From systemic combat and gigantic boss fights to stylized visuals and more, Eternal Strands is promising quite a bit that has caught our attention, and ahead of its looming release towards the end of this month, here, we’re going to go over a few key details that you should know about it.
SETTING AND STORY
Eternal Strands is set in a mystical realm known as the Enclave. Once a bustling hub of magical advancement, the Enclave has now been quiet and dormant for decades. The game will see players stepping into the shoes of Brynn, a young Weaver, who are warriors just as capable of unleashing magical abilities as they are adept with the sword. Part of a group of several fellow Weavers who entered the Enclave, Brynn’s goal is to uncover the mysteries surrounding its past, and try and bring it back to its former glory.
NOT NARRATIVE-DRIVEN
Eternal Strands developer Yellow Brick Games boasts talent that has worked on everything from Dragon Age to Assassin’s Creed and more, but in spite of that strong link to narrative-driven games, that’s not the direction that Eternal Strands is headed in. Speaking in an interview with GamingBolt, chief creative officer Mike Laidlaw explained that the action-adventure title is first and foremost a gameplay-centric experience.
“The story’s there to provide context, goals, quests and so on that push our players to enjoy and experiment while in combat and exploring the world,” he said. “With this focus in mind, we decided very early in development that Eternal Strands was not going to be a game about tough moral choices or dilemmas, but instead a tale of discovery. A group of competent experts unravelling the mysteries of what happened to the Enclave.”
OPTIONAL STORY CONTENT
Though story isn’t the focus in Eternal Strands, players looking for deeper narrative context are going to have a decent amount of optional story content to seek out. Laidlaw told GamingBolt that the game has “dozens of completely optional dialogs” (all of them voiced) that “react to Brynn’s progress through the story, her discoveries, and so on.” He added, “These aren’t needed to complete the game, but we feel they add both texture and depth for players who want to dig deeper into the story.”
ELEMENTAL ABILITIES
Eternal Strands’ moment-to-moment combat will involve plenty of melee combat, but at the heart of the experience is going to be an elements system. Brynn will be equipped with a magical cloak called the Mantle that will allow her to unleash fire and ice attacks, and every single thing in the world both in and out of combat will reach to heat and cold accordingly, further encouraging players to mix and match and experiment.
TELEKINETIC ABILITIES
Just as crucial as Brynn’s elemental abilities will be her ability to unleash telekinetic magic on her foes. That, of course, means you can pick up any number of objects or items in the environments and use them as weapons to be thrown at enemies from a distance (or perhaps to block incoming attacks). Though the elemental systems will remain at the heart of Eternal Strands’ gameplay, Brynn’s telekinetic abilities are also obviously going to have an important role to play.
BOSSES
Eternal Strands has made several intriguing promises that have captured people’s attention, and high on that list is the game’s boss encounters. The action-adventure title will see players taking on a number of massive, titanic bosses over the course of their journey. Yellow Brick Games’ has explicitly mentioned Shadow of the Colossus as one of the inspirations for the game’s bosses, with a total of nine gigantic bosses to seek out, climb over, and defeat.
TRAVERSAL
Eternal Strands is also placing quite a bit of emphasis on its traversal mechanics, with players seemingly being given many different ways to navigate the world. For starters, Brynn’s elemental and telekinetic abilities will be just as useful for traversal as they will be in combat- like building bridges made of ice to cross vast chasms, for instance. Meanwhile, similar to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, the game will also let players freely climb every surface in the world.
PHYSICS SYSTEM
A particular point of pride for Yellow Brick Games with Eternal Strands is the game’s physics system, which, according to the developer, is key to its systemic nature. As we already touched on, temperature and elements will play a crucial role- so heat will spread, while ice will, of course, cool things down. Everything in the world will abide by those rules (so fires spreading beyond control will be a possibility, as an example), while the game will also tout real-time destruction mechanics.
WORLD
No, Eternal Strands isn’t going to be open world, instead adopting a more linear and compact structure, but players will nonetheless traverse and explore a variety of different locations as they trek through the Enclave. The full extent of that environmental diversity obviously remains to be seen, but Yellow Brick Games has confirmed that players can expect to explore dense urban environments, untamed wilds, and more.
INSPIRATIONS
Eternal Strands clearly borrows a page or two from more than a few games. Chief among them is obviously Shadow of the Colossus, with Laidlaw telling GamingBolt, “Shadow of the Colossus inspired the scale of our foes. […] Like Colossus, there’s no way to bring these foes down by just hitting them in the ankle over and over. Where we differ from Colossus, though, is that where its foes had specific weak points that had to be struck to defeat them… almost like a “puzzle” approach to their defeat, we let you find your own solutions by casting and combining magic and weapons.”
In addition to Shadow of the Colossus, the game also takes inspiration from the likes of Dragon’s Dogma and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In terms of tone and visuals, meanwhile, Laidlaw says Eternal Strands also takes inspiration from The Mummy and Game of Thrones.
LENGTH
Eternal Strands is going to be a pretty substantial experience, by the look of things. Laidlaw confirmed to GamingBolt that the action-adventure title will be about 25 hours long on average. However, it also features “a lot of exploration opportunities and side quests”, courtesy of which he says the overall play time can “vary a lot.”
MUSIC
Eternal Strands has plenty of big-name talent working on it, as we’ve already touched on, and that extends to the game’s music as well. Its soundtrack is composed by lauded musician and composer Austin Wintory, who is best known for his work on Journey, The Pathless, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Hades 2, and more.
PC DEMO
If Eternal Strands has piqued your curiosity but you’re still not quite sure about whether you want to fully dive in, luckily for you, the game is going to have a demo on offer soon. On January 21, a week ahead of the full game’s release, a demo of Eternal Strands will become available on PC only. Players will be able to play through the prologue, and yes, you’ll be able to take all of your progress with you into the full games.
COMING TO GAME PASS
If you were thinking “this looks like the perfect Game Pass game”, as it turns out, that’s exactly what it is. Yellow Brick Games has confirmed that the game will be available to Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers upon release. Continued members of the old base Game Pass tier (which has been replaced for newcomers by the new Standard tier) will also get the game day and date.
PC REQUIREMENTS
Playing Eternal Strands on PC will thankfully not require a particularly demanding rig. On minimum settings, players will need either an i5-9400 or a Ryzen 5 3350, along with either a GeForce GTX 1660 Supe, a Radeon RX 5600 XT, or an Arc A580, as well as 8 GB RAM. On recommended settings, meanwhile, you’ll need either an i5-11600 or a Ryzen 5 5600X, along with either a GeForce RTX 3070, a Radeon RX 6800, or an Arc A770, on top of 16 G B of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need an SSD and about 24 GB of free storage space.
