I’d scream it from the rooftops if I could: “Slapping Souls-like elements onto your games doesn’t automatically make them interesting.” Witchfire, which entered Early Access via Epic Games Store earlier this week, absolutely fails to take note of that aforementioned plea.
The game is a first-person shooter that looks and plays surprisingly well, especially considering that it was developed by a team of about a dozen. But the game is also an example of extremely lacklustre, soulless game design that I’ve unfortunately seen before. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to like here, but the irritations created by the focus on blatant padding and grinding over anything resembling an actual game and not a content treadmill massively outweighs everything else.
Witchfire kicks off by dropping you into its hub where you can acquire new weapons, brew potions, level up, and undertake expeditions. There are currently two expeditions of a planned six in the game that are accessed via a nearby portal. As a monster hunter called a “preyer,” you’re supposed to go into these expeditions and defeat a boss. I was constantly reminded of developer Systemic Reaction, most notably their games Second Extinction and Ravenbound. Much like those, each expedition drops you into a hand-crafted open map that stays consistent between sessions. Instead of focusing on missions or anything resembling real game progression, there are randomly placed enemy encounters, events, and chests.
As in Systemic Reaction’s games, Witchfire bored me immediately due to this. Every expedition feels the same. You go in, do some events, and then extract. Early on, this is a pain. You start with a single gun and nothing else. This gun is a close-range revolver that is useless when it comes to shooting anything that isn’t nearby.
Considering how enemies tend to stand far away from you and then snipe, this made for an aggravating introduction. “It’s okay,” I thought to myself, “I’ll get another gun soon.” It took me a little more than an hour-and-a-half to get additional weapons. The game doles out new stuff as you level up, so it was necessary for me to spend that hour-and-a-half farming this same boring map for experience.
But why make things better when they can get worse instead? Witchfire takes the above soulless smattering of events and supplements it with a Souls-like experience system. Killing enemies, opening chests, and using crystals (which are the equivalent of soul clusters) will grant you the titular Witchfire that you’ll use to level up.
When you die, you drop all of that Witchfire at the spot of your death and need to go get it again. Getting enough of this to level up really isn’t that big of a deal, but having to do it with that one weapon simply wasn’t enjoyable to me. In order to unlock the mirror that lets you research new gear and spells, I needed to be level three.
“Witchfire kicks off by dropping you into its hub where you can acquire new weapons, brew potions, level up, and undertake expeditions.”
Once I hit level three, I was excited to finally grab a new weapon. Opening the research menu let me know that I needed to be level four before I could do that, though, so I went back and did some more experience grinding with my crappy revolver. When I returned, I started research on medium and long-range weapons, which required me to wait a certain amount of time before they’d be ready. I wiped away the blood pouring down my chin from biting my lip open and went back into the boring map to waste time. After another half-hour or so, I returned to my new weapons—a machine gun and bolt-action rifle.
There are spells in Witchfire too, but you have to be level five before those unlock. So I went back in to keep levelling up. Most events, much like those in Ravenbound, are enemy encounters of varying severity. You go to the icon, fight all the enemies that spawn, and then claim a temporary perk that lasts the rest of the expedition. You can also open chests (many of which require keys you’ll pick up from defeated enemies), plus there are cursed relics around that you can cleanse or pick up anyway for a random negative effect.
“I like the shooting and visuals in Witchfire, but I can’t stand games with this design focus…”
At least the game was more fun now that I could engage foes from a distance or keep them at bay with a weapon that had more than six freaking shots; although my rifle only had five. The game often throws a lot of enemies at you at once, so having to endure a somewhat lengthy reload every few seconds was such a pain.
Other events include waves of undead spawning for a while, a wisp that you have to follow while fighting enemies, or a powerful enemy that searches for you while you’re running around. Additional regular enemies are also added upon levelling up. You can escape via portals with your experience intact, if you so desire. Finally, there’s a boss battle, which summons waves of mobs you have to avoid while fighting it, because god forbid anyone code a challenging boss fight when you can pad with mobs instead. This is all made worse due to the fact that you need to brew potions to heal, but you can only brew them with herbs, which I almost never found.
The game could have done it the Dark Souls way, and it would have been fine, but nope, it had to be worse. I like the shooting and visuals in Witchfire, but I can’t stand games with this design focus, especially ones that expect players to just grind out generic events instead of having actual content. The game is also $40, which is way too expensive for an early-access game, let alone one that focuses on regurgitated content. Regardless, not very many people will play the game in Early Access since it launched on Epic Games Store and not Steam, so the devs might not get the feedback they’re looking for as the game’s development continues.
