PixlBit

I played this last weekend for a rewards quest and quite enjoyed it. I played for a couple of hours, a little past when I got the quest finished. It seems like a 16th or 17th-century setting but with magic and alchemy that actually works. You fight with swords and magic and complete quests that reveal more of the story through dialogs with townspeople some of which you have some choices as to how to respond. 

After watching this trailer, it's clear I barely scratched the surface of this game. Such stuff as: supernatural beasts, firearms, advanced spells, party members, your relationships with them, and sailing were all farther down the road. I spent my whole time in the first city trying to complete side quests before the journey to the island mentioned in the trailer. 

The environments are incredibly detailed. Clearly, there isn't a building or street not very carefully drawn with lots of detritus and loads of townspeople milling about. I found the stories, as they were revealed through doing quests, to be very well written and interesting. However, I balked when confronted with a quest that asked me to do stealthy things like prepare a drug for a drink and wear a disguise to get past guards. Hey, I'll jump in a window or something like that, but too much preparation for a quest is annoying to me. 

But my Game Pass rewards quest was just to kill 15 enemies, and eventually, I got that. I chose a mage's path and so used some spells to immobilize enemies before I pounced with direct damage spells. I never really touched my sword. 

French developer Spiders has made a bunch of action roleplaying games going back to 2010. I played their game Bound By Flame a while back. I thought it was pretty good, but didn't continue with it. 

So this was a very cool game on Game Pass that I might go back to sometime.