Open-world RPGs have always been a genre near and dear to my heart, as they provide some of the most immersive and satisfying experiences in gaming, bar none. Stepping into a unique world in the shoes of an often mysterious protagonist and embarking on a journey that you can enjoy at your own pace. Whether it’s a nuclear wasteland or a fantasy landscape full of dragons, such memorable journeys make these types of games some of the most replayable ones when executed properly.
Of Ash and Steel is the debut IP for Eastern European indie studio Fire & Frost, and it’s a truly ambitious and impressive venture into this genre. With the mission to create games passionately influenced by RPGs from the 2000s, the familiar fantasy elements in this project are unmistakable, and it works very much to its benefit. While we somberly continue to wait for The Elder Scrolls VI, and The Witcher 4 remains a blip on the far horizon, Of Ash and Steel valiantly steps in to help fill that gap.
However, in a genre filled with such revered heavyweights that remain popular over a decade after their release, where exactly does Of Ash and Steel fit in? Does it check all of the necessary boxes for a true-to-heart, open-world fantasy RPG? After the time I spent exploring the island of Grayshaft, there are many ways that this game strikes clean and true, while not so much in others.
Tristan Makes an Intriguing RPG Protagonist
If you’ve played your fair share of open-world RPGs as I have, you’ll know that one of the most important, crucial elements to get right is the protagonist. After all, this is the character you step into as the overarching story begins, and the world reveals itself to you. How they fit into that world, how their personal story drives your journey and affects the characters you meet along the way, and of course, how memorable they are. This alone can make or break the rest of the experience.
Of Ash and Steel puts you in the shoes of a young cartographer named Tristan, who hails from the peaceful and opulent capital island of Astarta (part of an archipelago of seven islands). He embarks on a mission to refine the maps for the nearby island of Grayshaft, and soon enough, everything goes awry.
A calamity known as The Blight strikes and destroys his ship, leaving him and the rest of the surviving crew washed up on the shores of Grayshaft, now stranded. With shipping lanes across the archipelago shutting down due to the dangerous conditions, Tristan has no choice but to make the best of his current situation, and he’ll need to get familiar with a sword sooner rather than later.
This, in particular, is what makes Tristan stand out as a protagonist, compared to other games in the genre. He’s not remotely experienced in combat, much less brandishing weapons that kill people or anything living, for that matter. He’s not inherently a fighter, which immediately puts him (and you, by proxy) at a disadvantage. However, despite hailing from a safe and comfortable life at home, this doesn’t make him stuck-up and unwilling to learn. His inexperience in harsh landscapes makes itself known well enough, but his drive to survive balances it out.
Meanwhile, Tristan’s personality can admittedly feel a bit bland and uninspired at times, though he at least knows how to throw in some clever humor here and there during dialogue sequences. Granted, this setback is inevitably due in part to the game’s relatively stiff character modeling, voice acting, and cutscene splicing. I wouldn’t call Tristan a particularly memorable RPG protagonist on the personality front, but choosing a man who isn’t immediately chopping heads off with a single sword swing and instead giving him (and the player) time to turn him into a well-rounded fighter is commendable on its own.
Navigation and UI Missing Some Bells and Whistles
While getting adjusted to the wilderness of Grayshaft, there were certain things I noticed in terms of the game’s navigation system and overall UI setup that, in hindsight, I honestly feel unfairly hinder the game’s experience and all that it has to offer in terms of content, lore, and exploration in general.
The navigation in the game (or lack thereof) is probably the biggest point of contention for me. The developers at Fire & Frost express that “getting lost and dying in the wilderness is part of the experience”, and I certainly expect as much.
Curiosity can be just as dangerous as it is rewarding, and that’s an organic element that should come with any open-world RPG. However, when it comes to exploring a massive map with virtually no borders and few narrative barriers, it should also be expected that players will all handle that type of navigation differently. Some prefer or need more helpful direction, and if you don’t incorporate that, it can leave some players feeling more stranded and confused than they should.
The world of Grayshaft is impressively vast, whether it’s out in the woods or in major cities. However, there’s a good way to get lost and a bad way to get lost, and navigating this game often felt like the latter. The compass you have in the top-right corner of the screen is about as basic as it gets, and seldom actually helps with finding your way to specific locations or regions. There’s no mini-map (which should replace the compass, frankly), and you don’t get a world map until after you’ve joined one of the game’s factions. There are no unique UI icons that could help identify locales, important NPCs, quests, etc. You may get basic geographic hints from NPCs on where to go during quests, and the occasional signpost to point you in a general direction, but that’s about it.
It almost feels like a bit of cruel irony that Tristan is a renowned cartographer, and yet I’m left feeling almost helplessly lost half the time. Imagine if he had an inner monologue that notes various landmarks you come across, or if he gradually draws an interactive map of Grayshaft from the start as you explore. You know, given his profession and all. Sure, the world map helps finally give some geographical context once you unlock it, and makes the compass more useful at that point, but it’s still not enough in my opinion.
You don’t need to deprive the player of helpful navigational elements in order to entice them to explore the world around them. If anything, those elements push me to explore even more. I certainly can’t speak for how every player prefers to explore a vast open world, but again, depriving at least a toggle/difficulty-related option for more helpful navigation feels a bit off-putting for this explorer.
Dialogue and Decision-Making is a Narrative Hit and Miss
Despite its navigational setbacks, Of Ash and Steel excels in its inclusion of many classic interactive RPG elements. One that it especially focuses on is dialogue and influential decision-making mechanics. From the very first “tutorial” area of the game, you find plenty of NPCs to talk to, often with many dialogue options available that can affect alliances and relationships down the line. It’s not always abundantly clear what pieces of dialogue influence those elements, but you’re encouraged to get used to that factor quickly and explore all possibilities.
That said, the dialogue mechanics at play in this game work well in some instances but not others. Occasionally, you come across opportunities to flex your conversational skills and sway precarious situations to your favor. Other options can uncover hints of new areas, new quests, or you can get lucky with an unexpected reward (e.g. a sum of gold or a weapon).
[…] despite hailing from a safe and comfortable life at home, this doesn’t make him stuck-up and unwilling to learn […]
However, the execution of these dialogue mechanics could still do with some polish. There were times I found myself unexpectedly exploiting what seemed like narrative loopholes during conversations.
For example, a brief quest you pick up in the tutorial area of the game involves getting rid of a local bug nuisance, and there’s an option to ask for a weapon from the quest NPC. He exclaims that he wouldn’t have such a thing available, given the current state of things. However, I happened to get rid of the bugs preemptively before speaking to him, and if you choose the dialogue option to conclude the quest and then ask him for a weapon, he gladly hands one over like it’s no issue at all.
While not exactly a rampant problem in the game’s dialogue mechanics, I did find it relatively noticeable in some instances, where the flow of conversation just feels a bit disjointed. It could be a simple localization issue, which can always be tidied up in future patches.
Clunky Combat That is Actually Justified
Another major element of any open-world RPG is its combat system, and Of Ash and Steel does a standup job in fleshing out just how far Tristan can push his capabilities. As noted earlier, being a humble cartographer, Tristan has much to learn in terms of all types of combat, and the game rightfully starts you out with barely enough mettle to swing a sword. Tristan’s style is predictably clunky and awkward, and you need to pick your battles carefully until you manage to improve your skills later on.
It almost feels like a bit of cruel irony that Tristan is a renowned cartographer, and yet I’m left feeling almost helplessly lost half the time.
Thankfully, the time spent barely getting by in the wilderness does pay off down the line, and you can help Tristan become quite the swordsman (or whichever type of combat you prefer) with enough effort. Even magic comes into play at a certain point. If anything, I could argue that progression could be a bit more fluid and rewarding from the start, as it can feel like drudgery early on.
Ultimately, while Tristan’s swordsmanship certainly still doesn’t shape up to the likes of Geralt or a dragonborn who’s more deity than human, his time in Grayshaft pays off with the skills needed to survive even the worst threats the island has to offer. And those threats can be truly monstrous. It feels almost perfectly nostalgic to those RPGs that Fire & Frost wants to pay homage to.
Skills and Crafting Should Be More Accessible
Combat isn’t remotely the only survival feature that Tristan’s introduced to during his journey in Grayshaft. In fact, there is a remarkable amount of interactive content that allows you to truly make the adventure your own.
To start, you have inherent attribute stats that help influence all aspects of your gameplay. A classic element of many RPGs, these range from Strength and Dexterity to Stamina and Insight (or what other games would call ‘Charisma’). As you level, you’ll earn ability points that can be used to buff these stats to impressive numbers, which will allow you to unlock other survival features for Tristan, notably skills.
In classic RPG fashion, these skills are divided into skill trees that are aesthetically reminiscent of titles like Skyrim, which is a nice touch. Unlocking those skills is all but imperative to help Tristan survive the wilds in every manner possible. Between Survival, Craftsmanship, and War, these provide Tristan with plenty of options that can turn the tide in just about any situation he faces.
[…] his time in Grayshaft pays off with the skills needed to survive even the worst threats the island has to offer […]
That said, unlocking each node on these trees is considerably challenging from the get-go. The attribute requirements for each node start unusually high, even on Story Mode difficulty, which is a bit odd to me. Even the aptly-named ‘Basic Survival’ skill, which allows you to build campfires, requires a substantial stat investment when something like that should honestly be as rudimentary as it gets.
Beyond that, the stat requirements skyrocket each time, and even include sums of gold as a requirement for learning. Some cost hundreds of gold, others thousands. Considering that earning gold is challenging enough early on in the game, being forced to potentially go broke each time you learn a skill seems counterintuitive.
On top of all that, you have to find an appropriate “teacher” NPC to learn these skills, and finding those is often a shot in the dark at best. With no UI icons in the game that denote different types of NPCs, this makes progressing your skill trees far more tedious than they should be.
Closing Comments:
Of Ash and Steel is a truly fascinating world and experience that absolutely has merit. The sheer amount of content the game contains (there’s even an ‘Arena Master’ mode outside of the main story that allows you to enjoy more combat challenges) is remarkable for an indie studio that’s just now getting its feet wet. It checks a whole lot of boxes for what a love letter to classic 2000s open-world RPGs should contain, and the care and attention to these details is abundantly clear. That said, it does try to differentiate itself in ways that it doesn’t need to, such as the lack of navigation UI elements and skill requirements. It also needs a bit more polish on other fronts, such as its dialogue mechanics, and the cutscenes can feel a bit awkward to watch at times. With a bit more time in the “forge” as it were (or just constructive update patches), this game could truly be one to remember.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
