The premise of a “looter-slasher” was an interesting hook for Godfall when the game was first announced at the 2019 Game Awards. Theoretically, using the loot-based progression systems of a game like Destiny and marrying it with satisfying melee combat has all the makings of a fantastic new game. However, when the game’s coverage started to thin and gameplay trailers were few and far between, Godfall started to fall off players’ radar. Beyond the game’s first trailer, there wasn’t much info revealed about the game’s story, and critical news like Valorplate progression and the loot mechanics were unveiled in long-form interviews.
Now that Godfall is finally out in consumers’ hands, many of the fears cautious players had became a reality. Godfall‘s released to a middling 62 Metacritic score, with most reviews citing problems with everything that wasn’t specifically involving combat. The story was lean, the loot wasn’t worth grinding for, these were the major pain points that would’ve hurt Godfall‘s pace in the long run. Low and behold, these are the game’s biggest pitfalls, repeating a mistake that numerous other loot-based games have tried time and time again. To be fair Godfall is not the worst offender in this subgenre of games, but for a PS5 launch title, it’s comparatively lackluster.
Any good loot-based game, especially one that involves backtracking and repetitive activities, contextualizes these activities with a worthwhile story or sense of progression. This was always a fear with Godfall in the leadup to its official release this November: Games with loot-based progression need to have activities that specifically justify the necessity to grind for better weapons or armor. Godfall always had an end goal of defeating Macros, the ruthless zealot in pursuit of becoming a god. The narrative promises a lot in its first few hours, but very quickly falls to the backburner when the real meat of the game begins.
The majority of gameplay involves traipsing through gilded landscapes with enemies lifelessly lying in wait for the player to crush them. Then, after a bit of traversing, players are tasked with taking down that specific region’s boss. Godfall‘s combat best shines in its boss scenarios, where all that combative grinding culminates in a relatively challenging battle.
After that, players backtrack and move on to the next region and boss to do it all over again. This repetitive action is only pushed along by lifeless conversations with an omniscient being, who is supposedly providing reasons as to why Orin (the protagonist) is killing and looting all of these monsters. The end result is a narrative that falls off very quickly as players simply rush to each boss encounter with little rhyme or reason.
Despite the story’s weakness, there’s an even more glaring problem with Godfall‘s gameplay: the loot-based progression. Godfall rewards players with skill points and experience progression well, but the actual grind for loot is woefully rewarding. Weapons and Valorplates are the big ticket items players are on the lookout for. Conceptually speaking, players should be pining for more powerful and diverse equipment to use, but the reality is there’s not much difference between them. Weapon variety is quite good but the major pain point is Valorplates, and swapping between them doesn’t really affect the player’s fighting style or strategy in any tangible way.
Combat and loot progression ends up being much more focused on weapons than the Valorplates themselves, contrary to what Godfall billed as the cornerstone of its loot-based progression. All of the Valorplates have special attributes and “Archon Fury” abilities, but there’s very little actionable difference between them. Valorplates designed to emphasize elemental affinities (Phoenix for fire, Typhon for water) do very little to change the combat dynamic. Even examples like Greyhawk, which is more focused on the emphasizing the Soulshatter ability, still only makes a miniscule change compared to the superficial differences between other Valorplates.
Godfall‘s immediate future isn’t a promising one, as it largely follows the same trajectory that games like Avengers and Anthem have done before it. In all fairness, Godfall was designed with an endgame in mind. The game was never meant to be a fully live-service experience like the aforementioned examples, but that’s still no excuse for a repetitive gameplay loop that quickly becomes uninteresting.
Godfall is available now on PC and PS5.
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