From an aerial dogfighter with epic vibes to a city-builder technique with real-time fight, Tomas Salas’ Falconeer collection has seen fairly the pivot through the years. Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles leans extra in the direction of the minimalist facet of building titles – Townscaper and Islanders come to thoughts, however at a bigger scale – which inserts the attractive but stark aesthetic and UI. It leans into exploration and potential conquest as a lot as build up and increasing your bulwark, although its mechanical depth isn’t fairly as intensive because the Nice Ursee.
Set in the identical world as The Falconeer, Bulwark happens some forty years later. You begin as one in all three factions – the Free Homes, who favor peace and constructing; the Imperial Remnant, which stays loyal to the Imperium of the previous; and the Mancer Order. Every faction has a novel beginning location and constructing aesthetics whereas counting on totally different supplies for upgrades.
“Nonetheless, you’re not constrained to a specific faction or play fashion. It’s attainable to ask different factions, together with the Bannerless and the Freebooters, to affix your trigger.”
After establishing the requisite useful resource extractors for Iron, Stone and Wooden, you want staff. Construct out towers and walkways to make sure a gradual stream in the direction of useful resource nodes close to your settlement whereas making certain mentioned staff can journey back and forth. Develop this into a correct metropolis and construct harbors to move some sources over bigger distances. Rent captains who concentrate on ferrying sure supplies and set up provide routes. It’s all normal city-building fare however stripped down and streamlined.
Whilst you’re inspired to construct indiscriminately – I’m fairly happy with my spider-web of walkways – there are some limits. Bulwarks are constructed on sheer mountainous terrain, or the Ursee – the latter’s depth means you might have restricted house for enlargement. Outposts might be upgraded whereas towers acquire a number of flooring and assigned Commanders, whereas walkways flip into battlements.
Nonetheless, you’re not constrained to a specific faction or play fashion. It’s attainable to ask different factions, together with the Bannerless and the Freebooters, to affix your trigger. You’ll randomly encounter them of their remoted settlements or crusing about and may invite them to your trigger. Doing this enables for demolishing and shifting their outposts into your explicit bulwark, growing the allegiance to mentioned faction. Equally, Captains and Commanders from totally different backgrounds might be introduced on, with the latter lending some distinctive items to your Surveyor’s battlegroup. You could even encounter Captains with warships who can assist safe your provide routes from raids.
Useful resource allocation can get somewhat complicated at first since, regardless of all these walkways, you’ll discover your Mancer outposts are getting no entry to the Stone required for upgrades whereas the Bannerless hog all of them. The excellent news is you possibly can demolish and rebuild your bulwark as you see match, repositioning particular outposts nearer to harbors and bringing in sure sources with none materials penalties. Whereas I can perceive not having totally different Captains sharing commerce routes and having to create particular begin and finish harbors, a shared useful resource pool for the bulwark could be good.
“If a specific faction turns into dominant, it will probably result in advantages – like arranging commerce and peace agreements with the Bannerless in trade for fight assist.”
Finally, when balancing out the pops of various factions, some tact is important. If a specific faction turns into dominant, it will probably result in advantages – like arranging commerce and peace agreements with the Bannerless in trade for fight assist. You may even invite their settlements to affix your trigger, finally unlocking faction leaders with distinctive bonuses. Several types of Surveyors with particular stats suited to hurry or warfare additionally turn into unlocked.
Nonetheless, different factions gained’t take kindly to it, and there might be ramifications when assigning Captains to routes, with some warships refusing to accompany pirates. Unrest may even begin to brew, and you might shut any alternative for peace with different settlements.
After all, being part of a faction just like the Mancer Order doesn’t assure that different aligned settlements will wish to cope with you. When courting a Mancer outpost, having them be part of my trigger required a deeper data of the faction. On the intense facet, you can additionally take a extra aggressive strategy when having different outposts, declaring conflict and reigning down destruction by way of Cranium Ships and Falconeers.
This highlights one of many weaker parts of Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles – the fight. All it’s essential do is cling by close to an outpost whereas your forces routinely batter the enemy into submission. It usually comes right down to the well being and variety of items, which might be onerous to gauge amid battle (exterior of notifications of losses). Warring sides are indicated by two bars on the high, which dwindle based mostly on who’s shedding. It’s not an indicator in your well being – wander into an energetic warzone, and your Surveyor can go down, no matter how a lot of the bar stays.
“Translating a city-builder to the controller, even one as streamlined as Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, might be tough. Whereas the controls aren’t complicated, they are often awkward.”
You may have minimal management over the unit varieties that be part of your battlegroup, and although you possibly can meet wandering ships that replenish their well being, the way you regain items after shedding a battle is unclear. Hanging across the bulwark or an allied outpost does the trick over time. As overly simplistic because the fight might be, accessing mythic items, like a large sea-faring turtle with armaments that may intimidate different faction outposts into surrendering, is cool.
Nonetheless, when you’ve provoked the ire of different factions, they gained’t cease sending warships. The one possibility left then is to enterprise to every of their cities and power a give up. Some extra diplomatic choices would have been appreciated, even when there’s a degree of no return.
Translating a city-builder to the controller, even one as streamlined as Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, might be tough. Whereas the controls aren’t complicated, they are often awkward. You don’t freely transfer your Surveyor, specifying spots for it to maneuver as an alternative. If an interactable icon pops up, like constructing a harbor, outpost or useful resource extractor, a single button press is sufficient. Nonetheless, this turns into extra unwieldy as your bulwark is extra developed because it’s generally all depending on the place of your cursor.
You may swap to the buildings themselves, which is important for upgrading them, and lengthen nodes from outposts to create towers and snap them collectively intuitively. Nonetheless, you manually hop from constructing to constructing to attain this, extending your cursor every time and hitting the verify button. A free cursor for scanning the bulwark would have definitely made issues simpler. Additionally, an choice to routinely improve all walkways into Battlements and a few particulars on how a number of the distinctive buildings, like Surveyors, labored would have been good.
“Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles isn’t going to redefine the city-builder style, and for what it’s price, it’s not making an attempt to.”
Although the gameplay loop can really feel simplistic at instances, it does shake issues up as you fly by means of the Nice Ursee, encountering random people and including them to your settlement or discovering ambushes and preventing them off. But, with how attractive the aesthetic might be, particularly with totally different climate and lighting results, whether or not it’s storms or mist as you sail previous websites like The Shard or indulge in raging volcanoes, it’s a disgrace that the narrative parts and characterization are surface-level at greatest. Not less than there’s a Freebuild Mode for individuals who wish to construct and create large bulwarks which are a sight to behold.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles isn’t going to redefine the city-builder style, and for what it’s price, it’s not making an attempt to. It delivers a extra tightly centered technique exploration title the place increasing, gentle diplomacy and conquest are attainable at an simply manageable tempo. Extra management choices and fight data are desperately wanted, and it feels just like the setting may have supplied extra past its present narrative confines. But, so far as city-builders go, it’s strong, straightforward on the eyes and pleasing to delve into.
This recreation was reviewed on PS5.
