The story Eternal Strands tells is pretty good. A bunch of magic-users known as Weavers are attempting to recover their cultural homeland, which has been sealed behind a mystical barrier for ages. I am always up for any decent pulpy story that involves getting a gang of misfits together and returning to a hallowed place after centuries have passed. You know, and then trying to find out what went wrong.
Eternal Strands reviewDeveloper: Yellow Brick GamesPublisher: Yellow Brick GamesPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out on 28th January on PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Game Pass
All excellent stuff, and I really like it a lot. But what I legitimately love is how much Eternal Strands’ designers seem to love the game’s story, too. This love shows not only in endless dialogue choices and vast amounts of codex entries that have been scattered across the land and must be reclaimed and stitched back together, but also in the little details and embellishments that a story only gets if the people writing it have thought way too much about things.
Testify! Some of the magicians have formed a book club where the price of entry is a knack for not spilling the red wine that gets drunk at every meeting. One of the vendors, meanwhile, has gone a bit Frasier and insists on referring to their humble shop as an “atelier.” Both of these snippets of information deepened the feelings I have for Eternal Strands quite significantly. And both of them came from loading screen tool tips.
I’m starting with the story because Eternal Strands is the debut action RPG from Yellow Brick Games, whose founders include Mike Laidlaw of BioWare and Dragon Age. Surely, the story is where you begin with a Laidlaw joint. Hmm. Not so sure, actually. Over the hours I’ve taken working my way through Eternal Strands, while the story has been rich and textured and filled with human weaknesses and charm, what’s stuck out the most is just how systemic this game is. It’s a narrative-based adventure, but more than that it’s a sandbox for magic and elemental clashes you didn’t see happening but should have. It’s a riot. It’s explosive and silly, often brilliant and frequently hilarious.