Of Ash and Steel review for PC

In a way, Of Ash and Steel reminds me of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. Both, after all, are big, old-school RPGs that call to mind other games that are, in their own ways, legendary.

There’s a key difference between the two, however, that means that the games aren’t similar, per se, so much as they’re diametric opposites. See, where Tainted Grail felt like an indie studio’s take on Skyrim that turned out far better than anyone could’ve expected (and seriously, if you’re pining for the next Elder Scrolls game, you owe it to yourself to play it), Of Ash and Steel brings to mind games like Risen or Gothic – you know, janky RPGs that were objectively kind of terrible but that sort of had their own charm, even if you had to look hard to see it.

And you need to look really hard to see the charm in Of Ash and Steel. For one thing, it’s pretty ugly. While the cutscenes look kinda-sorta okay, the character models look rough, with all the level of detail you’d expect from a cutting-edge PS2 game. The environments, likewise, are nicer in screenshots than they are in action, with lots of muddy colours that aren’t very appealing to look at.

It’s not like the controls are any better, either. Your character moves with all the grace and elegance of an ancient tank, lumbering every way he goes and always taking forever to turn in any direction. The camera doesn’t do you any favours either, constantly seeming to be in exactly the wrong position, and requiring constant effort to move it so that it shows you where you’re going.

By far the most annoying thing about Of Ash and Steel, though, has got to be the lack of direction. It tries to sell this as a nod to its old-school influences, with its Steam page proudly proclaiming that it “won’t lead you by the hand.” But that’s wildly understating things: it gives you objectives, but doesn’t tell you at all how to achieve them. Right from the very first quest, for example, you’re told to go find objects, but the game doesn’t give any indication where they might be, so you have to search everywhere for them.

And it’s not like things get better once the game opens up. You’re constantly given vague instructions and no suggestions as to how to achieve your goals, which leads to lots of aimless wandering. This might be pleasant if Of Ash and Steel’s world has nice to look at, and if moving through that world was enjoyable in its own right, but neither of those things are true.

Again, there are undoubtedly some people who’ll be able to overlook all that. A studio like Piranha Bytes lasted decades despite churning out awful games, simply because there was something endearing about a bad game making an effort to be good. Anyone who misses that studio can take solace in the fact that Of Ash and Steel is continuing its legacy. But if you do, just be mindful that it is, at heart, a bad game.

tinyBuild provided us with an Of Ash and SteelPC code for review purposes.