At the start of Eternal Strands, a band of spell-slinging scavengers are sucked into the Enclave, the former hub of the realm’s magicians before an impenetrable Veil severed it—and its people—from the rest of the world. As a result of injuries sustained along the way, your character, a resilient Weaver named Brynn, ends up becoming the team’s Point, teleporting through Loomgates to scout the outskirts, districts, and depths of the Enclave, harvesting resources from foes and upgrading her weapons, spells, and armor. There are only seven areas to explore over the game’s 20-hour length, but just as your ragtag band of heroes spin magic out of the limited resources at their disposal, so, too, does the game expertly and exquisitely craft a dense, multilayered, and vibrant adventure set against memorable settings.
One of game’s smartest choices is initially making Brynn a scout as opposed to a full-on warrior—though she’ll get there by the end of the campaign. You’ll see Brynn grow more powerful and capable with each pass through a region. Whereas she may only be able to at first briefly dart through the frozen swamps of Dredger’s Mire, she’ll eventually return with more stamina to clamber up alternative routes or to conjure up the battle-ready Ember’s Spirit companion (who also demonstrates the game’s nifty, albeit simple, thermodynamics as a hearty space heater). Initial forays through the markets and back alleys of Dynevron may force Brynn to zigzag out of the killboxes of archers hidden in opulent, tree-lined terraces, until such a point as she can upgrade her Weaver’s Grasp to wrench away scaffolding and collapse those walkways.
Throughout Eternal Strands, Brynn also encounters nine “epic” enemy types, inspired by Shadow of the Colossus, who are of a piece with the game’s slow-burning, information-gathering approach. The first time Brynn faces off with, say, an Ashfire Drake, before having gained any flame-resistant potions or armors, she’ll have to retreat. But after much preparation, and by demonstrating ample skill, she’ll be able to hack the creature to death.
And after winning a battle against such a foe and discussing what she’s learned with her band’s resident scholar, Brynn is truly prepared to hunt these enemies moving forward across the campaign—to seek out their weak points and stun them long enough to steal their essence. As a result, she’ll be able to power up her own (or learn new) magic in the process.
Combat isn’t the game’s only multifaceted element. Many of Brynn’s abilities allow her to more rapidly explore the settings of Eternal Strands, as in her using her Ice Wall ability to create a frozen bridge across miasmic gaps or her Kinetic Stream to amplify her momentum to bound over obstacles she previously lacked the stamina to scale. Each trip into the fiery forges of Arkon’s Hearth, for instance, allows Brynn to safely progress a little further, all while following requests from her crew that help to unravel the mysteries behind the abandoned devices of the Enclave, from the golem-like Arks to the magical forges and weather-altering pillars.
With each new expedition from the hub into a given region, you experience the addictive thrill of collecting resources that can be exchanged back at camp for new gear and deeper dives into the region’s lore. But what’s most likely to drive players through the game is the dopamine rush that comes from aiding and satisfying your companions—and not just the one you choose to have a romantic relationship with. Every character has some sort of crisis to resolve, whether that’s Ora’s floundering purpose now that she’s too injured (and perhaps too old) to be the Point or the quartermaster Casmyn’s obsessive-compulsive fears that if she doesn’t stay up all night re-organizing the supplies, everyone will die. Like a non-roguelike Hades, each mission becomes as much about advancing character relationships as about fending off one’s foes.
Eternal Strands does its best to make each of your return trips through its seven main maps as interesting as possible, slowly throwing in stronger enemies, changing up the epic monster encounters, and varying the extreme weather and time of day. But the characterizations are what most fuel those return trips, specifically the need to help your companions not just with repairs to the Enclave, but with, say, their small-scale romances and imposter syndromes. The scenery in Eternal Strands is pretty, and its combat is as captivating as its plot, but it’s the game’s earnest belief in family being everything that makes it so impressive.
This game was reviewed with a code provided by Evolve PR.
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