Coming from developer Spiders, GreedFall 2 is a sequel that will take players back to the mysterious island of Teer Fradee – and beyond. If you ever wondered what the continent that De Sardet came from looks like, you are in luck!
The game is now available in Early Access, letting players experience the very first steps on this journey. Creating a sequel is a new venture for Spiders, and the game will be bigger than its predecessor, with completely revamped combat and a larger scale. Thus, the team hopes that players will provide their feedback and help guide the development.
There is no release window for the full version of the game just yet, with Spiders taking the stance that it will be ready when it’s ready, and the players and the developers alike are satisfied with the game’s content and level of polish.
What can you expect from the Early Access right now: character creation, including choosing appearance, abilities and characteristics; the beginning of the main quest that introduces you to the world and your own character’s background; a number of side quests to tackle; 3 regions to explore: Teer Fradee, Thynia & Uxantis; 6 companions; 6 skill trees.
The team has promised continuous community feedback and balancing updates, and already revealed the EA roadmap with the first major updates planned for Autumn and Winter, bringing along a new companion and related stories each.
The events of the game start 3 years before De Sardet arrives on Teer Fradee. Instead of being a young noble from the distant land setting out to conquer this mysterious new frontier, this time you play as a native of the island.
Just that distinction alone brings about a number of changes both to the narrative and to the gameplay alike. GreedFall 2: The Dying World gives players an opportunity to have a deeper, more personal look as to what the arrival of the expeditions from Gacane meant for the natives of Teer Fradee, and why they were so unwelcoming to De Sardet and the rest of the renaigse.
Additionally, whereas the Legate of the Congregation of Merchants communicated with others, natives and renaigse alike, in pure English with certain terms like ‘doneigad’ being thrown around here and there, the entire beginning of the game will have you interacting with the natives in their language, which shows Spiders’ dedication to worldbuilding and lore.
Worry not, these sections feature subtitles in your chosen language, English by default. You can also optionally turn on the subtitles for the native tongue if you’re interested. Having a chance to witness the daily life of Teer Fradee from the inside had been a treat, even if the events of the game still keep it from being normal.
The very general premise is the same as in the previous game: the Old Continent, Gacane, is ravaged by a deadly illness known as the Malichor. The researchers and settlers turn their eyes to the recently discovered and unaffected island of Teer Fradee, hoping that it will bring a miracle. After all, the natives seem to be immune to the effects of the plague.
As De Sardet, you played as a diplomat that tried to keep the sides from jumping at each other’s throats while searching for the cure. As “Rootless”, you are a sage-in-training that has found themselves in the middle of increasingly desperate people looking for any chance of salvation. And that despair will change the character’s life forever.
Note that despite me bringing the original GreedFall up again and again, you do not have to have the knowledge of the prequel and the events that have transpired in it. However, it will for sure make settling in this world easier.
Before you get to the character creation, the game will offer a variety of sliders and settings that will let you customize the difficulty to be as complex or as simple as you want. In addition to the difficulty modes including Story, Adventure, and Tactical, there are further things to ponder.
There is a separate mode called the “Untouchable”, turning it on means that direct attacks have no effects on your characters, but they can still be damaged by effects. GreedFall 2 also featured Friendly Fire, unless you decide to turn this option off and shower enemies in AoE with wild abundance.
Other settings let you customize the amount of damage inflicted by your own characters, by enemies, and the range of passive recovery that you can enjoy.
Having picked the difficulty (that you can also change later in-game if you find that it is too hard or too easy for you, or the Friendly Fire is too much of a nuisance) will give you access to the character creator. There is a little nod back to the first game again: just like in GreedFall 1, the process of creating your character is presented as an artist making a painting…and never finishing it as the protagonist is immediately swept away to address their tribe’s problems.
In addition to choosing your character’s gender, you will also have options to choose the voice out of two options (yes, the protagonist is fully voiced just like in GreedFall 1 or Dragon Age: Inquisition), skin color, hairstyle, and hair color.
The game also has a number of skill trees for your character to pursue. You can choose one of the pre-created Profiles that will cover just what you need. For example, Protector, Hunter, Spell Caster, etc.
Alternatively, you can spend your 3 skill points freely between the following trees:
- Paths of Destruction
- Paths of Protection
- Paths of Charity (Healing)
- Weapons of War
- Teer Fradeean Bracelets
- Bows
Your character, playfully referred to as “Rootless” by their friends, is a sage-in-training, on the cusp of going through the initiation and taking the honorable position of the doneigad among their people.
In order to prove that you are able to deal with the great responsibility that comes with such a title, you will be given two tasks to complete: figure out what leads to woodland life dying out, threatening to leave your people without food, and find out what is the strange illness affecting your tribesmen. Could it be related to the mysterious illness referred to by the renaigse? Is there a cure? Those are the sort of questions you will have to answer.
Easier said than done! Both quests will lead to interacting with the outsiders, opening up new side-tasks here and there, and figuring their part in the changes. It is up to you to decide how to approach these situations: do you talk with your fists? Or do you investigate and try diplomacy first? Different approaches lead to wildly different results.
For example, killing the poachers that set up bear traps around the forest prevented me from being able to save a hunter that was caught in one of them. Not only were the actual perpetrators already dead and thus unavailable, but my reputation with the Bridge Alliance was also not the best, which led to them refusing help and leaving the poor man to bleed out.
Having completed these tasks given to you by Mev, you get to become a respectable sage and live happily ever after… or not, as that is when the desperation of the renaigse shows itself in its full strength, and changes the protagonist’s life.
On this early journey of discovery, you will be accompanied by Nilan, a fellow doneigad-in-training, and Sheda, a future warrior of your tribe. They are also your first glimpse at the companions (dialogue, inventory, gear, abilities, etc.) and battle system alike.
At the moment, a lot of the game’s features feel like a work-in-progress, featuring placeholder icons, unfinished UI, and rough animations, and the battle system is one of them. There are obviously a lot of iterations up ahead just yet, but even its current version shows that studio Spiders decided to utilize a more tactical approach.
One of GF2’s features is the tactical view, allowing you to pause the game and pan the camera out to give your companions a set of orders: focusing on a specific enemy, moving, using abilities, etc. At the moment, the companions don’t use the abilities on their own once they’ve gone through the orders, and continue auto-attacking until you win.
Alternatively, you can turn on the Autonomous Party function, and let the game’s AI do the work for you with varying success. It allows you to focus on your own character, sometimes grabbing the reins to forcibly adjust the flow of combat.
I have high hopes for GreedFall 2. While the Early Access version is rough around the edges, the core of the game is already there, and it’s everything that Spiders had achieved with the original GreedFall, but bigger, more ambitious and extremely promising.
The developers have put a lot of loving attention into details and worldbuilding, be it character design, the language, the flora and fauna of Teer Fradee, and expanded the scale of the game. Whereas the prequel was focused on the island and the events that transpired there, the Dying World lets players see for themselves what the Old Continent of Gacane is like, and how it had been ravaged by the Malichor.
The feeling of wonder and being a stranger in a strange place persists. However, this time you are not a glorious savior on an epic quest of finding cure for your people, but a prisoner that had been forcefully abducted, now fighting for their way back to the familiar shores, and thwarted at every step of the way.
Note that there is still a lot of work to be done: as mentioned above, there are a lot of placeholders, the combat system is still rough around the edges, the game has various bugs and glitches of differing intensity from missing textures and items, like miners doing their animations without a mining pick, to some more severe things like crashes and getting stuck.
If you are looking for a finished and polished experience, it might be the better choice to wait until the game is fully released. Otherwise, welcome back, carants! Teer Fradee awaits.
