Videogame Review: ‘Eternal Strands’ – a Stunning ARPG Adventure

Eternal Strands is the first game from new studio Yellow Brick Games, formed by veterans from the videogame industry with experience working on major franchises like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Watch Dogs and Assassin’s Creed. The stunning game blends many aspects from Bioware and Ubisoft games, but lacks a bit of the gripping story and directed experience their games were famous for.

Eternal Strands: Into the Enclave

Eternal Strands, a new universe created by the studio, is a world where Weavers, the realm’s magic users, suffered a calamity and sealed up their ancient home, called the Enclave. The game focuses on Wynn, a fearless young Weaver, as she is helped by a wandering band of peers shunned by society but determined to find their way into the mysterious Enclave.

The band of Weavers is investigating a trail into the Enclave when they are attacked and discover a newly revived creature that shelters and escorts them inside. From there the team, led by Brynn who is now “The Point,” are trapped in the Enclave and compelled to explore in order to uncover its secrets.

The first thing that every player will notice about Eternal Strands is the sheer vibrance and beauty of the game. This is a work of art that has obviously been created by an incredibly talented group of artists and programmers.

The team of Weavers is made up of diverse creatures with wagons they unfurl to make their home base in The Enclave. Every single aspect is stunning to look at and explore. The environments, characters, items, creatures and natural aspects are bright, innovative and frankly took my breath away.

The second thing that stunned me was the incredible freedom afforded to Brynn right away. She has a key weapon, and more that are discovered quickly: a Strand, which is magic to utilize; environmental triggers to shift and wield; and an ability to climb literally every surface. I actually was looking for ways to fool the climbing system and you cannot; except for stamina which does run out, you can generally climb anywhere you want.

Once the game proper kicked off I was able to explore, fight enemies, discover lost artifacts and messages, interact with my team and most excitingly combat the giant creatures that populate each zone. Each interaction has many options, whether it be dialog with companions or using elemental magic or items against enemies and blocked areas.

The World as Your Weapon

One of the key marketing angles for Eternal Strands is the ability to “use the world as your weapon” and that is so true. Using Kinetic powers you can grab and fling ice or combustible items at foes, or even pick up enemies and throw them off cliffs or at each other.

Once additional Strands are used, weapons and magic are infused with elements of ice and fire to use against the world and enemies. At times the volatile environment of the Enclave shifts to extreme heat or cold and using the abilities or the environment can temper the effects of these extreme shifts.

So while exploring, climbing, and battling the wandering enemies is fun, the truly thrilling parts come from the Shadow of Colossus-style battles against titanic enemies. These range from giant lumbering Arks and Flying Drakes to massive wolf-like creatures. All have different attacks, skills and weaknesses and can be defeated to claim Strands to upgrade magic skills.

Essentially Eternal Strands plays like a typical ARPG: You can sprint, jump, block swing weapons and cast magic. But the addition of these Titan-like creatures has you climbing them, hitting weak points, shattering armor, using the environment to damage them – and then eventually destroying them or drawing out the Strand that animates them to harness the power for yourself.

Progress

This is where the next really cool aspect of Eternal Strands comes in: the progression system. There is no XP or leveling; instead you collect Strands, materials and new blueprints to unlock new weapons, armor and skills back at base camp.

The resident blacksmith, Sola, provides arm and armor crafting upgrades and reforges (adding new stats to existing armor). The Lorekeeper, Laen, unlocks additional potions, Scholar Dahm new Strand upgrades and provisioner Casmyn new base upgrades. The team is actually another truly cool aspect of the game.

Each part of the team has its own dialogue trees and sometimes adapts based on what is happening. As the game progresses new dialogs are unlocked which really helps to bring the fully voiced team to life as Brynn sets out to unlock the Enclave’s secrets.

The game is terrifically fun to explore and play through, but as I dug into the experience I finally found its weaknesses. The story, while fine, has no real gripping veritas or big bad that truly compelled me to want to dig into the Enclave and its missing Weavers.

Little bits of lore and history are uncovered and the team does discuss them and weigh how to proceed, but it felt more like I was on an archeological dig than progressing through and epic story. I also found myself turned around quite a bit due to the minimal wayfinding and overly simple map system.

While I don’t necessarily want the Ubisoft style of millions of icons to discover on a map, some method to determine where remaining collectibles are would be great. I found the system in the new Indiana Jones game to be very elegant, buying books as you progress that unlock some locations. Instead in Eternal Strands you have to wander each nook and cranny listening for the faint music signaling something is near.

Eternal Strands is a gorgeous game with a striking soundtrack by Austin Wintory and a fully voiced cast to help out while Brynn is battling her way through the Enclave. I just wish the game made it a bit clearer where to go and the story had more bite. Regardless this a monumental achievement for this newly formed studio and a game well worth checking out for the sheer visual delights and excitingly varied combat.

We were given a PlayStation 5 key by the publisher for review purposes. Eternal Strands is available January 28th on PC via Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.