Flintlock: Siege of Dawn (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | August 23, 2024 | Review | No Comments

From A44 Games, the creators of Ashen, Flintlock: Siege of Dawn looks to build on the experience from that to craft an epic adventure that will see you battling gods with little more than a flintlock pistol and trusty sappers axe. No rest till Dawn? Lets find out.

You play as Nor Vanek, an elite member of the Sapper unit within the Coalition army. A mission goes awry, and gods that were held at bay are unleashed. Later joined by Enki, a mysterious fox-like companion that claims to be a lesser god, Enki decides to share his knowledge of the world and the gods with Nor. After Nor’s combat skills become imbued with his magical powers, it they begrudgingly decide that they should work together to take on the escaped gods.

Napoleonic era tunics and musket fire was enough to get me drawn in as soon as the trenches come into view at the very start. The idea of fighting gods, with the vengeful sapper Nor and lesser god Enki, was a surprisingly interesting route to follow too. Nothing special, but has its moments as their common goal for different reasons grows. You can also go off the beaten path, the world isn’t quite open, but you’ll find plenty of side quests to help give you an idea of how the war can effect the common rabble as well. Enki’s flight gates can get you around quick, or find some collectibles or hidden chests, plus there’s also a fast travel from certain locations. It can help speed up you way through the game, but even then you should be looking at around 20+ hours at least to get through.

While there’s no Unreal Engine 5 or RTX features included with one, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t look great most of the time. There’s a lot of variety to the places you visit, from caves and mines to forests and castles, You’ll never really tire of pushing on as each new area can offer something new to explore. Enemy variety is also nice as as there’s plenty of dead & living foes trying to drop you, with boss characters having a nice amount of detail to them. Particle effects are the real highlight from all the powder abilities and attacks dished out by both sides. This isn’t a AAA project so you’ll find the odd weak texture here & there unfortunately, but they’re usually tucked away and not noticeable for the most part.

Audio kinda takes a back seat, its decent enough and there’s some good conversations between our duo, there’s nothing that really stands out aside from Dolby Atmos support which works best when exploring mines etc for added atmosphere. My system (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) was able to get a consistent native 4K/60, a lick of DLSS could get that up to 90ish. I ended up locking at 60 and using LSFG to get up to 120, felt fine still with a controller and looked smooth.

Presented as a souls-lite, the game probably felt more along the lines of a God of War (2018) or Nioh than a typical sous game – which was better as soulslike games are generally a bit naff for me. This mostly comes down to the faster paced feel to combat once powder abilities are unlocked, as well as the heavy focus on ranged combat as all manner of flintlocks, rifles, mortars etc can be found and upgraded (alongside other equipment too) Your travelling companion, Enki, is mainly focused around support abilities too, there’s plenty more interesting ones to unlock on the skill tree, with more perks & abilities available via armour sets. All this comes together during swarm encounters and boss fights, which start small but get bigger as more gods come to fight, as you really need to make the most of everything you have in that moment. There’s only a handful of true bosses, each is well done to be fair, but plenty of mid-bosses and elite units to keep you on your toes between each major fight.

Another highlight for me is the reputation system. Sure its just XP with a different name like most games, but its the bonus that makes it fun. Avoiding taking hits builds up a % bonus which is applied to any reputation built up when banked. One hit by an enemy resets it, so there’s a real risk & reward to every encounter. There will be other moments when the game doesn’t feel as it it really clicks tho, which was the same for me even with all this praise. I think it mainly boiled down to too many systems to keep track of, and I simply dealt with it by distilling down to what worked for me – neglecting Enki for more ranged combat and parrying attacks instead. This means some aspects went under-utilised to help make things feel more cohesive, but I guess it does also leave room for later experimentation. What works for me may not for you, and vice versa.

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is an interesting take on the souls-lite sub-genre, the gunpowder Vs gods angle was great to see out with Nor & Enki a great juxtapose for each other, combat was also good and flashy when needed, and the military tunics got as suitably extravagant as hoped the further you get. The only real issue is the combat has a lot to it and you need to find what works for you to click, finding that may take some experimenting, but once you do it can flow like few others. Flintlock is one of the better games from genre released recently, a genre I don’t really like much myself, so it may appeal to those outside of the souls aficionados too.