I need to be clear with both you guys and the developers of Of Ash And Steel: this is not going to be a particularly professional review. I’ll be honest with you. I gave up. I reached a critical point where I pushed the keyboard away and said, ‘No, thank you’. Part of that is on my shoulders. Of Ash And Steel has a combat system, and a world, that relies on skill and the ability to push through constant hardship. I have a modest amount of skill, but constant death wears me down. Maybe this was inevitable.
Perhaps you might be able to write off my criticisms by saying, very reasonably, that this just isn’t my kind of game. But there’s a lot wrong with Of Ash And Steel that can’t be explained away so easily. The odd balance, the lack of any proper direction, the performance, and the stream of bugs. All these serve to drag down what could be a thoroughly absorbing game. As it is, all it made me think about was whether it’s truly good for a game to be so hands-off.
Blood & Salt
Of Ash And Steel stars Tristan, a somewhat naïve cartographer’s assistant, who accompanies an order of knights to the island of Grayshaft, to deliver a letter to its commander. His job is to help the navigator get around the reefs, while also trying not to chuck up his breakfast. Shortly after landing, the squad is ambushed, the captain gets an arrow in the eye, and Tristan takes charge of the letter. For five minutes anyway, until a bandit coldcocks him and nicks it. After being rescued by a local, Tristan sends out on a quest to get home.
First things first, he needs to find someone to help him. There’s a faction system in play here, where you can choose between the somewhat crumbling Order of the Seven, or the ragtag bunch of Freemen. I went with the Order, for the record, for the sole reason that the commander reminded me of Bill Bailey. Anyway, there’s a lot of busy work to get to that point. Of Ash And Steel‘s world is impressively large, with a good chunk of side quests and mini-factions stuffed into it.
The forest areas feel alive, too. They’re generally crawling with both enemies, and locals trying to make a living. World building is quite good too. Grayshaft feels like a well realised place, even if NPCs do have a tendency to spout the same lines over and over. There’s a big sense that the world doesn’t give a toss about us. If you piss off the wrong thing, you will die. To that end, there are quite a few different systems under hood. There are hunger and thirst mechanics, for instance, requiring preparation. There’s a fairly detailed crafting system in play too. There’s a lot of promise here.
Off Balance
But let’s move on to kicking portion of Of Ash And Steel. Let’s start with the combat. On the surface, it’s not too bad. Tristan is a cartographer, not a warrior, and this is reflected in the panicky feeling of fighting. It’s stamina focused, with an emphasis on picking your moment to strike. It’s just that the balance is bonkers. I took a quest to duff up a sailor, and he diced me in three hits. Despite me having cleared a bandit camp hours earlier. I very quickly found myself outclassed by basic enemies. If you agro more than one enemy you might as well give up. I ended up just quicksaving my way through things. What fun was found was eclipsed by half my health disappearing with each hit.
Part of that might be down to the fact I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. There’s no map for about twenty hours at least, and no real indication of where to go. That’s fine. I’m not asking for objective markers. I even liked running away from enemies in the beginning, knowing I could come back with a big sword. But quest descriptions are either incredibly vague, just straight up wrong, or give no indication that it’s way beyond your level. One quest took me about three hours, because all I had was a name and that the NPC was still in town. Turns out he was in a corner behind a bush. Go figure.
It raises the question of what level of hand-holding is acceptable. Personally, I think it’s something like Morrowind. A description of where to go, and a map to cross-check. Of Ash And Steel gives you less than the bare minimum. It took me twenty hours just to beat the first act, and eighteen hours of that was just running around trying to figure out where to go. You’d think I’d be able to ask the guards for directions like a sensible person, but no. Everything in the main city looks the damn same, and one patch of forest looks like any other. It’s maddening. Give me a nudge in the right direction, or I’m just gonna get bored.
Of Ash And Steel – Far From Ready
I’m afraid the drubbing keeps going. At time of writing, Of Ash And Steel is both buggy and poorly optimised. It did horrible things to my RAM, frequently eating up over 80% (despite being well over the recommend requirements), which often resulted in crashes. FPS was relatively stable at the start, but after a recent update was a bit more flexible. I also hit constant bugs, crashes and stutters. In fact, it’s a bug that killed it for me. A bunch of dead NPCs resurrected right as I was finally getting the map, and completely blocked my progress. I almost snapped my keyboard in half.
Lastly, just to kick Of Ash And Steel while it’s down, it’s missing a massive amount of polish. While the overworld graphics are nice, character animation is awful. The lip syncing makes everyone looks like puppets. Hair will randomly thin, making everyone look balding. Subtitles frequently don’t match spoken dialogue. At one point, a vocal flub and the actor’s apology were kept in the game. It all smacks of a game that needed significantly more time in the oven before release, perhaps on Early Access. I can’t really recommend buying it now, if you’re interested.
And that’s a shame, because in writing this up I realised I don’t hate Of Ash And Steel, despite how much it pissed me off. If that bug brick wall wasn’t there, I’d probably still be playing it. While there’s a big grinding noise as all its systems interact, the result is something intriguing. It’s brutal, and makes no apologies for that, and even has an interesting world. It’s just poorly presented in so many ways. There’s a long road ahead for Of Ash And Steel, and I do hope it survives the journey.
