Why should you avoid Bleak Faith?

Bleak Faith: Forsaken (Reviewed)

Developer: Archangel Studios

Publisher: Archangel Studios

Released: 10 March, 2023

Price: $26.99 USD

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is, in its most basic form, an RPG similar to Dark Souls. The difference being it's fantastic sci-fi post-apocalyptic twist. Explore the expansive, open-world Omnistructure and battle powerful foes and fiends.

I should point out that the general plot is quite bare, and it's not entirely clear what or why you are doing what you're doing most of the time, or why save points are homunculus figures that you may set down to save your game.

I would go as far to say the story is probably similar to that of Elden Ring and other such games, where you have to piece it together through minor conversations.

Addressing the Elephant in the room

Stolen assets

By now, it ought to be quite common knowledge to learn about the significant problems involving the creators and Epic Games. I'll summarize it for you as quickly as I can to save you time so we can both move on with our day.

Epic Marketplace

The purpose of this marketplace is to enable the ability to obtain and share Unreal Engine content in a verified and safe way, or so they say. Their goal is to give Unreal Engine developers quality content for projects & educational reasons. Creators can sell their assets after it is verified which saves time!

The Problem

Some of the character animations and some boss animations use these assets that were taken directly from Elden Ring. The developers sadly drew the short straw in this transaction, and it has sparked a tremendous commotion on social media. They have immediately and professionally posted about how they intend to address this problem after being the victim of Epic Games' incompetence.

It's being handled

I implore you to give these developers a chance because it is obvious that they have experienced numerous setbacks for a project as significant as this one. Despite the fact that this may damage their reputation, they are currently taking responsibility for all of their errors and problems while being very transparent.

Progression

Leveling is tied to gear

Games in the Souls-like genre feature systems that lets you upgrade your weapons, armor, stats, and other items as you progress through the game.

Although farming enemies is always vital to this component, this game mainly uses them to allow the ability to make potions and sometimes farm for gear drops. Nothing further, no souls, no stat allocation this is all attached to gear.

If you want to max out your stat in STR, you'll need to unlock weapons and armor that have slots available and place in the corresponding gem to boost it.

So in the long story short, move from point A to point B with no reason to kill. Unless you really like to make potions that you have access to only 2 at a time.

Slain bosses

As you slowly progress through each battle, you can acquire unique shards that will let you unlock a tiny number of character traits and powers. The above-described portion of the user interface is terrible; you can hardly understand what is displayed on the screen due to the character's intense saturation.

General 60 Minute Gameplay

Difficulty

The janky controls make dodging and striking nearly impossible half of the time. Rather than being challenging I believe it all boils down to a lack of polish.

It remains too unstable to do much but build a bow and shoot foes once in the head to take them down, or charge up a heavy weighted strike. Even if you have the stamina and the range one hitting everything seems to be the best option.

If you don't, most of the bosses and minions will simply do the same to you.

Bugs and issues

Extensive

That's really all I have to say. Every time you turn around, it appears like another glitch is about to surpass the last one in severity. These bugs range from little ones like getting stuck in place to more serious ones like bodies rag-dolling out of control, sliding foes, and being flung around in chain knockbacks into the air.

This game feels more like a tech demo at this time, especially with the ability to resurrect whenever you want with no repercussions. I can understand a game like this being in Early Access, which is what I believe the game should have first published as, but to my dismay it is the full release of the game currently.

Ladders

Need to ascend to a greater height or perhaps descend to a lower level? Well you should check out the stunning "climb this ladder" simulator.

The number and length of ladders in this game are really not necessary.

The maximum speed you can see in the video clip above is the only speed you use to climb up and down. There is no jumping up or sliding down. To advance, you must simply climb this incredibly insanely long ladder like a normal person.

Ps: Be careful about the bugs while on the ladder.

Tutorials

While exploring new places, I occasionally received a overlay to read about something unrelated to the current situation in the middle of a battle.

Frequently, I didn't even have time to read them because they would arrive out of nowhere and then vanish, so what exactly was I supposed to do with them?

It's possible that I was pressing the (ESC) key or doing something similar, but I believe that most tutorials should either be left for us to figure out on our own or explained early in the game, not five hours in when we're currently fighting.

Graphics and Audio

Graphics

It's difficult to describe how I feel about it since the longer I play, the worse the visuals get to look at because of high situations, abrupt black screens, and significant frame drops. I could chalk this up to basic bugs and glitches due to it being a small team, but again, it's been in development for 4 years, these things are usually the thing you want to be polished the most before pushing through.

Audio

Parallel to the graphics , the music grows more silent as you progress through the story, with the exception of the brief moments when you hear sudden guitar rifts in the background. This is so out of place in this world and doesn't match.

It's a sci-fi game with blends of heavy metal and other similar genres mixed in? I don't believe this clashes well and that they should look towards better music to implement to fit the theme of the game as a whole overall.

The Developers

Are trying their best

I would contend that the little 3 Dev team has genuinely taken on more than they can handle when it comes to a project of this size and scope. I believe they, with time can make the necessary changes to this game in order to make it feel like something we can actually enjoy playing without being frustrated.

Unless these problems are fixed or if you want to contribute to their funding goals, there is really little motivation to keep playing the game as it now stands.

The majority of players want something they can play now, not something that can be played later on down the line. They do seem well-intentioned when they reach out to the community and publicly discuss their issues and all the plans they want to make in the upcoming weeks, but only time will tell what happens.

Conclusion

I really want to like this game

I can stand a few hours, running around and killing monsters, but there just isn't much incentive to keep doing it for long periods of time. It gets boring and I just want to move on with my day, to do something more productive, you know?

The game is definitely months if not years away from fleshing out all of the issues that have and will continue to plague the game for weeks to come.

The devs are hard at work addressing every single issue. This will undoubtedly take a very long time and a huge amount of assets to turn it into a reality.

My recommendation would be to wait till a year or two has gone before you try this game. If the game is still not in a generally playable and progress-able state with improved UI, combat, and animations, then you shouldn't bother with it.

This concludes my review of this game, while my opinions may be met with criticism, that's what makes gamers unique, you don't have to like the same things that others do, nor do you have to agree with them.

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- Pawkt