The RPG genre has never been as popular as it is today. Though very popular in the past, the genre is currently flourishing thanks to major releases like Baldur’s Gate 3, which improved the traditional formula in many ways, and smaller projects that pay tribute to some of the best games released in the past, like the recent Tainted Grail: Lost Avalon, which, despite its flaws, is a solid tribute to The Elder Scrolls series.
Of Ash and Steel, the first game from Fire & Frost, fits well into this new wave of role-playing games that attempt to capture the spirit of classic games while offering a modernized experience. The influence of the Gothic series and the first two entries in The Witcher series are evident right from the get-go, but I feel there’s still a very long journey ahead for Fire & Frost to make the game one worth playing for anyone besides the most die-hard RPG fans willing to look past some critical issues.
Of Ash and Steel’s first taste is coming with a playtest version I had the chance to try out before its launch on Steam, which offers the chance to play through the game’s prologue set in the Grotto where main character Tristan ends up together with the expedition he is part of after some unspecified events taking place at the very start of the adventure and the game’s first chapter, set in the Forgotten Reach which provides a better look at what the final game will offer: an open-world RPG where player choice matters and shapes the world.
Right from the onset, it’s clear that Fire & Frost’s has a solid direction in mind for its game, regarding world design. Even in the prologue, which essentially works as a tutorial, the world feels very lively. NPCs don’t feel like props put in place for the player’s benefit, but walk around a lot, and interact with one another, talking about a variety of things, including events that may not have any bearing in Tristan’s quest, but that still help flesh out the world better. In this regard, things become even better in the Forgotten Reach, also thanks to some rather diverse activities that, while not terribly original, make the experience more varied, leaning into the simulation side of the RPG genre much like mechanics like the light survival mechanics the game currently features.
Unfortunately, it is very difficult to enjoy the good that Ash and Steel has to offer in this playtest due to a variety of issues. In a somewhat ironic way, the team seems to have taken the Gothic series’ inspiration a little too much to heart, as the game takes the typical jank of the Piranha Bytes titles to the next level, which is not too surprising, given the small size of the development studio. Not counting the subpar visuals, which include bland environments and stiffly animated characters with some bad facial animations to boot, everything surrounding the lively world of Of Ash and Steel leaves something to be desired: movement is extremely floaty, which makes both traversal and the stamina-based combat lightly reminiscent of the Souls series formula with some environment interactions feel very unsatisfying, controller implementation is terrible, as it is essentially slapping mouse and keyboard controls on a controller with one of the worst input schemes seen in recent times, which can be thankfully be changed, an extreme lack of quality-of-life features and a general blandness of the characters and the story.
Besides being lacking on many different fronts, it’s the absence of too many features that have become essential in the genre that hurts the experience the most, such as a feature that highlights objects that can be interacted with. This absence becomes egregious in one of the first few uninspired quests in the game, which tasks Tristan with killing insects by stepping on them. The problem with these insects is that their color blends with that of the ground, making it very difficult to spot them, forcing players to rely on luck to complete the quest. The absence of any quest marker is a great choice to incentivize exploration, but as things stand, it’s just a hindrance, because, most of the time, NPCs don’t provide good directions to the player. Another of the early quests, uninspired as much as the one described above, tasks players with recovering some tools that have been “thrown up high” by one NPC on a rock, without providing any more detail. This also led to a short “platforming” segment, which was dreadful to play with the game’s current movement floatiness and terrible controls. In addition, NPCs do not repeat key dialogue, forcing players to rely on the Journal to review the vague clues they have provided, which doesn’t provide anything beyond the vague directions already provided by the characters.
Being a playtest version, it was expected that this early version of Of Ash and Steel wouldn’t be perfect, but from all its issues, it’s clear how Fire & Frost still has a very long journey ahead of them to make the game one worth playing. Still, the game definitely has some potential in some of its features, so I hope the studio will be able to polish the experience up and improve what doesn’t currently work to make traversing and shaping Grayshaft with Tristan’s choices an enjoyable exp
Of Ash and Steel is in development for PC. A release date has yet to be confirmed.
Playtest early access provided by the publisher.
