GreedFall 2: The Dying World

GreedFall, Spiders' 2019 action RPG, laid the foundation for an engrossing world plagued by a deadly ailment known as Malichor. Though GreedFall's story eventually reveals a sinister origin behind the disease, GreedFall 2 explores the early days of the Malichor plague and the island where the first game took place. I spent an hour exploring GreedFall 2's forested region and engaging in the game's new combat mechanics, and am intrigued by the direction the studio is taking.

In the first GreedFall, you played as a neutral character who has recently moved to the island. In GreedFall 2, you assume the role of a member of Teer Fradee's Indigenous tribes who have been uprooted and forcibly relocated to Gacane. Set three years before the first title, Spiders doesn't consider GreedFall 2 a prequel because it relies so heavily on new factions and new characters. However, the story will give you more insight into the first game's setting.

Combat in this entry is more team-driven and draws heavy inspiration from the tactical side of RPGs instead of action. In action, it plays somewhat like Baldur's Gate 3, which, after that game's success in the mainstream last year, feels like pretty advantageous timing for the studio's follow-up release. However, it draws heavier inspiration from Dragon Age: Origins, which could also be good timing given the current heat surrounding the Dragon Age franchise. After creating my character with a Path, Weapons Mastery, Bound Skills, Starting Talent, and Attribute distribution (sadly, appearance editing was locked for this demo), I'm ready to head out into the world.

At this moment in the timeline, malichor is starting to ravage the continent, and the indigenous population and others who have begun settling hope it isn't already on their island. Still, you can hear the paranoia in conversations as people start saying that people they know have recently fallen ill. Additionally, the tribe you're a part of also has concerns about the settlers' intentions. 

Before I can go out and engage in the exploration Spiders hopes to double down on, I must perform an initiation ritual, which is essentially just a combat tutorial. GreedFall 2 adopts a tactical combat system that can play out in real-time or slowed-down tactical fashion so you can dictate to each squad member what actions to pull off. This adds a ton of depth to how combat in this pseudo-prequel plays out. 

After passing the initiation ritual by slaying two beasts, a higher-ranking tribe member asks me to investigate why local animals have disappeared. Shortly after beginning my journey, I encounter a man and his two dogs. They attack, and I use the new combat system to take them down; I have my archer hang back while my warrior archetype and I charge in with melee weapons. After dispatching them, I begin following footprints using Tracking Mode, which highlights objects of interest, including crates and plants to loot, as well as tracks.

I come across another group of humans; this time, they're being attacked by dogs. I start a battle with the dogs and do away with them. In talking with these people, I learn that a nearby encampment has been setting steel traps for animals, but they're also getting people stuck in them, as evident by the two members of their party currently trapped. I try to free the first one, but the mechanic's test fails, and the mechanism does even more damage to the trapped victim. I go to the other one, hoping for a better result, and I pass the check.

I leave those folks behind and go to the nearby camp to try and get them to leave. You can approach these camps in several different ways; for the first time, I tried to just walk in. From there, I'm greeted by one of the camp's leaders, who is quite rude. After asking them to stop trapping and killing the local animal population, they mention how lucrative the skins business is, and they don't plan on leaving that behind anytime soon. Instead, he recommends the tribe start hunting further away like they will soon. Very nice of him. Next, I try to sneak in, but I'm caught. In the resulting dialogue, I try to pay off the members of the camp to get them to leave. However, it's not looking promising unless I can come up with much more money than I have now. 

In a final effort, I opt to threaten them. My character tells the camp leader that his tribe has many warriors who will come for them and their people if they do not leave. This seems to actually get through to the arrogant leader, as they promise they'll pack up soon. I assume that if a check failed at that moment, I would have had to enter combat. But since they outnumbered my party pretty significantly, I'm glad they took my threat to heart.

After that not-so-pleasant interaction, my time with GreedFall 2 ended. Though I'm still figuring out the intricacies of how the combat system works and how each character is best optimized, I had a great time exploring Spiders' world. And with an interactive Early Access period, where the team hopes to implement player feedback to create the best game possible, this more tactical approach seems like a good fit for the studio's second effort in this franchise. GreedFall 2: The Dying World comes to Early Access on PC this summer with potential for consoles when the game's 1.0 launches after the close of 2024.