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KickStarter The Waylanders - historical fantasy time travel RPG inspired by Dragon Age: Origins

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-waylanders-review

The Waylanders review: a classic RPG that's as endearing as it is janky
Woad betide



I keep trying to figure out how to describe The Waylanders’ unique blend of endearment and jank. Unfortunately I am cursed with chronic writer’s brain so all I can come up with is this: it feels like a really good first draft.

For every aspect of worldbuilding that I enjoyed, there was a bug that had to be overlooked. For every character that I found charming, there was some voiceover that was jarring. For every area that was absolutely gorgeous there was a part of the script that made me extremely grateful for having editors on all my writing. Over and over, I found these flaws didn’t stop me from enjoying the core that I could see underneath. At least, until the game (as far as I can tell) bugged so badly that I literally couldn’t continue.

The Waylanders is a party-based RPG, and it opens on character creation, with a hint of the fantasy world to come. Instead of dwarves and elves, the game offers Werewolves, Mourians, and Formorians, the latter two being big underground-living folks and bigger, deeper underground-living folks respectively. I settled on a Mourian, my interest piqued by their carved-bead eyes and golden body paint.


From there I was thrown into a world of Celtic myth that was a lot more interesting than the standard fantasy fare. The game is absolutely stunning, for starters. I usually stick to the main path in RPGs, wary of burning myself out on meaningless sidequests, but in The Waylanders I kept wanting to do even the ones the game literally labels as “chores.” I wanted to spend time in the world, mostly just to look at all the colours in the trees and tiny bits of clutter gathered around the cottages and trading posts.

Quests, like in most CRPGs, involved going to a place, fighting something (yes, often big spiders, I’m afraid), and retrieving an object. The combat system in The Waylanders is pausable real time, with options to shape each of your party members’ styles to your liking. For me, this was maximising the amount of animal companions on the team. I played as a ranger who had a mountain lion, and specced a second member of the party into another ranger, who had her own boar. Our healer also had the ability to summon a sort of spirit deer, to complete the menagerie.

But if, for some unfathomable reason, you’re not optimising for pets, you can use the customisation to make a nicely balanced team of companions, digging into all of their abilities and stats and items with a pleasing level of granularity. There are a lot of overlapping systems here, from weapon upgrades to team formations and aggression styles, and a lot of it is left open for the player to figure out for themselves, so you may need a little experience with the genre to properly engage with it. (Alternatively, turn the difficulty way down to "cinematic" and watch your team satisfyingly roll over everything.)

The team themselves are a fun bunch, and I wanted to get to know them better. As well as having the traditional muscle-tank, sarcastic rogue, healer attuned with nature and so on, there are some compelling twists to the archetypes. My favourite was the Formorian Delga, a young woman who has lived her whole life trapped underground and enthusiastically introduces herself as a tour guide of many years – and you’re her very first customer. When she leaves with you, she likes to see the sky and drink ale, though she’s worried about how she (and her rubbery-skinned, single-eyed head) will be perceived by surface dwellers. Also, she hits things very hard with a hammer. I love her.

Amergin, the druidic sage, confessed his love to me when I was a couple of hours into the game, which felt really rather abrupt.
Unfortunately, though, most of these characters don’t get to live up to their potential. Probably because the game itself isn’t that long, the loyalty quests for your companions come around very quickly, before you really have a chance to feel any kind of connection with them. One character, who is immortal, asked me to accompany him to the village where he abandoned his mortal wife and their children out of cowardice when he realised that he would inevitably outlive them. He gave a very touching speech, but I had known him all of twenty minutes. You may notice that I haven’t used his name here – because I don’t remember it.

Another character, Amergin, the druidic sage, confessed his love to me when I was a couple of hours into the game, which felt really rather abrupt. Even in game time, I think we’d known each other maybe a couple of weeks, max. More amusingly, he seemed to forget that he had done this several times, and we had to go through the whole affair again, more than once, which just left him feeling a little bit creepy.

While obviously not intentional, Amergin’s amnesiac obsession was emblematic of the bugs that are littered through The Waylanders. As well as missing quest descriptions, subtitles falling out of line, and one hard crash to desktop, characters would often talk about things that had never happened, or repeat things we had already covered.


These multiplied the further into the game I went, particularly after the time skip that was touted as part of the game’s big 1.0 update. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about it, because not long after mysteriously being flung centuries into the future, the main quest appears to have bugged entirely for me. This is annoying not just because of the review, but because I really want to finish the game. The Waylanders charmed me even where it struggled, until it struggled so hard that I literally could not continue.

There were at least two big patches deployed in the last few days, and I hope that the developers manage to resolve many of these issues – for their sakes, as well as players’, and also for me. I want to know what Delga’s loyalty quest is like, whether or not it’s as abrupt as some of the others. I want to fondly overlook a < missing_text_string > because the village market is full of tiny, beautiful vegetables. I want to save the world, maybe. I’m still not really sure what’s going on there. I hope I get to find out.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
2,735
As expected, even the journos can see the writing sucks, the issue is only compounded by shoddy gameplay and a severe lack of polish

https://www.google.com/amp/s/wccftech.com/review/the-waylanders-harsh-life-celtic-warrior/amp/

The Waylanders Review – Harsh is the Life of a Celtic Warrior

Over the years, role-playing games have explored a lot of different settings ranging from the typical high-fantasy, D&D-inspired settings to sci-fi settings, but very few games have explored Celtic myths and lore. It's surprising, given that Celtic culture is extremely rich and well-suited for a video game setting, like the much more popular ancient Norse culture.

Being among the few games featuring a Celtic setting, The Waylanders definitely stands out from the competition in that regard. The fact that some of the story and gameplay mechanics are built around it could have elevated the game further if it wasn't for the shoddy execution and a severe lack of polish.



In The Waylanders, players control a fully customizable Celtic warrior as they accompany the King of Ireland King Ith on a journey to meet their gods, the Tuatha de Danaan. This joyous occasion, however, quickly turns sour, as the gods are not as benevolent as the Celts expected and the battle against them not only leaves our main character on the brink of death but also untethers them from time, turning them into the fabled Mil Espine and giving them the power to save their land in the era they have been born in and even in the future.

The premise of The Waylanders is fascinating, and it is definitely among the highlights of the entire experience. Having become the Mil Espine, a hero detached from time, the main character loses the ability to reincarnate but gains time-traveling abilities that let them reach the Medieval era, where Christianity has become widespread and the old traditions, including the usage of magic, have become legends. What makes this time-traveling affair interesting is that the Mil Espine will get to meet the reincarnation of his companions in the Celtic era, except a couple of these who are immortal and have actually lived through the thousands of years that separate the two eras.

While the reincarnated companions have the same souls they did in the Celtic era, they feel quite different from who they were back, and the Mil Espine will have to get to know them as if they were new people, although some of their aspects remain consistent. Interacting with the immortal companions is even more interesting, as players feel the weight of the centuries they have lived and the responsibility on their shoulders that has only grown larger since the fateful meeting with the Tuatha de Danaan and the appearance of the Corruption. This story mechanic works rather well and makes The Waylanders quite interesting, as it comes with a choice and consequence system that influences the two eras and the ending of the story. And while it may not exactly push the boundaries of storytelling in role-playing games, it can be enjoyable if one can look past some evident issues.



Unfortunately, The Waylanders suffers from very uneven writing, which negatively impacts both the story and companions. While refreshing, the humorous tone feels a little out of place during some of the story's most dramatic events, undermining their emotional impact, and the use of modern swearing ruins immersion. The story is also damaged by pacing issues and by how disjointed it feels at times, as story quests aren't unlocked naturally but must be accepted from the Vengeance ship. Many of these quests also have abrupt endings that send the player straight back on the ship upon completion, almost as if an ending dialogue or cutscene was missing entirely.

As already mentioned, companions also aren't a highlight here. While most of them are quite personable and charming, receive good development, and have good reasons to join the Mil Espine and be part of the story, some join rather abruptly and without any particularly good reason. Even in this case, it feels like story events are missing.

This lack of polish in how the story of The Waylanders is presented becomes even more evident in the gameplay. Simply put, there are times when the game is not fun to play, making the story, even with its flaws, the only reason to continue playing The Waylanders.

The Waylanders' gameplay formula isn't all that different from that of classic role-playing games like Baldur's Gate and Dragon Age. Both have been cited as major influences by the developer, after all. Throughout the game, players will explore a variety of decently sized locations ranging from bustling cities to forests, caverns, dungeons, and the like. Unfortunately, these locations are not interconnected, so the world tends to feel a little small, despite the great sense of scale of the location themselves. Design is also pretty decent, with most dungeons featuring a variety of simple puzzles that spice things up a bit, multiple paths, and tons of treasure. Nothing revolutionary, to be sure, but they get the job done.


While traversal in The Waylanders is mostly a straightforward affair, controls and camera issues make the experience more frustrating than it should be. The camera in particular can get extremely annoying, no matter which of the three types is selected. As an example, there are times when the camera zooms on the controlled character's feet when reaching certain obstacles or nearby area exits, forcing players to move to reset it back to a usable state. Additionally, the camera can only be rotated with the directional keys or by holding the right mouse button, a very counterintuitive way that makes something so simple feel very awkward.

These issues possibly become even worse when using a controller, as The Waylanders features one of the worst controller support I have seen in role-playing games. The menus, which are rather clunky even with regular mouse controls, become worse with a gamepad due to an unintuitive controller scheme. The fact that you have to press the main menu button again to close the menu instead of simply pressing the cancel button, for example, is only the tip of the iceberg. One could say that this type of game shouldn't be played with a controller in the first place. Still, if other developers like Larian Studios managed to make a game as complex as Divinity: Original Sin 2 fully playable with one, that point is clearly moot.

Playing The Waylanders with a controller feels a little better in combat, but it's still not the optimal way to experience combat, given the nature of the system itself. The game employs a traditional real-time with pause combat system where players can pause at any time to pick which ability to use. Each class comes with various skills that can generate Fury or require MP, such as magic, so knowing each class's ins and outs becomes very important to be successful in combat.

One intriguing addition to this classic combat system is Formations. After reaching Level 3, each human class can pick between different Formations, which are essentially new units made up of multiple characters. Among the Formations are some classics like the defensive Orb formation, the offensive Phalanx formation, and some very unique ones like the Golem and Conclave. All Formations come with unique abilities that can easily turn the tide of battle, and they are a creative way to spice up a combat system that is not particularly innovative.



The Waylanders features six basic classes, which can further evolve into 30 Advanced classes. While the human companions' classes can be picked between two different options when they join the Mil Espine, the main character class options are determined by the race and origin story picked during character creation at the start of the game. Upon level up, players receive Attribute, Ability, and Formation points that can be used to improve stats, unlock Active and Passive abilities and further develop Formations.

While the customization options featured in The Waylanders are many, the game doesn't do a good job of explaining how each class benefits from certain attributes. The tutorials are limited to the combat system, so role-playing game newcomers may have a hard time creating some effective builds, although it is possible to respec at least the main character for free. Thankfully, the game features multiple difficulty settings, including a Cinematic setting where characters cannot be defeated in combat to let less experienced players experience the story without having to deal with combat and the other RPG mechanics. Not that it may be needed, as the game is not particularly challenging, outside of a few situations.

The general lack of polish that permeates The Waylanders also touches the game's visuals, although not as much as it does other aspects of the game. As already mentioned, the game's world isn't vast, but the amazing sense of scale makes it so that every location looks and feels epic, even the ship Vengeance upon which the Mil Espine and his companions explore the world. The vibrant colors used for the locations and the character design also have a very distinct Dreamworks Pictures feel that makes everything feel quite personable. Facial animations are also very well done, giving even more personality to the cast.

While visuals are alright, for the most part, performance definitely isn't. The machine used for the test, powered by an i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, and 16 GB RAM, didn't manage to keep a steady framerate at 4K resolution, high settings, with stuttering and slowdowns even in situations where there wasn't a whole lot happening on screen. Lowering the settings and the resolution to 1440p or even 1080p didn't help.

I tried so hard to like The Waylanders in my 35 hours with it, but I really couldn't look past its many issues. While the setting and the time-traveling story mechanics can be appealing enough to get some players to the end of the story, the shoddy execution of many of the mechanics and the general lack of
polish often make the game not that fun at all. Gato Studio's title needed more time in the oven to reach its full potential.

Review code provided by the publisher

6.0
With its unique setting and interesting story mechanics powered by time-traveling, great sense of scale, and nice visuals, The Waylanders had the potential to be a remarkable role-playing game. The uneven pacing of the story, writing with wild quality shifts, the rather run-of-the-mill combat, the clunky interface, and a general lack of polish, however, make the game often frustrating to play, preventing it from reaching the heights it could have achieved.


Pros
  • Unique Celtic setting with nicely developed lore
  • Personable characters
  • Interesting time-traveling story mechanics
  • Nice visuals and sense of scale
  • Plenty of customization options...
Cons
  • ... that can be a little difficult to take full advantage of, due to the lack of in-depth tutorials
  • Clunky interface, with horrible controller support
  • Unexciting combat
  • General lack of polish that makes completing the simplest of actions frustrating
 

Tyranicon

A Memory of Eternity
Developer
Joined
Oct 7, 2019
Messages
5,867
Incredible, literal memes, is this real life.
Mom, can I have Dragon Age 1.
No, we have Dragon Age 1 at home.
Dragon Age 1 at home.
EWp5EzO.png
More :prosper:than Vampire Gangs of Moonfall. Amazing.

Hey don't compare my vampire titty game to whatever this garbage is supposed to be. I actually got okayish looking women in mine. I think? I dunno, maybe I need some outside opinions.

Cthonia.png
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth



https://af.gog.com/game/the_waylanders?as=1649904300

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/432712414/the-waylanders-the-rpg-videogame/posts/3409436

The Journey of a Thousand Years Begins Today! The Waylanders is out now!

c2c74ffc3deec306ca71ee6c34e1347c_original.jpg


Hi Everyone!

Fernando Prieto, partner of Gato Salvaje Studio here!

The Waylanders is out today! This is a project we’ve been working on for the last five years and I am so incredibly proud of the journey this team has taken us on. This is a story born of our Galician roots and many of the tales of our heritage have inspired elements throughout the game.

First, we have an amazing trailer to share with you. I hope you enjoy it!

Thank you so much to the entire Kickstarter community for all your feedback and support. Your suggestions and bug reports have made The Waylanders a better game and pushed us to examine certain quality-of-life features that weren’t on our development schedule when we started, but with them, The Waylanders is much improved.

Now, we’d hoped that The Waylanders would not need a massive day one update… but it does. There are a few minor bugs in the Celtic Era that need to be addressed and some big ones that begin to pop up in the medieval period that reviewers with early builds of the game have made us aware of. We are actively working on a series of hotfixes and updates to bring The Waylanders up to a level of quality that you all deserve.

The first of these hotfixes, addressing issues with quest markers and main story bugs that occur when a cinematic should trigger but doesn’t, as well as minor bug fixes throughout the game, should be available soon. This will be followed by additional updates fixing bugs, polishing the game, and adding missing translated text that will be released in the days and weeks ahead. We’re working out the schedule right now and will have another community post up in the next day or two with a roadmap giving you an idea of what we’re working on and when it will be fixed.

At the end of these improvement updates, we’re going to look at adding quests, items, and other content left on the cutting room floor. These won’t impact the story overall, but will serve as fun new discoveries for players who return to The Waylanders to experience the story again with a new character.

Oh, and for our music fans, The Waylanders Official Soundtrack will be available on Steam and GOG shortly. Watch out for an announcement on here about that soon!

Now, while we’re hard at work working on these updates, we want to hear your stories and strategies! What’s your perfect party makeup? Got a favorite formation? Who did you romance? Let us know on Steam, Twitter, Facebook, and Discord!
 

havox

Novice
Joined
Oct 26, 2021
Messages
28
Wow, the first impressions not great. Some janky bugs aside (change some keybinds, and the next thing the game sets ResolutionSizeX=1085829888 ResolutionSizeY=1 lmao), everything about it is.. so painfully mediocre. Yeesh. Reminds more of Dragon Age 2 than Dragon Age 1 so far, tutorial has you run down a linear coastal map corridor mowing down some forgettable trash while partied with a bunch of obnoxious douchebag NPCs. Only good thing so far is booba armor, almost every female starter armors has either one or both boobas visible in all their cartoony low graphics glory :incline: But then you take the armor off and a magic bra spawns to cover the character up :decline: Devs did one good thing and even that one good thing is half-assed. Oh well, I'll finish the tutorial, maybe play a few more hours, not sure I'll finish it, DA2 vibes from this very strong.
 

Anomander

Educated
Joined
Oct 22, 2015
Messages
80
Unfotunately this is a mess. The mostly negative reviews are correct. I'm like fiveteen minutes in the game and already asked for refund. The UI is terrible. Playing with mouse is like something a retard would develop. I can't imagine playing this for an hour or more.
I think lately developers (I mean programmers etc) don't even play their own games.
There are standards for good (working) UI. It's not like rocket science. Just play some games and copy it. You don't have to invent it all.
Writing = lol. Well now anyone can be a writer so we get what we get. I could ignore that but combat and overall quality is a mess.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
Unfotunately this is a mess. The mostly negative reviews are correct. I'm like fiveteen minutes in the game and already asked for refund. The UI is terrible. Playing with mouse is like something a retard would develop. I can't imagine playing this for an hour or more.
I think lately developers (I mean programmers etc) don't even play their own games.
There are standards for good (working) UI. It's not like rocket science. Just play some games and copy it. You don't have to invent it all.
Writing = lol. Well now anyone can be a writer so we get what we get. I could ignore that but combat and overall quality is a mess.

Informative , but change your avatar please . For one sec i thought it was fantadomat making sense , and it deeply shocked me....
 

Salvo

Arcane
Joined
Mar 6, 2017
Messages
1,395
Unfotunately this is a mess. The mostly negative reviews are correct. I'm like fiveteen minutes in the game and already asked for refund. The UI is terrible. Playing with mouse is like something a retard would develop. I can't imagine playing this for an hour or more.
I think lately developers (I mean programmers etc) don't even play their own games.
There are standards for good (working) UI. It's not like rocket science. Just play some games and copy it. You don't have to invent it all.
Writing = lol. Well now anyone can be a writer so we get what we get. I could ignore that but combat and overall quality is a mess.

Informative , but change your avatar please . For one sec i thought it was fantadomat making sense , and it deeply shocked me....

Couldn't be fanta since this guy asked for a refund aka he bought the game
 

lycanwarrior

Scholar
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Messages
1,171
Played a little bit today, created a werewolf character. But will likely wait for more patches before fully diving in. Still got to finish Expeditions: Rome.
 

Konjad

Patron
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
3,930
Location
Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Fire a writer over alleged accusations (later disproven), get rekt by reviews saying writing is crap.

Achievement unlocked!
 

ERYFKRAD

Barbarian
Patron
Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
28,237
Strap Yourselves In Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Hey don't compare my vampire titty game to whatever this garbage is supposed to be. I actually got okayish looking women in mine. I think? I dunno, maybe I need some outside opinions.
Data insufficient
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
Patron
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
1,910
Strap Yourselves In
Pronoun selection = instant dogshit
Also, trannies and 'non-binaries' are not human, racial lore too unrealistic.

upload_2022-2-7_14-15-9.png
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/957710/view/3097916659694286628

Update 1. First Fixes, Mission Markers, and More
Fixing many of the main problems since launch

Hi everyone!

So sorry this has taken so long. We’ve been head-down fixing many of the issues that have been shared with us since launch.

Today, we’re releasing the first major update to The Waylanders. This update brings some much needed fixes to some critical issues that the game including:

A bug that stopped Ynes´ Mission from finishing correctly
A critical Direct3D bug affecting configuring the game in fullscreen
Mission markers should now show correctly throughout The Waylanders
We’ve fixed level milestones
Animations in many cinematics have been improved

Again, we appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay on these fixes. We’re now working on our next update. We’re still triaging known issues and hope to have a roadmap available soon.

If you have a bug you’ve been encountering, let us know in the comments below, or tell us in detail on The Waylanders Discord in the bugs channel. We want to know more about your experiences.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
oh man this is starting off fantastic, missing string entry in the options menu
Waylanders-002.jpg


one of the backgrounds has a nice [TEMP] tag in it.
Waylanders-001.jpg


I'm playing the latest patched version(1.10)
I can feel it, this is gonna be special.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
I like how whenever I'm only vaguely interested in some new/unreleased game and I check in on the topic after release it nearly always turns out to be some kind of raging dumpsterfire. Feels good to know you made the right decision to ignore it.
 

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