enjoyed other similar games.

World creation good. Implementation poor. Story interesting. Dialogue and travel a chore. If you go somewhere early npcs don't react. Also you have to go from point A to point B only to go back to point A to have a discussion that could have been had before and saved all the needless travel. Even though this is an open world, it feels very linear. These two things took me out of the game, so not immersive. The game kept my interest enough that I finished it. But it really has no replay value. I wouldn't buy it again. Images above are not from the game. They are artist renditions.

TDLR; this game claims to be an RPG.. but it fails to provide any kind of consistency whatsoever as to the type of 'role' you are playing.. the only characterisation I can offer is that you are playing a chaotic neutral character.. nothing else makes sense.. the quests are an incoherent mess... the story arc is mostly a failed attempt at being 'machiavellian' and the games' only redeeming feature is that it is stable..it did not crash on me once! so while I did 'finish' it.. I didnt enjoy it because of its many failings! this game is just a complete joke!


I really wanted to like this game.. and at first (the first couple of hours) it seemed ok.. though the first 'boss' battle on the docks didnt make a lot of sense.. I just went the 'default' which for me was a magic user.. who didnt have a gun (I didnt loot one nor buy one, nor can I use one.. NO skill).. yet the 'cut scene' shows the character killing the 'ent' with a gun.. are the devs so poor that they couldnt render a scene for each class type? or at least something correct!? then there is the 'palace' in new serene.. really bad 'design'.. an entry way that is dim and dark ending in a sideways staircase to a door! a palace entry way should show splendor! this design is the antithesis of splendor! and then there is the library in the basement?!? the books would grow mold! not sure what these ppl are thinking.. did they think at all?!? and they supposedly built all this (the whole town) in 5 years? did they use magic? because that is the ONLY way it would have happened!

then there is the 'covert' method of doing things (as the devs claim you should be able to).. but how can you do anything covert with NO control over what your companions do! you should at least be able to tell them to 'stay put' while you infiltrate..

and the moronic devs chose to use the most stupid method of assigning things to quick slots! you should be able to do it via the inventory.. but no.. you use 'tactical combat' to do it! this is NOT a TBG.. so what 'tactics' are you actually using? you cant control the companions.. not even sure you can get them to use potions.. it wasnt covered in the tute.. what absolute morons!

but the final thing that put the 'nail in the coffin' for me was the absolute stupidity of the companions! you have no control over what they do when exploring open areas and they randomly go off and attack different mobs, attack mobs I'm skirting to avoid, attack mobs I've CC'd, stand around NOT attacking mobs I'm attacking, etc etc.. ABSOLUTE STUPIDITY.. what kind of devs are these ppl? morons is all I can say.. because stupid 'AI' is NOT fun.. I'd rather solo the game (I almost did..as it turns out) than have these stupid companions.. but you dont even have that choice..

then there are the quests.. an NPC 'welcomes' you as "your excellency".. and then as a subsequent response to an inquiry (charisma check). they respond "oh I should have recognised your excellency sooner".. but you did.. did they forget in the 10 seconds? stupid quests.. incorrect and/or badly worded english.. constantly referring to my female character as 'he' or 'him' (are these woke devs?!? using various 'incorrect pronouns' or are they just lazy...or just stupid.. take your pick).. and most of the 'skills' are stupid.. 'by default' you can climb 10 feet.. but if you want to climb 20 feet.. you'll need to 'improve your skill'.. pathetic.. just goes to show the devs limited imaginations that they have to 'limit' the game play via artificial limitations.. same with using a gun.. ANYONE can use a gun.. its a matter of how accurate! etc etc.. and the devs description of this game being 'open world'.. a complete LIE! artificial barriers are put in place to completely BLOCK you from exploring until a certain point (you accept a quest and then ladders are 'magically' put in place.. large rocks are 'magically' removed, etc).. but not only that the landscape is just a bunch of 'channels' (it'd make more sense if the 'whole world' was just a series of caves!).. you can barely even walk up a 2 foot ledge.. you can only climb at specific points. not 'open world' at all..

and the 'fast travel' is NOT FAST TRAVEL.. you have to run to a 'fast travel' point that then allows you to zone to another area (and you do have to run up to each 'zone connection' to flag the connected zone as 'explorable'! it then shows up on the global map).. sure you dont have to run through multiple zones to get to the required zone.. so you're 'skipping zones'.. but I doubt anyone would play this game if they had to do that!

The 'DLC' was vapid drivel and the 2 hours it took me to complete it was a complete waste of time! just like the game itself...

the above is not an 'extensive list'.. just 'first impressions' and then the ones I felt most annoyed with.. there are far too many downsides to this game to call it good.. highly disagree with the 'reviewers'/other posters... not a good game at all..barely playable is what I call it.

GreedFall is a unique RPG game because it refers to older games such as Gothic or Risen. Despite its small budget, the game is quite large and I mean the entire content of the game, i.e. the plot, locations, weapons, characters and so on. The game has a dynamic, although classic combat system, we have a lot of different weapons to choose from, we also have spells at our disposal, there are also firearms, which in my opinion are very strong here and are good to play with. The plot and characters in the game are very well written. As for problems and bugs, I didn't really notice them, so it's good. In general, the whole game is a very good title and I can recommend it.