Dark Envoy Review – Combat Mastery

2023 has been a great year for computer role-playing games, mostly thanks to the release the long-anticipated release of Baldur’s Gate 3, whose success proved how starved players are for a proper experience rooted deep in the Dungeons & Dragons world and ruleset. But cRPGs aren’t all about D&D, as Event Horizon proved with Dark Envoy, a solid traditional RPG with a real-time with pause combat system that builds upon the studio’s previous title, Tower of Time, to deliver an enjoyable albeit flawed experience.

Dark Envoy is set in the fantasy steampunk world of Jaan, where humans and non-humans, such as orcs and elves, live. Their co-existence, however, is far from peaceful, and their differences eventually lead to an open war between the human Empire and the non-human League, touting their technological and magical superiority, respectively. The only place untouched by strife and war in the whole world is the City of Bones, where Malakai and Kaela live. The two Relic Hunters serve their community by exploring the ruins left behind by the advanced civilization of the Ancients and recovering artifacts and relics, not knowing they too will be involved in a war that threatens to destroy the world of Jaan.

Dark Envoy’s is definitely not going to win any award for excellent storytelling or outstanding writing, but it is undeniable that developer Event Horizon crafted a somewhat interesting plot that manages to stay so from beginning to end, also thanks to a straightforward yet functional choice and consequence system that tasks players with making choices based on different moral alignments. The consequences range from minor to substantial, so the game lends itself to multiple playthroughs, especially since it doesn’t take too long to see the ending after around 20 hours.

The choices players have to make are interwoven into character development, as they represent how the two siblings view the world. Malakai is usually the hotheaded person who goes for the more straightforward choices, while Kaela is the one who thinks things through before acting, often going for compromises that may benefit more people. The two main characters are obviously the star of the show and see a decent amount of development throughout the adventure, although it isn’t anything major. The companions go through considerably less development, so they feel duller in comparison, also due to the average writing, but this isn’t exactly surprising, as Dark Envoy’s main focus is combat and everything that revolves around it. If you were expecting to find Baldur’s Gate 3 level of character development and story progression, you are looking at the wrong game.

What’s good about Dark Envoy’s focus on combat is that fighting enemies is genuinely good. The game employs a classic real-time with pause combat system that works incredibly well, integrating elements from the tactical turn-based system the game was originally going to feature, such as environmental interactivity, a cover system, and more. These elements make combat scenarios surprisingly varied, as navigating around enemies stealthily or taking traps into consideration while developing a combat strategy never stops feeling dull for the duration of a single playthrough, although the game eventually becomes a little repetitive, as fighting all sorts of enemies will be what Malakai, Kaela, and their companions will be doing for the vast majority of the time. The inclusion of a Tactical Mode that slows down time to give players more time to use skills and reposition characters is a welcome addition, although it has become kind of a standard feature for modern RPGs featuring real-time with pause combat. This mode shines the most during boss battles, as it gives players the chance to react to the enemies’ attacks by giving them the time to move out of range and avoid getting damaged quickly. The same could be done during battles with mobs, but it is more difficult to accomplish due to the chaotic nature of regular encounters. All this, coupled with the quick pace of battles, makes fighting enemies extremely enjoyable.

When it comes to character customization and building, Dark Envoy doesn’t disappoint, although possibilities feel a little limited compared to other games. The only characters that can be fully customized in terms of their appearance and class are Malakai and Kaela, as every other companion will come with a predetermined appearance and class. The game features four main classes – Warrior, Ranger, Engineer, and Adept – and three specializations for each class, which can be unlocked at level 7. Both the main class and the specialization come with different skill trees that include passive and active abilities, and by mixing and matching, it is possible to develop some unique builds. Character customization and building are further enhanced by the three Research trees, which are unlocked a few hours into the game, offering permanent upgrades to all characters, crafting enhancements, and Enchantments recipes that can be used to customize equipment to refine builds further. The inability to mix and match abilities from different classes limits customization possibilities, but the game already offers enough options for this not to be a major issue.

The combat focus of Dark Envoy, however, brings some downsides that are difficult not to notice. Exploration, for example, is extremely basic. Instead of bigger interconnected maps, the game features different locations that can be reached via a dedicated menu, with no actual traveling. The many dungeons in the game have intricate designs with multiple paths and secrets but ultimately feel somewhat straightforward, as the occasional navigational challenge basically boils down to pressing switches and timing movement to avoid traps. This is a shame, as the lore implies that the world of Jaan is rather big, but the way this world is presented doesn’t seem to represent its scale too well.

If there’s one more thing Dark Envoy does well, it is easing players into the experience. Classic RPGs with real-time with pause combat can be a little difficult to get into due to the many elements that players need to keep track of at once, but the game by Event Horizon avoids overwhelming players with some straight-to-the-point tutorials that explain the basics rather well. In addition, the game is also extremely user-friendly when it comes to some of its most complex mechanics, such as crafting. In this case, for example, it is possible to re-roll an item before creating it, which removes the tedium of reloading a save file to get the wanted item and stats over and over.  The user-friendliness is further enhanced by the multiple waypoints inside dungeons, which allow for quick traveling between different points inside the dungeons themselves, and by the game’s multiplayer features, which allow players to team up together to take down the many enemies that will get in the way of the Relic Hunter siblings. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to test multiplayer out thoroughly due to a limited online population before release, but what I experienced had no issue whatsoever.

Much like exploration and traversal, visuals and presentations leave something to be desired in Dark Envoy. While locations look alright, though not particularly detailed, they aren’t exactly memorable. We have seen similar deserted wastelands, mines, caves, and ancient ruins with far more advanced technology in other games. Character models are barely passable, and the stiff animations and facial expressions definitely do not help with immersion. There are also some visual glitches, like flickering shadows and other artifacts that impact the experience, making it feel a little unpolished. Menus are also functional but a little rough.

While such visuals are far from impressive, they make Dark Envoy very undemanding in terms of system requirements, but this doesn’t exactly translate into a completely smooth experience. The system used for the test (i7-13700KF, RTX 4080, 32 GB RAM) ran the game with an average of 75 frames per second at 4K resolution, ultra settings, with 1% Low of 21 FPS inside one of the ancient dungeons with multiple enemies and traps on screen. Scaling down to high settings increased the average FPS to 85 with little visual difference. The game, sadly, doesn’t support any upscaler, so playing at native resolution is the only way to go. Despite this, Dark Envoy features a decent selection of graphics options to tweak, so it is not too difficult to strike a good balance between good performance and visuals, although high framerates are not exactly required for this type of experience.

Despite its limited scope and its focus on combat, which makes the experience a little repetitive in the long run, Dark Envoy is an enjoyable cRPG that can offer a couple dozen hours of fun. Baldur’s Gate 3, however, raised the bar so high for role-playing games this year that every other game released after it may feel limited and unambitious.

While it wouldn’t be fair to compare the two games directly given the vastly different budget, it’s undeniable that, if one is looking for a single cRPG to play in the near future, Dark Envoy couldn’t be recommended over Larian Studios’ masterpiece. On the other hand, if you’ve already exhausted everything there is to do in Baldur’s Gate 3, Dark Envoy could offer you a new interesting cRPG to go through.

Review code provided by the publisher.

Dark Envoy

Dark Envoy is a solid cRPG featuring an interesting world and lore, a fun real-time with pause combat system with turn-based elements and a simple choice and consequence system that lends the experience to multiple playthroughs. The focus on combat, however, came at the expense of everything else, preventing the game from being an essential purchase if not for fans of the studio’s previous game and cRPG fanatics.