Going hands-on with a game before it goes into Early Access always feels like playing a first draft of something when you know it’s about to be touched by a thousand different editors, all with different opinions. Early Access is about crafting the experience that players want, and as someone with a background in user experience research in game development, I can absolutely see the value in gathering that feedback en masse. Towerborne, the latest offering from Stoic, the studio responsible for The Banner Saga, is entering Early Access today, and is about to begin its journey towards being moulded by the players who dare to dive into the game before it’s fully cooked. I had some hands-on time with a slightly earlier build than the one going into EA ahead of launch, and while I have some initial thoughts, I want to keep them brief – mostly because I’m more interested in watching the journey unfold.
Don’t expect The Banner Saga
The strongest links between Towerborne and the studio’s previous titles are their unique art styles, both of which are absolutely stunning and make an instant impression, and their composer – the award-winning Austin Wintory – but the similarities mostly stop there. Towerborne does not share the narrative focus of The Banner Saga, nor its focus on tactical thinking. It’s a 2.5D, side-scrolling beat ‘em up that’s designed as a multiplayer experience and comes with a whole heap of live service features. You’ll fight hordes of enemies, gain loot and experience, and then head back to a hub town to use those things to upgrade your hero – known as an ‘Ace’ – and their equipment so that they can head back out to an ever-expanding world map to take on increasingly difficult challenges.
It's dangerous to go alone
While it can be played solo (as I did for my entire time with the game for this preview), it’s clear that the game is meant to be played with friends. You can choose between four different classes – Sentinel (the balanced, warrior-type with a sword and shield), Pyroclast (the closest you’ll get to a mage, who can occasionally set things on fire), Rockbreaker (big, slow but strong, tank-style character) and Shadowstriker (quick, dual-wielding stealthy rogue-type) – and you can switch between them at any time. Each class will level up individually and has its own unique set of gear, and they feel distinct enough that you’re likely to choose a favourite. That said, I can’t say my play style changed hugely between classes – it was a lot of hit, dodge, launch enemy into the air, hit, repeat no matter which character I used to do it.
But it’s easy to see how, with four players all playing as different classes, the gameplay could become far more interesting. While when playing solo you’re forced to face enemies head on, when there’s someone else playing a tank character to do that for you, there’s some breathing room to sit back and deploy some tactical stealth with a Shadowstriker. Or so I imagine – like I said, I was unable to test the multiplayer features out properly, so this is all speculation (though I did work on a game that shared many characteristics with this one, so if I put on my researcher hat, I can make some educated guesses).
Under my Umbra-ella (ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, etc)
By your side you’ll also have a little spirit companion known as an ‘Umbra’, a little guy with their own unique abilities to be used in combat. They can be upgraded and kitted out with gear just like you can, and can be a great help in combat when you’re being overwhelmed by enemies.
An Ace character creator
Towerborne’s playable character is a blank slate to be moulded to your preferences. Choose body type, voice, skin colour, hair style, bone structure, eyes, face paint – all the classic RPG customisables are here, and they’re not gender-locked so the catalogue of options is yours to explore. While there’s more that could be added here to allow for more diverse options, the bones of a good system are here – and it’s clearly been designed with freedom in mind.
The hordes keep comin’
Each side-scrolling level basically involves ploughing through waves of enemies as you make your way towards the loot at the end of the level. In the few hours of Towerborne that I played, these waves were made up entirely of variations on the same goblin-esque enemy with increasingly large weapons and durable armour. While I understand other enemy types are introduced if you persevere past this early game goblin grind, for me as a solo player I didn’t feel overly inspired to repeat the same fight over and over again to level up and complete objectives given to me by the town’s residents, most of which were basically ‘finish more levels’. I’d love to see a little more variation here.
It’s really early days
Depending on how players react, all of this might change with whatever goes into the game’s first patch. Spending too much time talking about Towerborne feels pointless when it’s still finding so much of its identity, and discovering a balance between ‘fun co-op experience’ and ‘overly live-service-y grind’. I have faith it’ll get there, but right now it’s hard to see what it’ll look like. The gorgeous art will survive, and if it can carve out a niche and find its audience, I hope it’ll succeed. But we’ve seen recent ‘always online’ games like this one struggle hard in the current climate, so to really stand out, Towerborne is going to need to find some more ways to make itself irresistible.
Player2 accessed this early version of the game on PC using a code kindly provided by Xbox. Towerborne launches into Early Access today.
