This Fallout-style shooter has potential but a long way to go - Ashfall Quick First Impressions
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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?
Skip it for now, but it may be worth revisiting once it hits full release. Ashfall is a shooter MMORPG that reminds me of Fallout’s post-apocalyptic world and monsters. Despite its strong visual style and interesting story, Ashfall doesn’t manage to live up to its very lofty inspirations—at least not yet, in its beta test form. This game has all the potential in the world to grow into something enjoyable in the future, but its combat system and gameplay will need a lot of improvement before that happens.
TIME PLAYED
I played Ashfall for four and a half hours. I managed to reach level 12 and travel through four different areas. It took me an hour to finish the prologue and another two and a half hours to reach the fourth area, Hope Town. I recently just hit my second progression wall, locking me out of the story until I hit level 14.
WHAT’S AWESOME
• Lifelike characters and breathtaking views. Ashfall’s high-quality visuals provide the best argument for playing it right now. Every character looks super-realistic and polished. Even individual strands of hair and skin pores were able to be seen when I got close enough.
• A beautiful world and a grim story. Ashfall’s narrative takes place in a world ransacked by deadly robots and war, and I played as an adventurer exploring the aftermath of those catastrophic events. Hearing the miserable backstories of various characters helped pull me into this grim reality. For example, in one side mission I helped a boy find his lost father, only to discover that the father had been eaten alive by wasteland monsters.
• Scavenging for loot. The world of Ashfall is full of useful junk, from farmable ores and plants to chests full of goodies to discarded hunks of metal. Looking for these resources kept me busy when I wasn’t slaying monsters, and it was thrilling to find the right set of materials to trade in for gear upgrades at a vendor.
• A satisfying bestiary. I faced a lot of monsters on my journey through the wastelands of Ashfall, but each time I defeated a new foe, I unlocked an informative entry about them in the adventurer’s guidebook. The book didn’t provide any statistical details, so it’s more about flavor and world-building than strategy. Still, I enjoyed reading the descriptions and origins of different monsters.
• An excellent if unoptimized talent system. Leveling and customizing perks in Ashfall is super fun, but some talents shouldn’t be available so early into the game. There’s no advantage to providing me with the perks that amplify grenade damage or expand backpack space dozens of hours before I’ll really need them. I’d prefer these talents being moved higher up the tree and the more vital ones—like bullet damage, movement speed, and defense—being prioritized.
WHAT NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
• Repetitive gameplay. Every mission I completed in Ashfall followed the same routine: find something or someone, kill enemies, get new equipment, and repeat. Playing through these repetitive missions got tiring, even when the story and scenery changed. Ashfall could benefit from a wider variety of missions that encompass more than just shooting monsters and finding objectives.
• Sleep-inducing enemy patterns. All of Ashfall’s monsters and mercenaries use similar boring attack patterns and clunky movement. On top of that, enemies didn’t actually alert to my presence unless I got in extra close. This made it tremendously easy for me to take down enemies from a distance. Standing as far back as I could and doing headshots one after another got old eventually.
• Slow movement. Whether it was switching weapons, walking forward, or dodging, movement always felt unnatural and sluggish. My character moved like they were carrying a bag of heavy rocks in their pocket.
• Leveling is a chore. After three hours in Ashfall, I hit my first progression wall. I needed to reach level 12 to continue the main story, but I’d already completed all of the side missions. I was left with nothing to do but the tedious task of aimlessly wandering around looking for monster camps for the next forty minutes. Ashfall badly needs more side missions or supplementary activities to ease the grind.
• Bugs. I encountered a bug that halted my progression while playing on PC. Fixing this required downloading the mobile version of the game. Obviously beta tests like this exist to help find and squash bugs, but that’s precisely why this may not be the ideal time to jump in to Ashfall.
• Overly simple animation. Every time my character interacted with a button panel or a door, they never touched it. Instead, their hand glided over whatever they were “touching” in an awkward movement that somehow actually worked.
💬 Will you play Ashfall or are you going to skip it? Let me know down below in the comments!
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