| Of Ash and Steel | ||||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Playtest Review | Review |
Of Ash & Steel is an upcoming medieval fantasy RPG where you explore and survive in the unforgiving realm of the Kingdom of the Seven. Read on to learn everything we know, our review of the demo, and more.
Everything We Know About Of Ash & Steel
Of Ash & Steel Plot
Explore the once-prosperous lands of the Forgotten Reach, where you explore your surroundings, craft items and equipment, and hone your skills in combat. Play as the cartographer, Tristan, as he searches for answers and, ultimately, himself in his quest that eventually leads him to shape the fate of the world.
Of Ash & Steel Gameplay
Of Ash & Steel is a third-person RPG that combines classic and modern mechanics. The combat system allows you to have 3 unique combat styles for different weapons. Additionally, you will need to practice doing certain techniques for your character to become more skilled in that facet. It will also feature a progression system, allowing players to choose from three different trees and acquire additional skills to enhance their characters further.
The quest system in the game does not have in-game markers, nor will it hold your hand in finding where to go next. Exploration is also the name of the game, as you will find that the world is host to hidden treasures, underwater caves, and valuable loot for the taking. It also encourages players to interact and be curious about their surroundings, as you can find more side quests to accomplish, bosses to defeat, and more.
Of Ash & Steel Release Date
Of Ash & Steel is scheduled to be released sometime in 2025 for PC (Steam). Interested players can register for their closed playtest on its Steam store page, which features a sneak peek of the game’s first act.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
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 Steam |
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| Wishlist Only | |||||
Of Ash & Steel Review (Playtest)
With all the remakes and remasters of old RPGs, it honestly seems foreign when new games are announced nowadays. Then again, it’s also because we’re all suckers for nostalgia. Not saying that that’s a bad thing, but we also need to understand that taking things from older games doesn’t always mean it’s a good thing. Enter Of Ash and Steel, an upcoming action RPG that’s clearly inspired by older action RPG games with big choices like the Witcher and Gothic series. Does it have enough to stand out, or is it just another imitation of old glories?
Story Seems Familiar Already
Let’s start with Of Ash & Steel’s story and setup. Set in the unforgiving realm of the Kingdom of the Seven, you play as Tristan, a cartographer for the Knights of the Order. It doesn’t take long before the game sets up the tragedy, as his entourage gets attacked, with him being left as the sole survivor. The task of informing the Knights of the Order on the island now lies in his hands, but that also doesn’t last long because the letter he’s supposed to deliver ends up lost after he gets mugged by stragglers.
I think you and I both know how this goes; he gets saved by a random passerby, and then his objective is to find the letter and bring it to those who need to see it. Even if you haven’t played the game, the premise and the setup are already painfully obvious. While the playtest doesn’t expound on what happens next, you already get an idea that not everything is as simple as it seems. It’s not as if it’s completely bad, but it doesn’t exactly become memorable if everything feels familiar right after the first few minutes of the game.
The story may end up being better than how it’s initially laid out, but as it stands, it seems predictable by the events that unfold at the start.
Subpar Presentation Except…
In terms of how the game is presented, it doesn’t look great. The graphics are very reminiscent of the early PlayStation 3 era visuals, like Dragon Age: Origins, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and the like. It’s not horrible, but it looks dated given that the standards of visuals are way higher now than it was before. The worst part about the visuals is that nothing stands out, as character designs and enemy designs aren’t memorable at all, including Tristan.
However, the voice acting of the game is surprisingly better than most. It’s definitely not perfect, especially with repetitive voice lines and these being attached to the wrong characters at times, but it’s an aspect that I’ll give praise to since not a lot of indie games can flex on the dialogue. Hopefully, they can fix that particular issue on the ambient voice lines since the dialogue and story can keep a player hooked if they’re dedicated enough.
Clunky and Unsatisfactory Combat
Let’s move on to one of the most important aspects of an action RPG, the combat. To be perfectly honest, it’s not good. Understandably, the protagonist has been described as a character who’s not great at fighting because he’s a cartographer by trade. But it doesn’t mean that combat should be unsatisfying. The reason for this is the game’s combat design. The game features a stamina bar, which is required to do certain actions like attacking, blocking, and dodging.
I can understand that Tristan deals little to no damage, but what I don’t understand is that his stamina runs out after 2-3 actions. To add insult to injury, it takes an ungodly amount of time for his stamina to recover. I would be able to justify doing a hit-and-run approach, but even doing that seems impossible given that dodging doesn’t guarantee the enemy misses their attack. On top of that, you can also get injured in various ways, mostly by taking enemy damage.
With the damage being low, dodging taking a chunk of stamina, and the fact that you can get injured, it makes combat sluggish since you don’t want to get hit by anything unless you have the resources to do so. To make matters even worse, you can get stunlocked very easily. Fighting two enemies at the same time already feels insurmountable, and you’ll need to kite them slowly if you want to survive the encounter.
Dated and Gated
Of Ash & Steel uses the no-markers and no-map
approach. Now, this may be great if it were executed properly. But the problem is that you can’t make the player blind and expect them to find things organically if combat isn’t satisfying. In my experience, I had to run away from most enemies after the introductory area since it didn’t seem worth it to waste time and health fighting extremely tanky enemies. I couldn’t explore areas as freely as I wanted to, since most of them were populated by enemies that were much stronger than me.
Due to their approach of having no map or quest markers, I also found myself getting lost on more than one occasion. I appreciate what it’s trying to achieve with this type of design, but the problem is that many things restrict the player from moving around, and not being able to find the objective is frustrating. Not to mention that the game also has a survival mechanic where you’ll need to periodically eat and drink food to keep yourself alive. I get that it’s supposed to simulate trying to survive from day to day, but with everything becoming an annoyance, it seems like just another problem to add to the list.
Lastly, character progression is gated by gold. You read that right. Leveling skills in the skill tree requires you to have gold, stats, and a trainer to be able to learn skills. This compounds on the game’s frustrating design of unsatisfying combat and lack of direction because you can’t even get skills after leveling up. Also, did I mention that there are hidden passive skills as well? As good as that would be, it doesn’t add to the experience if it feels bad in the first place.
The Classics Aren't Always Better
To answer the question posed earlier, does Of Ash and Steel have enough to stand out? Yes, but not for the right reasons. It stood out due to the problems it has from a design standpoint, and I haven’t even mentioned the bugs that I encountered as well. It has familiar gameplay mechanics and elements, but they aren’t executed very well.
Everything just seems to go against you, and nothing feels satisfying as a result. I hope that they think about changing stuff up in the gameplay aspect of things, specifically on combat. With an action RPG, it’s imperative that combat feels good, so that everything in the gameplay can follow suit.
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Of Ash & Steel Product Information
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| Title | OF ASH & STEEL |
|---|---|
| Release Date | 2025 |
| Developer | Fire & Frost |
| Publisher | tinyBuild |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Action, RPG, Survival |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | RP |
| Official Website | Of Ash and Steel Official Website |
