LET'S EXPLOIT THE WILD GREEN YONDER
Greedfall is the sixth role-playing adventure from the small French studio Spiders. They are known for their attempts to “fill the void” left behind by their role models at BioWare, whose recent slump in form should make any addition to the genre welcome. I haven’t played Spiders’ previous RPGs myself, but by cultural osmosis I know the reputation: promising ideas that rarely come together. That description, incidentally, also feels like the most concise way to summarize Greedfall.
On paper, it contains all the hallmarks of a solid old-school RPG. Fantastical beasts, magic, pausable action combat, romanceable companions, branching side quests, and a sweeping storyline all make it a worthwhile endeavor for genre fans. It forgoes a seamless open world in favor of smaller, segmented maps. Production values are respectable, with good voice acting and lush colonial environments inspired by 17th-century paintings.
Greedfall also introduces a handful of quality-of-life improvements I wish more games would adopt. Managing inventory and companions during loading screens is a godsend, and the ability to instantly return to a quest giver after completing an objective is much appreciated.
Despite these noble intentions, somewhere around the halfway point Greedfall begins to lose its grip on me. It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly where things go wrong, but gradually the RPG mechanics stop mattering. Your preferred skills and talents max out early, leaving little room for meaningful growth. At the same time, the game insists on tying nearly everything to its central themes of colonization and environmentalism. The overly high-strung tone drains the world of personality.
You play as De Sardet, a noble-born diplomat, and nearly every quest reflects that role. With little room for leisure or spontaneity, the experience is dominated by the stiff decorum of ambassadorial duties. The dialogue initially feels formal and measured, but before long your character comes across as rigid, humorless, and eloquent to a fault. Worse still, nothing you do can meaningfully change that.
The same problem applies to your five companions, one for each of the game’s factions. They exist primarily as emissaries for their respective causes. You quickly exhaust their dialogue, after which they linger quietly, offering the occasional comment on your decisions. When even the romantic subplots are drowned in protocol and politeness, my interest in this universe starts to fade. It's in serious need of a pinch in the buttocks.
That uniformity does, however, come with one major advantage: the setting itself. Greedfall takes place on the wild, untamed island of Teer Fradee, inhabited by natives who live in close symbiosis with nature and its gods. Their language was developed specifically for the game by a linguist, and both humans and animals bear physical traits shaped by their environment. Wooden roots protrude from their head like horns. Visually, it’s striking.
The story, while not particularly original, is competently written and serves as the game’s backbone. You begin on the mainland, ravaged by a plague known as the Malichor, which threatens your homeland. Accompanying your cousin, soon to be governor, you sail to Teer Fradee to colonize the island while searching for a cure hidden within its ancient lore.
Other nations and factions vie for control as well, each shaped by its own ideology—scientific arrogance, religious zealotry, or ruthless pragmatism. The natives, unsurprisingly, are hostile to the newcomers. This is where diplomacy should come in. In practice, however, it largely boils down to completing side quests to keep everyone content.
With little room for expressive role-playing, the genre trappings are reduced to stats: skills, attributes, and talents. While these influence how you solve quests, they rarely affect who you are. The story is mostly linear, and exploration outside of quest objectives offers little beyond crafting materials and disposable gear. In fact, simply following the quest lines will likely reveal the entire map.
The modern third-person perspective also feels ill-suited to Greedfall. An isometric viewpoint might have better served the gameplay. Manually traversing the environments becomes tedious as areas begin to repeat and blur together. A more indirect, overview-based control scheme could have alleviated some of that fatigue.
Character models and animations do little to enhance the dialogue. The lip-syncing is abhorrent, and in scenes with more than two characters, it’s common for people to stare at the one they're not adressing.
Ultimately, Greedfall feels like a tightly directed experience masquerading as an open one. You leave the main path only to resupply or craft gear. Most side quests sit directly along the critical route. Early on, I wandered off course and encountered a powerful spear-throwing beast. After a few failed attempts, I finally defeated it and felt accomplished—only to much later realize I’d stumbled into what was meant to be an endgame encounter.
This highlights how easy it is to become overpowered. By specializing early, combat quickly loses tension. While there are multiple approaches—dialogue, stealth, alchemy, bribery, or brute force—the lack of depth within each path means you’ll resolve situations the same way again and again. Poor enemy variety doesn’t encourage experimentation, and the systems grow old long before the credits roll.
Greedfall reaches toward greatness but lacks the means to get there. A shortage of memorable sights, compelling characters, and branching lore eventually dulls the intrigue established by its strong opening. Its gameplay loop fails to evolve, and as the story settles into familiar lectures, the constant backtracking, dialogue, and combat grind the experience down into mediocrity.
I don’t doubt that Spiders achieved exactly what they set out to do. For me, though, it wasn’t enough. The game feels smaller than the sum of its parts. After nearly 50 hours, I felt I had seen everything it had to offer, and that “everything” turned out to be surprisingly little.
The RPGs that inspired it, like Dragon Age: Origins or Jade Empire, used diverse, loosely connected stories and characters to suggest a world far larger than the player could see. Greedfall is so tightly bound to its central plot that it feels closer to a corridor shooter. Choosing the order of quest corridors is a curious design choice for a role-playing game about discovering a new continent.
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