Open World RPG

Hey Friends! There are times when it is actually a good thing that I have way too many games fighting for my attention. So last winter I happened upon a game that looked interesting called Rune II, that was an epic games store exclusive. I had never played the first game, or at least I don’t remember playing the first game but what I was seeing about the sequel looked pretty cool. I picked it up… and then promptly forgot about it and never actually played during the launch cycle last November. Based on what I am reading it was really not well received because the core loop of the gameplay was a bit flawed. Since I am going through the “install all the games to play on the new rig” phase of new hardware, I stumbled upon this game in my library and thought to give it a shot.

The game that launched in November was apparently considerably different to what I am now playing. When you started the game you were thrust back into the land of the living with a timer ticking down in the upper corner of the screen. When that timer hit zero, Ragnarok happened and you were sent to fight Loki. If you died… and you were very likely to die… the loop would start over again with progression in your character saved as you continued to get stronger until eventually at some point you could defeat the final encounter of the game. From what I am reading there were no real quests or NPCs to guide you along your journey… just the death loop mechanic until you got strong enough to finish the game.

The game I am playing however feels very much like a single player MMORPG, where you are dropped on an island and do a number of quests for the NPCs where you help build the village back up to its former glory. You chop down trees, break rocks for ore, and eventually complete a number of buildings while you other quests to learn how the basics of the game work. Then before you move to the next village you are attacked by the forces of Loki who is trying to bring about Ragnarok. The end result is somewhat of a base defense game where defensive towers aid you as you take down several waves of encounters and a boss encounter ultimately saving the village.

Your adventure sends you forth after some arcane relics that Heimdall needs, to the next village… one that worships him. Again you do a number of traditionally MMO quests and also build this village up until the cycle repeats itself with waves of NPCs attacking it. Each new building you add however increases your access to crafting resources like the ability to craft healing items that come in extremely handy. Out in the world there are a number of runestones which will also teach you new patterns expanding the relative power of the type of items that you can craft.

What is interesting about this first town however is it also has a very MMO style dungeon in it. You venture forth into it in an attempt to reach some divine summit. However to get there you need to pass through this huge sprawling cave filled with various encounters. Clearing through it reminded me very much of Tamtara Deepcroft or something similar to that. There were several rooms with boss encounters and a ton of chests along the way that provided copious amounts of loot. The thing is… the dungeon respawns it seems and you can keep going back into it at will as you continue to level.

Upon reaching the summit you are given the opportunity to devote yourself to one of three gods of the realm. Thor serves as the DPS path with lots of AOE abilities and things that increase your time in berserking mode. Odin seems to be the more group support tree with things that aid your party members… which only really comes into play if you are playing through the game co-op with friends… that is apparently a viable option. Hel serves as the third option and her tree I think is supposed to feel like the more stealthy path… but mostly it is sneak attacks and life drain abilities. I had to go down the Thor path which apparently gives me a buff to using Hammers and then all of his side quests that are Thor specific involve me killing Draugr with Hammers. So it seems like I inadvertently locked myself into a specific weapon choice going forward.

Like an MMORPG there is plenty of loot and the loot is arranged into quality brackets following the traditional White, Green, Blue, Purple, Gold format. What is interesting is in a lot of games that focus heavily on crafting, the gear that is crafted is just the same stuff that is dropping. This is true to some extent but there are a number of things that I have seen drop that I have never seen a pattern for making it seem like both are worthwhile ways to gear yourself. One thing I particularly like is that you can dismantle items in the field keeping you from having to jet back to a smithy constantly. There is fast travel in the game, but each time you do it a rune of travel is consumed. These are easy enough to make at the Sage’s hut but they are still a depleting resource.

I’ve played the game far enough to reach the second age of Midgard, aka the Age of Fire as the cycle of Ragnarok begins. Now the sky is on fire and Loki randomly bombards you with fireballs from the sky. Additionally the spawn of Surtr the fire giant roam the land along with a new variant of the Dragr that are all burned and ashen. Loki has somehow locked away the gods so that they can no longer interact with the mortal plane and I’ve moved from helping Heimdall to helping Thor as he tries to collect some artifacts that he needs. Be warned… this isn’t loveable Thor but instead the self absorbed talks about himself in third person Thor. I am guessing each phase of the game is going to be another “Age” of Midgard. You can in theory travel to the entire map in any of the phases but you are specifically focusing specific areas if you are following the quests.

All in all it is a pretty solid game experience and if you are looking for something that feels like a mix of Skyrim, Valheim and a quest driven MMORPG you might check it out. I have no clue what the co-op gameplay looks like, but it appears that you could spec a character exclusively for group play if you decided to do so. I am largely going down the DPS path because it seems to make killing things much easier. There is an AOE leap attack in the Thor tree that is brutal and is pretty much my opener for fighting multiple things at the same time. Similarly I can throw Thor’s hammer which does AOE damage and stuns the target, so while I love my tanking… there didn’t seem to be much of a point in Odin’s tree if you are largely playing solo.

This is at least one of those times when I am really glad that I didn’t give the game any attention at release, because it seems like they have mostly righted the ship after a bad core loop at launch.