Right when you start playing, the first thing you’ll notice is that Dragonkin: The Banished places quite a bit of emphasis on its world and story. The prologue chapter kicks things off by letting you play through an important point of the game’s fictional history, when several heroes banded together to help human armies take on the corrupting influences of an evil dragon. This prologue also serves as an interesting take on the tutorial formula, allowing players to play as multiple distinct heroes that you will then play for the rest of the game.

"Dragonkin: The Banished places quite a bit of emphasis on its world and story."

It’s important to note just how great of an idea it is to let the player experience the various heroes before you have to make the decision to pick one for the rest of the game. You get to experience multiple heroes: the Knight, the Barbarian, and the Ranger at the height of their power. You get to use their most powerful abilities as you take down hordes of the dragon’s underlings. Sure, it’s not a lengthy prologue, clocking in at around thirty minutes, but it gives you just enough information to let you make an informed decision so that you don’t end up regretting your choice two dozen hours later.

Dragonkin: The Banished makes one hell of a first impression thanks to the scale of the epic story being told. There are no punches pulled when you’re thrown against massive hordes of demons and dragonkins to take on. Starting things off in the shoes of the Knight, you get to feel immensely powerful. The prologue’s zones are also visually impressive, with plenty of debris flying all over the place and enemy corpses ragdolling away as you run through them with your shield raised.

On finishing the prologue, however, things slow down to an absolute crawl. After picking out your hero, you’re going to be spending the next several hours taking on small scale villains like bandits before you get to fight more intimidating enemies and bosses. There is also a surprising amount of time spent in mundane activities where you’re just running around and talking to various NPCs without any combat to break up the flow. While I’m not against the idea of trying to tell a story in an otherwise action-heavy genre like the RPG, things do start getting monotonous until you’re given your first real mission.

The core gameplay in Dragonkin: The Banished is a standard affair; movement is handled by left-clicking where you want to go, and can have five different abilities that can be used for a range of things, from shooting lightning bolts to teleporting around, and even getting defensive buffs. There is also an option for an alternate control scheme, where every aspect of your character aside from aiming abilities is handled by the WASD cluster of keys. The minute-to-minute gameplay where you’re just going on a rampage, slaughtering enemies by the dozens, is definitely quite fun.

"However, the Ancestral Grid does take a fair bit of time to actually start being fun."

There is also a great amount of customization allowed through the game’s Ancestral Grid system, which is also one of the core methods of progression in the game. Skills aren’t innate to your character, and are instead obtained through finding specific hexes, which can then be equipped into the Ancestral Grid. Skill hexes are available in different shapes and sizes, taking up varying amounts of space on the grid, and you are encouraged to mix and match various skills to find your ideal way to kill enemies.

Skill hexes come in two varieties: active skills, which are what you use to attack your enemies, and passive skills, which can buff up nearby active skills on the grid in interesting ways. For example, if Chain Lightning is an example of an active skill, a passive skill could improve its damage, reduce its costs, or even increase its area of effect. While it’s possible to find individual hexes for these skills, you will also eventually start finding combination hexes that can take up two, three, or even six spots on the grid. And while these combinations are always fun to find and try out, mixing and matching your own sets of actives and passives tends to be a lot more interesting and fun.

However, the Ancestral Grid does take a fair bit of time to actually start being fun. You don’t have access to the whole grid when you start out, and more parts of it open up as you level up. While this is fine in the long run, it definitely causes more frustration with the whole system in the earlier parts of the game since you don’t really have the room to equip the hexes you get early on. Considering the nature of the game, this isn’t too much of a problem; you can simply level up far enough to stop feeling those unnecessary early constraints.

"All things considered, Dragonkin: The Banished’s early access feels like a great first step."

Another unique aspect of Dragonkin: The Banished is that, along with your character’s abilities and gear, you also get to level up a city. Dubbed Montescail, the city has several spots where you can get new buildings built and upgraded. While an interesting concept, the city upgrading aspects unfortunately don’t do much to affect gameplay. Just about every building you erect or upgrade tends to offer at best minor buffs to things like your stats or how much experience you can get from killing things. Since it is an Early Access title and more city features are slated for future updates in the roadmap, however, this feels like an issue that will get ironed out over time.

There’s also a small baby dragon you get that can occasionally help your fight against draconic enemies, and as adorable as it may sound, when it comes to gameplay, your dragon companion doesn’t contribute much in these battles. You can get skill hexes that improve your dragon’s attacks, but unfortunately, all of these skills are surprisingly dull, doing little more than giving the dragon a chance to deal damage every time you do.

All things considered, Dragonkin: The Banished’s early access feels like a great first step. There are plenty of interesting ideas in the game, and its core combat is certainly fun enough to warrant at least one playthrough through its early access offerings. It’s too early to judge how the story will pan out, but the prologue feels appropriately epic and sets the stage quite well for what you can expect later in the game.

This game was reviewed on PC.

We got to have a chat with production director Jean-Georges Levieux about various aspects of the game, as well as the studio’s thoughts on new technologies like the PS5 Pro.

To what extent can we expect Dragonkin: The Banished to be complete at its Early Access launch?

The Early Access launch is really just the beginning. The core mechanics are already there – the city, the ancestral grid, the gameplay – but we will be adding a lot of content during Early Access. Most importantly, we want to take advantage of player feedback to improve the game in the right direction.

What are some of the ideas for additions to Dragonkin: The Banished along its Early Access journey?

When you develop a game for years, it can sometimes be difficult to step back and see the bigger picture. You create tons of mechanics, graphics, sounds, story elements… and there’s a moment when everything starts to come together – right at the end of the project. Playtests, betas, or Early Access help gain that perspective.

We want to use Early Access to listen to our players and adjust development if needed. The demo’s release has already taught us a lot, and we are already working on integrating player feedback.

That being said, we already have things in production and a roadmap that we’ve shared with our players. This includes new game modes, additional city features, a new playable character, new zones, multiplayer, and more.

"When you develop a game for years, it can sometimes be difficult to step back and see the bigger picture."

How many hours worth of content will be available in Dragonkin: The Banished in Early Access? How will this compare to the full release?

At launch, you will be able to play Act 1 (out of 5 total), which should take around 4 to 6
hours to complete.

After that, you’ll reach the End Game, particularly what we call the Hunting Board. Completing this board should take around 15 to 20 hours.

Once the Hunt Board is completed, you can continue playing and create your own custom Hunts with all the unlocked settings. At that point, it will be up to you to decide how much time you want to invest in the game.

Are there any plans to add multiplayer to the game?

Yes, it’s one of our major updates planned during Early Access.

How will build experimentation be encouraged?

A lot!

We have removed any costs for changing attribute points, passives, or even your hatchling (which can be seen as your character’s specialization). We’re also working on adding the Arsenal, which will allow you to save entire builds and test new ones without losing existing ones.

Of course, to perfect your builds, you’ll need to find the right equipment, the right fragments for your grid, and craft wisely.

How big of a role will the city-building mechanics play in Dragonkin: The Banished overall?

The city is your hub, and once multiplayer is added, it can be your friends’ hub as well if you choose. You will be able to develop it together – every activity (story, endgame hunts) will earn prosperity points that you can spend on your city.

You’ll be able to unlock services, merchants, artisans, bonuses for your characters, and various improvements for theorycrafting.

"Of course, to perfect your builds, you’ll need to find the right equipment, the right fragments for your grid, and craft wisely."

Are there already plans for endgame high-difficulty content?

We have designed a very broad difficulty system. From the start of Early Access, there will be 11 difficulty levels. Some thresholds will unlock access to certain types of rewards, allowing you to further enhance your character.

Whether you’re a beginner looking to enjoy the story on an easier setting or an expert in the genre, you’ll be able to experience the game however you like.

When are you expecting to be done with the Early Access period?

An Early Access period is determined based on player feedback. So, it’s still a bit too early to answer this question.

As a developer, what are your thoughts on the PS5 Pro? How does boost in GPU help in developing your game compared to the base PS5?

We are currently focusing on the PC version with the game’s release in Early Access. However, we have already run the game on consoles, particularly on the PS5, but not yet on the Pro.

The PS5 is a very important platform, and we will make every effort to ensure the game runs properly on it. As for the PS5 Pro, which comes with great improvements, we will take advantage of them to boost FPS and resolution.

What are your thoughts on PSSR? What kind of opportunities will this open for the game?

Almost all modern games use upscalers. On PC, depending on your GPU, we have several available.

On consoles, with Unreal Engine 5, we primarily use TSR, which is the engine’s native solution.

On PS5 Pro, we would definitely like to add support for PSSR. It should help us achieve better FPS while maintaining higher image quality.

"The PS5 is a very important platform, and we will make every effort to ensure the game runs properly on it."

What resolution and frame rates will the game target on PS5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5 Pro?

As I mentioned, we are focusing on the PC version for Early Access. The game will only be
released on consoles once it’s fully finished.

That being said, we have been and continue to be mindful of performance to ensure the game runs well on consoles.

At this stage of development, I wouldn’t commit to specific numbers for consoles. Ideally, we will offer different rendering modes to prioritize either FPS or image quality.

Do you have plans to launch the game on Nintendo Switch 2?

Not for the moment.