Bless me beating heart, it’s RuneScape in 3D! Yes, I’m allowed to gush for a minute, please give me this moment. And yes, I know the original game is already 3D, hush you. But note that if you thought one of my childhood MMORPGs was going to get in the way of a proper impressions, know that the survival part of the description was a kick to the gonads. Not that I hate survival, mind you, I guess I never figured I’d see the long-running browser-based role-playing game was going to step into full WASD-controlled 3D territory through the vein of the survival genre in ‘RuneScape: Dragonwilds’. But it’s here, it’s cool, and it’s got a lot of attention to detail to both its visuals and mechanics I (admittedly) really wasn’t expecting.
Home of the Skill Farmer
Dragonwilds plays like a major sidequest in the greater RuneScape lore. Here, explorers have set off to discover the land of Ashenfall and claim glory in the discovery of a new land. Unfortunately for them, a vast majority of said expeditioners get slaughtered not too long after making landfall—it turns out, some old multi-headed dragon by the name of Kuldra has made a pact with the dragons of Ashenfall to ensure that they glass every single human settlement out in Gielinor. Now we can’t that and that’s where you and up to four other friends come along. Our goal in Ashenfall is to slay the Dragon Queen once and for all—but you’ll need to survive in order to even consider reaching her.
As you’d surmise, Ashenfall is home to creatures of all sorts. And they’re not nice ones either—one I made my character with the fairly limited character creation choices (we need more hairs and faces, mate), I found myself getting mauled by chickens and even burning goblins. Goblins, the things noobs used to farm for a few coins and bones! Clearly, we need to change our approach to able to survive and that’s where preparation is key. Building bases, crafting new armour, eating and sleeping—this all might sound like typical survival stuff (and it is!) but Dragonwilds prides itself on more than just the typical survival mechanics.
See, RuneScape is all about skill grinding. The original game is built on the backbone of unlocking new abilities and access to higher level magics and resource collection and what have you. It’s why the original is so beloved, besides its lovingly crafted point ‘n click-esque quest design that continues to put other MMOs to shame (even if quests take billions of years to come out). Here, players will level up skills like woodcutting, runecrafting, cooking, combat, the whole shebang. The skills available are only a select few from the original MMORPG and some of them are still under development like magic. But the ones that are currently available offer unique skills such as being able to summon an astral axe to cut multiple trees in a row and the crafting of better tools to cook and forge. Not to mention passive boosts for collecting and fighting.
Speaking of which, in RuneScape: Dragonwilds, players unlock new recipes simply by finding new materials. Once a new piece of material is discovered, you’ll get related recipes loaded into your crafting menu and other related equipment. While this might be a survival game, the default difficulty feels just right enough that even newbies and some more casual players can pick up the game without feeling overwhelmed. I think the only complaint I’ve got to throw out there is just how much resources the player needs to burn through just to be able to set up the necessities.
As part of a storyline set forth by a wizard some players might be familiar with, the game will slowly inch you forward towards the rest of the available Ashenfall map. Going back and forth between the new areas you’ve explored and to your home base is simply unfeasible due to the distance and danger, so it’s better you set up camp. But that means spending a good in-game day or two cutting up wood and mining ores just to be able to get a square flat set up with the bare necessities. It can feel tedious by the time you’ve gotten to the third area of Ashenfall no thanks in part to the dangers that pop up at night.
Reducing the wood requirements at the very least by at least half would be much appreciated and improve the flow of gameplay. It would also mean a little less time cutting trees instead of trying to defend my base when a chicken decides to get aggressive. Because as it stands now, there are so many items and so many recipes with their own set of requirements that it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere. It doesn’t help the fact that our characters have the metabolism of a 19-year-old FIFA player.
They Are Dragons: Here ’em Roar
RuneScape: Dragonwilds doesn’t get away with being a game about dragons without, you know, actually having dragons. And dragons you will encounter! Ashenfall is a fairly massive place that you’ll be trekking on foot and as you do so, you’ll actively be harassed and poisoned by this giant green dragon by the name of Velgar, one of the Queen’s generals. This guy is a huge jerk and will randomly show up uninvited to light your base up with green goop that will poison you and potentially damage your base and its equipment. To make matters worse, warbands will actively hunt you down and attack your base whenever they so please and they’ll be more than happy to bust down your doors and walls just to get to your beating flesh.
Though before I touch on our primary objective, I just have to get this off my chest before I forget. RuneScape: Dragonwilds is a beautiful game. Shockingly so. You have to understand that the original MMO game, while charming and visually pleasing in its own right, is essentially a hodgepodge of art styles over the game’s 20-plus year run. There are part of RuneScape that you can cross into that look like they haven’t been touched in years before returning to “HD visuals” by crossing another seam of land.
In comparison, Dragonwilds not only manages to keep the RuneScape visual scheme, but it also expands on what the original couldn’t do! Bushes light up as you brush past them, skyboxes shine brilliantly as time-of-day transitions, enemy animations are detailed and go beyond the original’s 20-tick response time, so on and so forth. Audio is also a major strength and one of the first heavy weights you see of this is Velgar making his presence known once you step foot into Ashenfall. This makes for an incredibly visceral experience and it’s just so bloody nice to see RuneScape realised into a full 3D title while also keeping what makes the franchise true to itself.
Now I do take issue with one thing regarding the world and our character and that’s the lack of any viable mounting system. Sure, there’s a jump button, but it’s barely enough to scrounge over even the tiniest rocks of Ashenfall and oftentimes feels useless. Especially since there’s not even a downward attack that is available for use (and this one’s another bit I’ll get into later). I’m not looking for some Breath of the Wild-sort of climbing, but a bit more oomph to my jump would make life a little easier.
Oh, and dial back the bloom a bit. This isn’t Sweden—we have sun where I live.
Anywho, we’re on our way to beat up Velgar, that’s our main goal for the time being. We need weapons and that is key to fending off the creatures of Ashenfall that want to kill you. As you’d likely surmise, everything here wants to kill you, so walking away from your base without even a stone club in hand is asking for trouble. You’ve got your daggers, clubs, greatswords, bows and arrows, and what have you and they all offer their own strategies. You can also power up your weapons with Rune magic, giving you an edge against some of the harsher wildlife when you need it the most. No scimmys for those of you wondering, which I’ll admit upsets me quite a bit—that needs fixing, Jagex.
Combat in this game is rather simple and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You have your normal attacks that lead into a combo as you continue them and a “special” attack with the middle mouse button. The right mouse button can be used to block attacks and even parry under the right circumstances. A shield can be made and equipped for use with the single-handed weapons. You can dodge roll out of the way as well and that’s probably what you’ll use most of the time anyway. Magic is on the way, though it’s not really available at present time. Can’t wait to see that.
Enemies in this game want your flesh. Don’t think you can just circle a rat or wolf because the distance all mobs can cover with their normal attacks is maddening. Running often gets your back torn to bits and, wolves especially, are frighteningly good at corning you. Velgar, too, will pop in to spew corrosive rubbish at your face and there’s naught much you can do there til you can get the dumb horn needed to fight him. Dodging out of the way is paramount as is blocking, but stamina will burn through quick! A mate is all but helpful against the forces of evil chickens and Garou goblins trying to kill you.
Circling back onto a thought I had earlier, Dragonwilds’ combat is a tad lacking in depth. Yes, it’s got the flow, but it does feel rather one note as all you’ll be doing is rolling and doing your normal attack with the occasional parry or special. The special attack may as well be considered your strong attack, but I don’t really think of it like that as it’s more of a combo ender than anything else. More contextual attacks, such as striking from above or giving the special attack more moves would be welcome and would give the player more options to work with against baddies.
But after all that’s said, I really enjoyed playing RuneScape: Dragonwilds. It’s a beautiful game and has quite the roadmap ahead of it (farming for example is sorely needed). My mate and I are still actively playing the game and will do so for the foreseeable future and Jagex themselves have been active with updates on future content releases over on the Steam community, which gives me strength that Dragonwilds will come out to be an even better game while it’s in Steam Early Access. ∎
