Better wait for the Gothic remake! Review of the Russian RPG Of Ash and Steel

It’s hard to call Of Ash and Steel a bad game. It has many interesting ideas and well-executed elements. However, the game’s raw state makes it hard to play. It’s certainly no Time of Troubles, but in such matters, you don’t want to assume the worst. Let’s explore why you should hold off on Of Ash and Steel for now!

Island of Bad Luck

The game’s world is divided into seven large islands, united under the rule of the crown. The focus is on the fifth island, Greyshaft, which once thrived thanks to its numerous mines. However, a plague known as the Wraith has forced the mines to close, making contact with the outside world difficult.

The tragedy led to a deterioration in life on the island. As a result, the locals began to live by the principle of “dog eat dog,” just like the criminals in Gothic. Everyone here is trying to cheat, rob, or kill you. The game itself bills itself as “Domestic Gothic,” and it captures this element beautifully.

However, at its core, the game has more in common with The Witcher universe. Gothic is so grounded that you can’t help but forget its fantasy nature—magic and enchanted items are far more prevalent in the game. Of Ash and Steel, like The Witcher, has far fewer such elements.

The game begins with an expedition of knights arriving on the fifth island with a secret mission. Among them is a cartographer named Tristan, who was supposed to help with navigation and was promised a return to the capital. However, an attack by mysterious villains resulted in the death of the crew. Tristan survived, and now he must adapt to his new surroundings and find an important letter that was taken from him.

First steps

Tristan is talented and will eventually learn to fight, survive, mine resources, and craft equipment and consumables. However, the cartographer starts out as a slob, easily defeated by even a weak rat. A hidden perk system will help you get started, awarding stats for repeating certain actions—beating a mannequin, praying at altars, or even tripping over driftwood.

You gain the necessary skills too late. In Gothic, skinning becomes available early—after blacksmithing, hunting is the most profitable profession there. In Of Ash and Steel, you’ll have to level up your stats in a specific way to skin animals, or skin insects and lizards. The situation is complicated by the slow and infrequent leveling in the game, which in turn limits your scope for experimentation.

For a similar reason, I’m reluctant to explore lockpicking or theft. The game has a very specific notion of what constitutes theft and what doesn’t. For example, some houses can be blatantly robbed, while others cannot. There are no indicators or explanations for these restrictions, which is confusing.

However, money can also be earned by treasure hunting. The problem is, the right location isn’t always marked by a unique biome, striking landscape, or other clues. One quest requires digging up treasure in ruins near a lumberjack camp. However, the chest you dig up isn’t actually the quest chest—the one you need is located slightly further away, and there’s no indication of its location. Two chests are located nearby, and one of them isn’t the quest chest. The icing on the cake: the shovel breaks after each use!

They also pay for winning at the local fight club. At the start of the match, Tristan is teleported to a dark arena where he must beat up a chosen opponent. You select body parts to attack and your own to defend. Afterward, the fighters automatically attack and defend until their health is depleted. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Punch Club. In theory, it should get easier over time—Tristan learns new moves that synergize with different stances. However, the enemies gain enormous health and incredible strength, turning tactical planning into a “charge ’til you win” minigame.

Tristan has hunger, fatigue, and thirst indicators—their levels determine his performance in combat. Food, water, and alcohol are scattered throughout the island in abundance—you’ll be spoiled for choice. Sometimes you’ll be allowed to sleep in beds, but in most cases, you’ll have to pay for the service in taverns. Alcohol is essential for strengthening your immune system—you can find or borrow enough to keep you from getting sick!

In special places, you can set up two different types of camp, which consume one type of resource:

1. You can use camp supplies to activate a pre-made fire, cook food, or dry clothes. After use, the fire extinguishes.
2. You can activate a camp base, which is rarer. In such a camp, you can cook food and sleep until dawn. And if you develop your survival skills, you can even practice alchemy.

One way to obtain food is fishing. It’s a simple minigame that uses bait with each cast. Casting takes about a minute, and preparing a decent fish soup requires half of Lake Baikal’s resources—the effort is clearly disproportionate to the reward.

A cartographer without a map

The dialogue in both the English and Russian versions is top-notch. In English, the characters use clever wordplay, while the Russian dubbing creates the impression that they’ve clearly “experienced life.” Tristan himself starts out as a naive idealist, but Greyshaft slowly transforms him. His improved stats allow him to skillfully intimidate or outsmart his interlocutors. Sometimes, the dialogue breaks down, though at such moments, it’s clear that not everything has been said.

But that’s if you’re lucky! In most cases, you won’t be able to strike up a conversation with named characters—they’ll just stare at you with cow-like eyes until you accept a quest related to them, either through the story or a faction assignment. Also noticeable are the large number of cloned NPCs, all of whom share the same set of phrases. It’s even worse when NPCs are just there for show—they’re completely impossible to interact with.

The given tasks boil down to “go somewhere I don’t know where.” The search area is vast, and a compass is of little help with orientation. The directions given by the quest givers bear little resemblance to reality – “the target is somewhere in the forest,” when the island’s core is forest. One character is asked to search in the suburbs, while he was actually in the city.

A glaring example is a low-level quest to find a hunter’s camp. I managed to fight my way through a crowd of high-level enemies and found myself in a location that should be accessible late in the game. It later turned out that there was no obvious path to the camp, and the necessary section was blocked by a local Shadowbeast, a high-level wolf, and a couple of bandits—enemies that shouldn’t be encountered in low-level quests! If you try to reach a high-level location in Gothic, the first orc you encounter will explain in no uncertain terms the need for leveling up first!

An important clarification: the Shadowbeast is a ferocious beast from Gothic, rarely encountered, and each encounter is memorable. The version of this enemy in Of Ash and Steel is very dangerous and lurks in herds, but they are much easier to outwit.

The most frustrating thing about navigation is that Tristan is a cartographer by trade. You can’t buy a ready-made map or the tools to create one from merchants. And when the game finally gives you a fillable map base, you’ll learn to navigate on your own.

The Art of One-Button Combat

The game boasts a variety of opponents:

• Rats throw up the excavated garbage;

• Goblins provoke by slapping themselves on the tuches;

• Beetles produce a homing swarm;

• People use a variety of techniques, shoot from a bow, and can stumble in a puddle or on a snag.

Tristan starts out as a very weak fighter, exhausted after just a few hits. Over time, his skills will improve, and he’ll have the opportunity to learn new moves. However, on Normal difficulty, you’ll still be battling enemies for a long time. Unlike Tristan, enemies don’t consume stamina for most actions, allowing them to attack much more frequently.

The situation changes after equipping a two-handed weapon. A strong attack with a two-handed weapon has a high chance to stun the target, and this works against most enemies—you can spam the strong attack until the opponent’s health is depleted. Moreover, such an attack hits multiple enemies at once. After that, the only problems arise with wolves, whose movement style is “if I don’t know what I’m doing, you certainly don’t know!”

A city where nothing happens

In games like Gothic and The Witcher, the design aims to make navigation easier. A great example are towns where it’s easy to find a blacksmith, hunter, alchemist, or important plot character. In the more hardcore Gothic games, you can easily memorize the structure of the New, Old, or even Swamp camps, and then find plot characters almost without even realizing it.

The main complaint players have about Of Ash and Steel is the city itself. Its excessive bulk and odd design make it difficult not only to navigate but also to simply complete quests. The situation is further complicated by the lack of signs, the ability to ask guards for directions, or the guide who showed you the way during your first visit. In Skyrim, it’s easier to find a skooma merchant in the cities than to buy bread here!

The city is home to the headquarters of the Knights of the Order, which you must join to advance the story. To join the Knights, you must find and bring back the scattered members of the Order. The alternative is to join the Free Hunters, but by the time you reach them, you’ll have already brought back almost all the knights, which discourages any desire to bother with their quests.

In Gothic, joining one of the factions earns you recruit armor, which significantly increases your chances of survival. In Of Ash and Steel, joining the Knights’ Order comes with no rewards. I couldn’t even find a character willing to sell me a set of the appropriate armor. The final straw was a homeless man who criticized me for wearing knight armor. After such a nasty incident, I quit the game.

Technical problems

It seems the game’s performance is tied to the current moon phase or a groundhog’s reaction to its shadow. Loading times can be quick in one game session, while in another you have to wait a long time and watch a slideshow—regardless of the settings. The situation is worst in the city, where optimization suffers significantly more often.

There are also plenty of issues with bugs and oversights that plague the experience. Quest items sometimes disappear, sometimes duplicate items. The upgrade menu can become glitched, making it impossible to exit. Or item descriptions obscure the screen instead of disappearing—a fix that can be achieved by loading the game, unlike many other issues where exiting the game or even rebooting the system resolves the issue.

Diagnosis

Of Ash and Steel has a fantastic foundation. Throughout the game, you encounter charismatic characters whose conversations feel alive; interesting mechanics; a captivating story; and a unique world. In theory, everything is perfect, and if the developers stick with the project, sooner or later the game will be magnificent.

Right now, it’s a raw product, at alpha stage. The game is poorly optimized, many necessary elements are missing, and quests are impossible to complete due to bugs. Well, if you’re going to be called “Domestic Gothic,” then take a cue from the balance and location design of Gothic—it’s all at a much higher level. It’s especially worth taking a cue from the cities, where it’s much easier to navigate!

The saddest thing is that the game doesn’t realize the main story element through its design. According to the plot, Grayshaft is in dire straits because of ash. The ash has destroyed mines and homes, crops, people, and horses. However, in 30 hours of play, I haven’t seen any ash or the clothing mentioned in the book that protects against it. And this despite the fact that “ash” is in the game’s title—Of ASH and Steel!