Of Ash and Steel

Ce jeu est une purge, chaque souris ou moustique qu'on rencontre au début du jeu et c'est la panique, on sauvegarde, on boit de potions et on espère ne pas recharger trop souvent. Techniquement, c'est moyen mais je n'ai eu aucun bug en démarrant en avril (les premières versions n'étaient pas trop stables). Mais quand on joue un certain moment, on n'arrête pas de se dire que ce jeu est horrible, mais le lendemain, on a envie d'y revenir, et de jour en jour on l'apprécie de plus en plus, j'en suis à 70 heures et je suis de plus en plus accroc. Après, je suis un vieux joueur (presque 60 ans), j'ai joué à peu près tous les vrais RPG depuis ma jeunesse, les 10 Ultima, les 10 Might&Magic, tous les Witcher, tous les ElderScroll, tous les Baldur, etc... Donc, je suis habitué à la difficulté. Le nombre de quêtes est quand même impressionnant. Le monde est grand, on n'est pas guidé, il faut vraiment chercher, et il faut se faire une raison, on n'arrivera pas à tout faire. Mais finalement, un très bon jeu

World design is awful. Each zone is a sectioned-off dome with tunnels connecting to other domes. This dome design makes traversing the world feel very confusing without a map. When games that are similar to this don’t have maps, they tend to be wider, flatter areas with a lot of landmarks, so you can always have some kind of visual guide. This game is a lot of twisty-turny nonsense. The main town is a prime example of this. It doesn’t even have a main street or center plaza. The streets don’t feel like streets. The town feels like a series of alleyways for 90% of it. Quest design is purposefully obtuse. Here is an example: The game asked me to find Devin on the free farm. With Jesus being the free farm leader, I asked him, and he told me about Devin. I then killed Devin. After that, the game says to "ask about Devin on the Farm." Now, having played this game a bit, I just went back to Jesus, and he advanced the quest. But what I want to know is, why not say, "Ask Jesus about Devin," or, "Inform Jesus about Devin poisoning the farm," or something similar? Why does the quest log make it a mystery about whom I should ask? It's just dumb. This is a prime example of the game being needlessly indirect. The game is full of tasks with no direction, when at least some of the time, there could be way more direction without it feeling like the game is giving you knowledge you don’t have. There are way worse examples, but they would take longer to explain. The combat can feel downright awful. Mashing left click feels very janky due to every attack being so animated. It feels bad to attack. There is no "flow". Your "combo" is like 5-8 hits long, depending on the weapon, and some weapons have this thing where your character remembers where they left off in a combo, so sometimes you'll end combat only to start mid-combo in the next fight. And this is from an upgrade. And then some weapons start off with very slow attacks and get faster as the combo goes on, and other weapons start fast and get slower. Both feel bad. Because you just mash, and timing isn't important (think Dark Souls), they needed to make your basic attacks a simple pattern. Like a 1-2-3 repeat. And then it's all made worse by how easy it is for an enemy to stun-lock you. Or hell, if you get flanked and hit in the back, you are pretty much boned. You get abilities, but you have NO hyper armor and can get knocked out of the animation, and waste your long CD abilities. Enemies, on the other hand, do have hyper armor, and they also have massive i-fames. I've had enemies with bows stand in place and spam their i-frame dodge, so I literally can't hit them from point-blank range. They are literally dodging in place, and you can't do anything about it other than keep attacking until they run out of dodge juice. And then you have the wolves and bugs, who will i-frame dodge arrows fired from their backside. The game doesn't even consider me to be in combat, and yet enemies will dodge. Enemies will dodge when they should have no idea I'm about to shoot them. It's literally rigged. Oh, and enemies can animation cancel. They can be doing the slowest windup attack, which looks like a clear opening that you can punish, but they will cancel the attack to perfectly block you. It's so unfair. You can't do anything like that, not even dodge out of your attack. You have to fully commit to every action you take, while NO enemies have to. This is a large reason why I find the Rapier to be the best weapon. It is super fast, and it can stunlock enemies, mostly bigger monsters. But on humans and such, while you can't always stun lock, with the right abilities, you can perma drain their stamina so they get stuck in the stagger/exhausted animation. Enemies also block without any rhyme or reason. You can attack them six times in a row, and they'll block every attack, but sometimes they'll only block once, or twice, or not at all. And the only way you can ignore their ability to block is to use an ability. The thing is, two-handed weapons have the least amount of abilities, and not all of them are unblockable. 1-handed weapons have far more abilities than can ignore their block. But only humanoid enemies block; monsters only dodge. If you could have two melee weapons equipped, this would solve a few issues. The story was predictable and bland, but not legit bad, I actually want to give the writers props for the foreshadowing regarding Kristof. All the way back in Act 1 the game has big hints, especially if you talk to sneaky Fox. I played this on Patch 1.07 and I found it to be mostly glitch free. Never had a crash, it ran well. Just had one pretty bad bug that required a few Alt+F4s until I figured out how to bypass it. The voice acting can be pretty good. Having stat up potions is always great in these kinds of games. I really hope the devs get to make a sequel because they probably could make something good and I'd be really interested in seeing what lessons they have learned. They have had plenty of feedback, that's for sure. This review is just another drop in the bucket.

As of the 24th of april 2026 this game should still be in early access and not put forward as a retail version. Im running the Ryzen 9 9950X3D CPU, RTX 5080 GPU, GEN5 NVMES, X870E MOTHERBOARD and this game runs so bad, process lasso is set to only use CCD0 the vcache and this game runs very poorly. Constant stuttering, significantly long stalls on loading screen, cinematic scenes choppy, which i would expect from an alpha state. if this is how bad it is now, i would hate to see how it was before the latest patch, did the game even load? lol I wish i never brought this, its now unstalled and hidden so im not reminded of this purchase.

Powiem tak, widać ogromne napracowanie twórców i łatki które wprowadzili, ponaprawiały od groma błędów i za to należy się szacunek, że nie pozostawili tej gry w przykrym stanie. Co do samej gry. Kocham gothica i surowy świat jaki reprezentuje. Ta gra daje mi podobny klimat, muzyka cudowna, klimatyczna, grafika może nie najwyższych lotów, ale dla mnie jest idealna. Niestety mimo tych plusów, są i minusy które nie pozwalają mi przejść tej gry. Mianowicie, na start brak mapy, ja wiem, że w dalszym etapie można ją dostać, ale to, że nie można jej kupić gdzieś w wczesnych etapach rozgrywki, zwłaszcza kiedy chłoniemy ten świat gry na jego początku, to absurd. Są wszelkiego rodzaju znaczniki, a w miastach szyldy z mapą danego rejonu, ale to zabiera całkowitą płynność rozgrywki. Nauczyłem się na pamięć całego miasta, co gdzie jest, ale i tak latanie od npc do npc, którego tam już nie było z niewiadomego powodu (myślałem, że pora dania, ale nie) już nie było. Świat gry jest ogromny, chodzenia jest co nie miara, nauka gdzie mogę iść a gdzie nie, nie jest taka zła na początku, ale przez to, że są zadania, które nawet nie mówią ci gdzie masz iść, tylko masz to zrobić są rozbrajające. Zadania gdzie masz cel, idź do NPC X, gdzie możesz go znaleźć w miejscu Y (często jest tak, że zanim znajdziesz to miejsce miną wieki), ty tam idziesz, a go tam nie ma, patrzysz w necie poszukując informacji, a tam połowa go ma, połowa nie. Moja orientacja w terenie jest tak słaba, że do teraz nie znalazłem wioski rybaków. Ja wiem, że to może być brak moich umiejętności grania i brak wytrwałości, ale niestety muszę porzucić ten tytuł. Nie jestem wstanie się przy nim dobrze bawić, a co za tym idzie, nie jest w stanie tej gry nikomu polecić.

[h1] There is an excellent game buried in here but you have to bring your own shovel to dig it up [/h1] The similarities with the first Gothic game are undeniable, including the numerous bugs, performance issues and general lack of polish. Quests will glitch requiring you to unload the area and come back, enemies and quest items can ocassionally glitch into the textures and there is a general feel of "this is someone's first game" and it is, that's honestly fine as long as they keep working on it and ironing out the bugs. Unfortunately that's basically to be expected with games in 2026. [h2] Game's most infuriating issue [/h2] Now what's not fine is that a lot of the quests you do require you to work [b] precisely [/b] within those systems which are very prone to fail. There were numerous times when I was in the right area at the right time and the NPC I required to proceed the quest simply refused to spawn. The worst offenders are Philmore and Rat, fortunately those characters are mainly linked to side quests, unfortunately I had 4 side quests with Philmore and I couldn't turn them in because he refused to spawn at his day-time location at the harbour entrance. Rat still hasn't appeared at the harbour warehouse where I'm supposed to find him for the second quest and judging by the discussion forum I'm not the only one with those issues as Philmore is the most asked about NPC at the time of writing this review. [h2] Exploration and quest design [/h2] I find no issue in playing without a map, this is one of the few games in recent years where I had to actually take notes on where to go and within 40 or so hours I remembered precisely where to turn at each crossroads to reach the main hub going from the 5 main locations you visit and honestly it felt good. [b] However [/b] Gothic got away with being very vague with quest directions due to its small and compact map. When I'm told by the weapons merchant in Khorinis to go find bandits in a cave there are only four caves around the city they could be hiding at. Now when Of Ash and Steel does this there are 20 or so caves it could be pointing you at. That is not good quest design, that is infuriating. Probably the worst offender is the Firewood for hunters quest, I assumed the quest giver meant "Free Hunters" (as it is what he said). Nope, he actually meant a completely different group of hunters on the other side of the map! So I've spent a couple hours travelling to the Free Hunters and talking to every NPC there for nothing. There are a couple of quests where directions aren't just vague but downright misleading, like a person telling you to find someone in the outskirts, when they are actually in the city or Magwo telling you to go to Ivarsby when the actual quest location is in Alpha and Omega (again, opposite side of the map). Some of these are translation errors and some are just ♥♥♥♥ ups by the devs, so be ready for that and not all quests have guides available online (unless you are Russian, then there are 10+ websites with all quests documented, but I am not). With all that being said the game really does reward exploration, you can find legendary weapons and permanent stat increasing potions if you keep your eyes peeled. [h2] Combat [/h2] I was honestly expecting jank and it's there at first, but once you learn a couple of fighting skills the combat becomes rather dynamic. Unfortunately there are some issues here as well. Some enemies have their stamina bars glitched, most notably Woodwalkers can stunlock you with a dozen of attacks in a row not giving you a chance to react. It is enraging, if you play on the hardest difficulty as I did 3-4 of these attacks are enough to one shot you in the first act of the game which is arguably when you will be doing the most fighting and exploring (sidequests are chapter dependent, so if you miss out on the act 1 quests you won't get a chance to do some of them). The perfect dodge skill flat out doesn't work - your attack will miss. It's a waste of a skill point but it's necessary to learn the other fighting skills. On the upside the environmental kills are very cool and I wish more games did something similar. Learning the parry window on enemy attacks was also satisfying, especially against those pu$$ies that use rapiers. [h2] Final verdict [/h2] If the devs continue to update the game it has a real chance to become a cult classic. In the current state I wouldn't buy it at full price, so wait for a sale to give it a try, it's an experience to be sure.

Оценить сейчас можно как среднюю игру, но потенциал присутствует. Последний патч, который вышел прямо посреди моего прохождения, был очень объемным, и если разраб так же продолжит, скажется очень позитивно на опыте тех, кто ещё не играл. Касательно самой игры, начиная с минусов, слишком затянутая за счёт большой карты и тонны мусорных квестов. Если на средней сложности идти по сюжету и выполняя сайды при случае, то это не будет проблемой. В самих квестах есть много непоняток и багов, но с фиксами, дай бог, поправят. Благо ничего ломающего игру нет. Сам проходил на максимальной сложности, и по началу было тяжко, но после изучения пары боевых приёмов всё стало легко проходиться. Изучать мир и самому ставить пометки на карте очень уникально и интересно. Ну и естественно, готика, не забываем про готику.

[h1] After a rough launch, I can safely say, Of Ash And Steel is where it should have been during launch. One of if not the best Gothic-like game thats not made by anyone who use to work at Piranha bytes. [/h1] [b] Combat & Progression [/b] Some players have described the combat as clunky, but that mostly comes down to the early game. You start off weak, with limited skills—very much in line with classic Gothic-style design. You’re not a hero at the beginning; you’re just trying to survive. Progression feels incredibly rewarding. I began barely able to defend myself (my first weapon was literally a peg leg), but as I leveled up, I could genuinely feel my character improving. It’s not just numbers going up—the combat itself becomes more fluid and effective as you grow stronger. There’s also very little grind if you play the game as intended. Exploring, completing side quests, and taking your time naturally keeps you at the right power level. By the time you reach the lighthouse, you should be in a solid position with decent gear and enough gold—assuming you’ve been venturing off the beaten path. The game also includes a variety of systems and activities that add depth, like fishing, mining, leatherworking, and even weapon maintenance. These mechanics feel like a natural evolution of what Gothic 2 offered. You can even purchase your own house, which adds another layer of immersion. It’s clear the developers put a lot of effort into making the world feel alive and worth investing in. [b] Exploration [/b] Exploration is one of the game’s strongest aspects. It doesn’t hold your hand—you’re expected to take risks, wander, and figure things out on your own. That sense of discovery feels very true to the Gothic formula and makes the world much more engaging. [b] Writing & World [/b] The writing has been enjoyable and engaging so far. I’d rank it slightly above Elex. While both are solid Gothic-likes, this game does a better job capturing the tone and atmosphere of classic Gothic, especially through its NPCs and quest design. [b]Movement & Feel [/b] Movement feels great overall, which is something a lot of RPGs struggle with. Even simple things like walking animations stand out—they’re some of the best I’ve seen in the genre. Climbing is also smooth and intuitive; if there’s a ledge, you can grab it and pull yourself up without frustration. It makes navigating the world feel natural and responsive. [b] Performance & Polish [/b] Performance has been excellent so far. I’m playing on max settings with DLSS set to Quality, and I haven’t experienced any frame drops, bugs, or crashes. Everything runs smoothly, and animations feel consistent and well-polished across the board. [b] DISCLAIMER : This is a kind of game where you are MEANT to struggle during the first half of the game. These kind of game flourish within its character progression. Going from a zero to a hero through hard work and perseverance. You're not gonna spawn with a map or find an abundance of items to sell for gold unless you go out and look for these things and overcome the obstacles in your way. If you decide to pick this game up and you've never played any of the Gothic Games or Risen or Chronicles Of Myrtana, Theirs a good chance you may not know what youre getting yourself in for which is one of the neatest RPG's on the market rn. Take your time, explore, save scum and enjoy an old fashion way of playing video games. [/b]

Before anything else: Please give games like Of Ash and Steel a chance. Do not go into it expecting a perfectly polished AAA or AA RPG, and do not get angry about every little rough edge. Instead, I think it is worth appreciating that there are still developers out there who are willing to make this kind of game at all. Oldschool RPGs like this have become very rare, and for me, a game with rough edges but real heart is a very welcome change. Now to the actual review: Overall, I think it was a good game, and I had a lot of fun with it. I can understand many of the negative reviews, but personally, I really miss this kind of RPG and I am thankful for the experience. What does Of Ash and Steel offer? * You start as a weak nobody and have to be careful who or what you mess with * Classic “+100 XP” enemy rewards * Attribute points such as strength, dexterity, etc., which you can distribute yourself without needing a teacher * Skill points for things like lockpicking, where you do need to find the right teacher * Cooking, fishing, alchemy, hunting skills, and more * A world that invites exploration * A lot of different quests * A story divided into chapters, which also affects the game world * A boxing minigame, which personally was not really my thing * A few other nice little ideas and features that I do not want to spoil here Positive: * I really liked the world itself. It gave me that classic “what could be over there?” feeling. * Exploring and discovering things was fun. * Looting felt rewarding. Yes, many chests contain junk, but finding a better weapon still felt great. * Progression starts slowly, but it feels very satisfying when you finally reach the point where you can beat enemies that used to destroy you. * The game is fully voiced. Sadly only in English, but for this kind of RPG, that still helps a lot. * Overall, I liked the attribute and skill system. It simply worked well for me. * The world is full of plants, enemies, ore, and other loot. There is almost always something to find. Negative: * Even though I liked the system overall, the amount of attribute and skill points you get feels too low at the beginning, and honestly for quite a while. * Some enemies feel very RNG-heavy. I avoided the “wolves” for a long time because I played a classic melee build — although maybe I was just playing badly. * Some quests lack a clear direction. Sometimes you have no idea where to go next or what the game actually wants from you. * The main story is not that strong. Especially near the end, it feels a bit like an old trash-fantasy movie. * The city is too large and filled with too many unnecessary NPCs. Less would have been more here, even though it does look nice. * Travelling through the world can be tedious and takes a long time, although this gets better later in the game. * I understand why there is no German voice-over, but personally, it would have added a lot more atmosphere for me. * The graphics are not really bad, but they do feel a bit dated. Conclusion: I probably listed more negative points than positive ones, but I still really liked the game. Yes, some things annoyed me. Yes, it has rough edges. And yes, it is far from perfect. But I would rather play an ambitious oldschool RPG with flaws than another soulless, over-polished game that plays everything safe. Of Ash and Steel gave me a feeling that I rarely get from modern RPGs anymore. So if you like Gothic, classic Piranha Bytes games, or oldschool RPGs in general, give this game a real chance. Do not expect perfection. Expect charm, ambition, frustration, exploration, and a lot of heart. For me, that was more than enough.

The game for its part looks amazing, but amazing doesn't mean the content itself is good. I understand the concept of this game I really do. Its trying to be a successor to Gothic 1 and that is admirable, but Gothic 1 it is not. What made Gothic unique was the freedom you had. The subtle way in which the game lead you along without you actually knowing it was helping you. Of Ash and Steel does not do that. What it thinks is hardcore is as others have said. A lot of aimless running around. Furthermore, everything is pretty much tied down in the game. You can't steal much, and your character interaction with other NPC's is limited to just a handful. I mean in that massive city most of the people do not have any dialogue, and the ones that do are very boring. Only two factions to really choose from and not a lot of information to peak interests. I love exploring, but when that exploration still funnels you down a certain path by way of putting dangerous mobs in the way, or just so many winding roads you don't even know where to go, and even when you do sort of know where you are going, nothing meaningful drives you further in. Lets talk about scaling a bit shall we: The scaling is horrible, and by that I mean in those first minutes you leave that base camp, everything pretty much can kill you. To an extent that is fine, but right out the gate? Not to mention is the game trying to be a survival game too? I get the whole realistic thing I do, but my entire time leading to the main city I wasn't able to scrounge up much if any food and water. It wasn't from a lack of trying to find things either. I give this game a 3/10 for a score. I apologize in advance for anybody who likes this game, but this game lacks much as far as content goes, and the experience itself. The game seemed like a waste of time to me.