Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, the next game from New Zealand developer Aurora44 (the same studio behind Ashen), finally got its release date announcement during yesterday’s Xbox Game Showcase: the game is slated to launch on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X on July 18.
With only a month and a week left before the release date, we were able to get our hands on a demo of the game that goes live today on Steam Next Fest. Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn definitely shares quite a few similarities with the studio’s previous work, being a Souls-lite action RPG with adventure elements.
However, the setting is certainly unique. This is a fantasy world where magic and the gods are very much real; in fact, the so-called Gods of the Great Below assault the living world with their armies of undead. This is when the demo and, indeed, the whole game begins.
Protagonist Nor Vanek (played by Olive Gray) is an orphan adopted into the Coalition Army, the defensive force that fights desperately against the invasion of the Gods. She was trained as a Sapper from a young age under the tutelage of Baz, a grizzled war veteran who is essentially her adoptive father. At the very beginning of the game, Baz (played by Elias Toufexis of Deus Ex fame) goes with a couple of squad members on a nearly suicidal mission to try and bomb the gate of the dead once and for all. Nor is initially left behind but quickly joins the group when she learns of their arduous task. A big creature eventually ambushes the party and, in the hectic fight, Nor does something to the gate that actually makes things worse for everyone.
However, shortly afterward, she gains a companion in Enki, a fox-like creature who turns out to be a minor god himself. Enki (played by Alistair Petrie) warns Nor of the dire situation the whole world is in and offers his help in defeating the other gods. Enki’s powers include the ability to curse enemies, for instance to fill the priming gauge with successful melee attacks to trigger an instant takedown of an unarmored enemy, and the Witherings, powerful attacks that consume the Withering gauge, which gets filled by defeating enemies). Enki (who’s not nearly as chatty as Forspoken’s Cuff, in case you were worried) can also help with rift-based magic traversal that allows Nor to reach otherwise inaccessible paths.
This is often where you’ll find secondary content, such as Enki’s feathers, which can be collected to augment the companion’s power level, or even hamlets that need to be freed from the enemy’s yoke. In this case, you can head directly to the enemy leader – once defeated, all the other enemies will disappear, restoring the original population to unlock a reward, a secondary quest, and the ability to play the mini-game called Sebo.
Speaking of combat, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn is a relatively fast-paced soulslite that feels fun but not overly complex to play. As suggested by the title, there’s a fairly strong emphasis on firearms. With your gamepad’s right trigger, you can use black power charges (recharged by landing successful melee attacks) to deal damage and stop certain enemy attacks. These can be woven into melee combo chains. Players can also equip up to two secondary firearms to be aimed and reloaded with their own ammunition. There’s even a Gears of War-like active reload system that rewards a properly timed reload with increased damage on the next shot. Grenades are also available when you need to deal area of effect damage.
Of course, much of the game still involves melee attacks, blocks, and parries. Holding the left shoulder button enters a blocking stance, but only pressing the block button right after being hit will parry the attack, allowing players to execute a melee counter-attack. There’s also a double dodge for when you really need to get out of the way of an unblockable attack. Each combat action builds Reputation, which is the game’s primary currency.
In an intriguing twist, you can either ‘bank it’ right away or grow up your Reputation multiplier; do note that being hit automatically resets the multiplier and banks the Reputation. Of course, if you are defeated, the Reputation is lost and you’ll have one chance to get it back, just like in a proper Soulslike game. You’ll respawn at the nearest Lodestone, the equivalent of a bonfire in a Souls game. You can rest here (which respawns enemies, of course), as well as check your inventory and skills. Players must spend Reputation to unlock new skills in the three available trees (Powder, which increases ranged damage; Magic, which augments magic damage; and Steel, which bolsters melee damage).
Visually, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn features some of New Zealand’s native plants and trees. The developers said some of the game’s fauna is a tribute to the Moa bird. Moreover, the Three Peaks area is heavily inspired by New Zealand’s South Island regions. The landscape of this region is modeled after the Southern Alps. The game (powered by Unreal Engine 4) looks good without being spectacular. On PC, it already supports NVIDIA DLSS Super Resolution (with a slider to tweak the sharpness) and Frame Generation, as well as Intel XeSS. AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution is strangely missing from this build, although XeSS is available cross-vendor, so that wouldn’t be too much of an issue. However, there’s quite a bit of stuttering that I certainly hope will be fixed or at least lessened before the full launch.
Overall, Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn feels like a competent and fun soulslite that is, however, unlikely to stand out from the crowd for its quality. Still, the budget pricing ($40, with a 10% discount currently available ahead of launch) and the day-one availability on Game Pass make it an enticing title for anyone interested in the genre and setting.
