Rating of
3.5/5
Manifest Density
Chris Kavan - wrote on 04/22/26
Developer Spiders (under the Nacon umbrella) never really had a breakout but GreedFall is about as ambitious as they could hope for. A not-quite open world game that does its best to compete with the AAA blockbusters and actually mostly succeeds even if it still displays that patented Eurojank as expected from a smaller team. It was good enough that it at least led to a recently-released sequel - even though the sequel diverges in gameplay and has received mixed reviews. The future of Spiders is in doubt with Nacon filing for insolvency in Feb. 2026 and with the sequel failing to achieve much success but at least this original offering is a decent way to remember them.
Looks and Stuff: GreedFall looks decent for what it is - a smaller open-world type game run on a smaller engine. The character models are well done though not nearly as polished as other games of its ilk. I appreciated the voice acting - especially the natives, whose accent is hard to nail down but perfectly suited for an alt-world settlement. It doens't try to shake things up, utilizing a variety of voice artists honed in their craft. It also has a decent soundtrack as well, with some fun battle music and boss themes.
The creatures encountered along the way are essentially beefier versions of things like wolves and bears with some truly interesting concepts in the guardians, the mini-boss enemies that pack a much bigger punch. Winged, horned, grasping vines - some good design work here. Backgrounds are mostly forests, plains, ruins, swamps, caves and such - nothing out of the ordinary here. While I encountered no major bugs, the game does have that jank - the funniest of which was during my "love" scene in which my two characters really got into things - still fully armored while making out and rolling on the bed. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but I found it utterly hilarious in such a touching scene. It did have noticeable texture issues throughout as well but not enough to be that off putting. Mouth movement was also somewhat distracting at times.
Story: Our hero/heroine (customizable) De Sardet and his cousin Constantine are leaving the city of Serene for New Serene on the island nation of Tir Fradi far from home. Serene has suffered greatly due to a malady called the Malichor - which turns blood black and is 100% fatal. Hoping to find a cure for the ailment, the island also hosts the warring factions of the Bridge Alliance - who favor science above all - and Theleme, the religious sect who have followed their Saint Matheus to the island. Both seek a cure in their own way and both also see the native population as people to convert or experiment on. Meanwhile De Sardet represents the Congregation of Merchants - who seeks balance as an acting legat, working with all three factions to stop all-out war or genocide.
De Sardet is far from alone, however, as he has companions from local native Siora, Kurt, member of the Coin Guard and his former arms teacher, Vasco, a member of the Nauts, the sea-faring people who are their own group, Aphra, a Bridge Alliance researcher and Petrus, an ambitious Theleme priest with surprising ties to his past. Each member of his team has their own stories to follow as well. Magic plays a large part in the game as well - natives and the faithful have their own version while the Bridge Alliance utilizes potions and alchemy to great effect. The island offers no shortage of intrigue as well form corruption to uprisings to conspiracy to buried history - and when your cousin falls ill, it will lead to the ultimate showdown. Decisions do have a lasing impact as well - and determine the ultimate outcome of your story.
Gameplay: You run around and can either attack things with melee (one-handed or two-handed options), shoot things with a gun, sling magic and throw flasks or lay down traps. You can't, however, do all these things at once as the game has three distinct branches that require you to spend points - tech, magic and warrior trees. Tech focuses on guns and alchemy, magic is just that and warrior lets you hone your melee between one-handed and heavy weapons. I can say that by the end of the game I had enough points to open up two out of the three branches but even so, sacrifice must be made. For most of the game I was a sword/gun guy with minimal alchemy and no magic. However, after using my limited respec options, I did find magic to be more fun all around. There are also specialized attacks that fall between each branch - healing, bombs, stasis - and all are very useful in their own way.
Aside from the main branches here, you also have abilities and passive skills to unlock. Abilities let you use better weapons/armor as you level up - bigger swords, better magic, heavier armor while passives let you use in-game skills, lockpicking, traversal, dialogue. While your branching trees get you one point per level, abilities are spread out and passives even more so, so choose wisely based on what you want to do. Armor can be equipped with certain items that level up things like lockpicking and vigor, so you can game the system a little. One thing I found was the Charm dialogue was hit-or-miss even at higher levels but I did like the optional dialogue you can unlock better. I found early game to a much bigger slog but things picked up after a while and the end game was a huge rush. The companion quests were interesting but some of the other side quests dragged on much too long - often opening up sub-quests along the way. The main story was pretty good, though I think I unlocked the worst ending through bad decisions but so what.
Replay value: There are quite a few branching narratives, along with various romance options - plus the ability to play as a male or female so the game does have merit for a few different playthroughs or play styles if that's your thing.
Final Verdict: It certainly has its merits but this Euro-jank semi-sandbox never really grabbed me.
Presentation: 3.5/5
Story: 4/5
Gameplay: 3.5/5
Replay: 4/5
DLC: N/A
Overall (not an average): 3.5/5
Hours Played: 54.5
Cheevos: 73% (46/63)
