Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles Review on Xbox

Bulwark: Falconeer chronicles is a is an open world builder with freedom and expression and exploration at its core.

The premise is you are here to reforge a world shattered by the decisions of those who came before you, tower by tower, wall by wall, sculpting from the daunting cliffs and perilous waters of an unforgiving landscape that refuses to be tamed.

The game boasts an open world, ability to recruit powerful Captains and Commanders, a Freebuild Mode and an intuitive, flexible camera mode and time lapse replay feature.

Accessibility

With regards to accessibility, there is button re-mapping, camera sensitivity options and UI scaling. There is no subtitle options, like colour variations and sounds options are limited, so should you have sound issues, this game would not be for you.

Gameplay

This is a game set within the same universe as ‘’The Falconeer’’ and starts with you wandering the sea’s after the world was devastated by the aftermath of a war, 40 years prior. You, and you alone are in command of creating the last great settlement upon the Great Ursee. This vast, fantastical oceanic world filled with lost myths, breath-taking vistas and danger, is waiting to be explored and utilised to the benefit of your faction.

You start from choosing from within 3 scenarios, each with their unique starting location and varied parameters. Once clicked upon, you enter said world and begin your adventure. You can play through all 3 scenarios separately or at the same time, as each hold a different save for each selection. The game is all about exploration, not only of the land, but the games mechanics. Whilst there is some tutorials, they explain enough to get you started, but not enough to fully flesh out what you need to do or how to go about it. This has been deliberately designed this way to ensure you explore everything, including the map, soul tree and inventory menus carefully. There is no hand holding here and its up to you to discover how to move forward, and understand there really isn’t any wrong answer.

Every scenario begins with you in your airship, which is your main surveyor but also primary attack vessel. You will cross vast sea’s, fly through torturous storms and survey and place new foundations for your faction in order to progress. From the beginning, you will arrive a what seems to be a collection of rock faces and what seems to be a tree. Here you will be given some instructions in how to build your first tower and add connections to surrounding resources. Thankfully, there is a source of wood, and a source of stone close by allowing you to build shanty like factories and bridges upon these nodes. From your main tower, you will connect to the resource nodes, but should the connection distance be too great, you can create tower nodes which will bridge these elements together, literally.

This is where the magic happens, as to build connections you do so by drawing lines, to the area in question, you want to go. Its here you can choose to create a tower should nothing exist in that location, upon which a small shanty hut is created from the surrounding area. This is then automatically linked with a shanty walkway, connecting both nodes. Should a tower or resource already exists, then just the walkway is created, great for introducing shortcuts within the world you are creating. What really sells it though is the way these elements are created, as if you are dragging out of the sea or rocks, by your fingers, these rickety barely stable constructions.

As further resources are found, they then allow you to upgrade your towers and bridges from what was originally developed. Soon you will have sky-scraping towers with beautiful stone sky bridges connecting them in any direction you can feasibly choose from. As building are created the location population will move in and start to settle there, but don’t be afraid to demolish areas if need to restart, as they will return. Resourcing works differently in Bulwark, its all about the flow of resource not the amount, which is a great way to keep things less stressful. That’s not saying its easy, as you will still need to ensure that the flow isn’t being interrupted, otherwise you wont be able to fully create the towers of your dreams.

By exploring the world you will come across other factions, whom will also have resources you need. You have two options on how to go about getting it. You can ally with them to acquire their aid by placing a harbour and connecting it to your own harbour. Here you will need to recruit powerful Captains and Commanders to charter the seas to and from the harbours you place to ensure the flow of resources hit their intending targets. As resources not just faction based but also are spread out in this open sea world, you will soon build a network of ship connections using a variety of captains, to ferry resources and people, from one area to another.

These trade routes are critical at getting resources you may not have to the locations that need them the most, but they aren’t as simple as ferrying across. For example, each resource faction has certain requirements in order to trade, like wood for stone or people for iron. To complicate this further, certain ships only carry certain resources which may mean multiple different ships to move your resource about. Another aspect to be aware of is that captains are also faction based and wont work with certain other factions, be it outpost or even ships on trade routes. 

Generally this means just working out whom is best to work where and let them to do their job without worrying. However the more resources, the bigger the towers, the more your population grows. This then attracts pirates or factions you not aligned with to attack your trade routes periodically, which if they succeed will mean a loss of your ships and their ability to ferry resources. To combat this, you will need to ensure fighter ships are used to protect your most dangerous routes in a bid to deter any attacks. Even so, they can only do so much and it will often mean you shall need to help out to ensure complete victory. 

This is where you will use your surveyor ship to help out as it is also equipped with guns and missiles. As your progress more, you will attract special captains that will provide you different types of surveyor models and different flying support for when you engage in battles. By the level I had, I was with a swarm of dragons, mechanical airships and warbirds all bringing hellfire to any battle I entered. There is also special buildings and powerful super items later on, but I wont spoil that for you.

Now this may sound hectic at worst and chaotic at best, but actually its rather quite relaxing and slow paced with the more pulse raising elements when being attacked by other factions or pirates. To be honest, there is more here than I’m letting on and I kind of don’t want to give away too much as that’s the main aim of the game, figuring and finding things out yourself. The game also has a cosy ‘Free build Mode’, devoid of the conflict and challenges present in standard play, so you can build without the need for resources or upgrades and let your creative juices really flow.

Graphics

Low poly graphics can be a hit or miss, but thankfully the developer is no stranger to this art style. Like his previous game the Falconeer, the beauty of the art style is pushed to its limits, showcasing a pure visual treat for anyone willing to explore it. To showcase this off to its fullest is one of the best photo modes I have ever come across with a plethora of options to engage with, like animation pause and start, or one of my favourites options, the ability to re-build all your creations in Realtime. You get to see how you carved your legacy into a landscape, tower by tower, wall by wall, sculpting from the daunting cliffs and perilous waters, as your unique creations grow brick by brick.

The control style is unique and has been designed to ensure you get the very best tactical feedback for every creation you create. Each node and each aspect of a tower from its foundations to the high rise balconies are easily created by making slight adjustments to your point interface. This then feeds into the games heads up display which is also visually crisp and full of information regarding potential upgrades to possible new structural placements. Even understand the flow paths of your resources is just a button click away and due to its different colour schemes is easy to work out where there maybe a blockage.

Switching between nodes and the surveyor is equally easy with just the press of the Y button and then allows the moment for said airship to be smooth by pointing to a location and going to it. The only slight issue I found was understanding the camera movement when first starting out and accidentally pressing the x button too long when highlighting a tower. In terms of graphical glitches, I did encounter one such element when after a re-build in photo mode, it failed to create it properly within the game. However this only happened once whilst I was playing so I’m not worrying about that too much.

Sound

The music is superb, but what would expect from an award-winning composer like Benedict Nichols who has returned to craft an eclectic soundtrack like no other. He has managed to sculpt the audible landscape of the Ursee along with your creations in musical form that truly engages your senses as you explore the game to its fullest.

Battles when they do happen are equally punchy with the weight of you warbirds and guided missiles raining down pain on the pirates who dare to provoke your wrath. Voice acting is equally engaging with characters oozes a deep mood of a world in turmoil. The tone of each character is expertly done ensuring that you can feel the tension when they speak about other factions they dislike. The atmosphere and sound of the waves crashing against the rocks, to the thunderous storms raging against your surveyor. Combine this with the industrial mechanics working away as you fly over your cities, and its all heightens the feeling of a living breathing world, around you.

I would recommend a good quality headset her to really enjoys the soundtrack and the open sea world teasing you to explore it.

Verdict

This leads me onto the rating of the game:-
Now I rate games in order of, avoid, on sale, great purchase and must own. My rating for Bulwark: Falconeer chronicles is a "Must Own’’.

For the pure enjoyment blended with its relaxing nature and combined with its price, makes this one of those games that will easily be a hit if you allow it to. I cannot express how I thoroughly enjoyed this game and the way it allows you to create and explore at your own pace with no penalty. Thomas Sala the developer, has produced another hit in my opinion, and I await with bated breath to see what else he is coming up with. 

The game is currently priced on Xbox at £14.99 or approx. $20 and depending on skill and patience would give you over 25+ hours worth of gameplay. Combine this with the 2 other scenarios, you could easily push this to over 70+hours. There is a free build mode and time being put into that, could be immense.

To really simplify the game, you could say it’s a city builder, but that would be doing the game a great disservice. Its so much more than that, it is about exploring the world around you, in search of resources, engaging with splintered factions, all whilst building your own faction to become the true powerhouse. Time here is well spent, and the game was able to put my chaotic brain in a peaceful relaxing phase that allowed me to feel more than just a sense of accomplishment.