The pull of Eternal Strands

My hottest take is that Action-Adventure videogame is the wrong place to have an elaborate universe with never-ending lore and dialogues. Why? It is because I am simply here for action and adventure. I am here to rescue the prince, to slay a dragon, and/or to save the nation from a cruel dictator. Give me only the most heroic quests, no more. Spare me the whining from the common folk, who bore me with their daily to-dos. I am not here to find your missing cat, source an ingredient for your lunch meal, or do your laundry. Tasks of this variety are all ok in a narrative-based game, or a cosy farming simulator. But there is really no place for a hero in an action-adventure game to be bothered with the inconveniences of daily life and the politics of the land. I say all this to explain how I surprisingly did enjoy worldbuilding in the latest action-adventure game — 'Eternal Strands'. And for this, I give full credit to the game.

In Eternal Strands, I play as Brynn. While she hails from nobility, she seeks a life of adventure with a band of 'Weavers'. She is a Weaver herself. One of few with the ability to harness magic from thin air using cloth that captures raw energy. The band includes a smith, an enchantress, and a scholar. They are all trauma-bonded through shared cultural history. It was the 'Surge' that truly changed the way life existed. A cataclysmic event where magic exploded, causing climatic phenomena and strange monsters to manifest. You can see why I enjoy the story. It has all the trappings of a Dungeons and Dragons-type fantasy story and that’s very exciting for me. The voice acting is really excellent as well.

As the first release of an indie development team, Yellow Brick Games, I was also pleasantly surprised by the gameplay. There are a lot of interesting elements — all objects are climbable, all enemy creatures are unique, and I possess magical abilities that allow me to be a little creative with the combat mechanic. The 'Ark' bosses are super fun to battle, and they reminded me of the 'ancients' from the recent God of War games. I particularly enjoyed inventory scavenging in Eternal Strands. Collecting a combination of specific types of items — fabric, hide, stone, etc would help in creating new and improved versions of weapons. I felt alive exploring the map, hoping to find some interesting raw material, and battling the different creatures that inhabited the uncharted lands.

But here’s the problem — at times, it comes across as a sort of try-hard Breath of the Wild-style game. While it is cool that they made each object interactable and destructible in the environment, it felt a lot more Fortnite-like and lacked the finesse of the Zelda games, with its creativity and crafting mechanics.

Eternal Strands is currently available for the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. It is available on the Xbox Game Pass. It’s worth playing if you really enjoy a good fantasy plotline, and are simply looking for a fun couple of hours on a new game.