Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem Review (boxanata)
Wolcen: Lords of Mediocrity
Like many, I bought Wolcen on launch as I anticipated that it would be a good ARPG. I was wrong. As most of us all know, the game fell flat on its face on launch due to poor performance, server issues & an abundance of bugs.
It has now been 2 years since the game launched & it is still in a poor state. Bad performance, questionable design decisions, & a whole lot of mediocrity. However, I have to praise WOLCEN Studios for sticking with it. With a dwindling playerbase, they could have abandoned it long ago.
Valve really needs to add an option to leave a neutral review. The game certainly doesn't deserve a positive review, & it teeters on not deserving a negative review. With that said, I'm going to go with the latter as the cons far outweigh the pros..
The good:
The graphics are pretty good & the art style is fantastic. The map environments are nicely detailed. It's one part of the game that the developers nailed.
The passive skill tree is a refreshing change. It's made up of three concentric rings which you can spin to make it easier to connect points between the rings.
Being able to change the look of your gear is awesome. Helmets, Spaulders, chest-pieces, gauntlets, pants, boots & weapons. They all have a decent selection of skins & dyes to customize the look of your character.
The bad:
There's no "Left Click Move Only" option. It's mind-boggling that this isn't an option. Like, what were they developers smoking when they decided not to add this? This should be a standard in all ARPGs today.
There's no option to always show loot. Instead, you have to press left Alt or move your mouse pointer over the items for the text to appear, only for the text to disappear a second or two later, so you have to press Left Alt again & again until you've picked up the items you want.
There's no option to quick compare items on the ground. You have to pick the item up & inspect it in your inventory like a Troglodyte.
Minions & items on the ground take priority over selecting town portals. Meaning, when your minions or items are on top of a Town Portal & you mouse over the portal, you bring up the item text or minions name, instead of selecting the Town Portal.
The maps are always long corridors which make them boring & feel all the same. The are no maps with wide-open spaces. There is no variety.
Movement feels clunky & unresponsive. Often when & enemy charges into your character, you jitter around like crazy while being pushed backwards.
The majority of the skills feel boring to use. If you're looking to play a minion build, don't bother. I think there's a total of 3(?) minion skills. Yay! Variety.
Wolcen's Endgame is repetitive. Very repetitive. There are just a handful of operations to choose from. It doesn't do anything new or special.
Bugs, bugs & more bugs. There's just far too many bugs for this to be considered a full release. It's been two years.
I could go on & on, but I don't feel it's worth it. I love my ARPGs, so I don't want Wolcen to fail, but I feel like the developers have bitten off more than they can chew. It's been 2 years since the game released & it's still in a state that can barely be called a full release. WOLCEN Studios are going to have to pull a Hello games/No Man's Sky with this game if they want to return from the dead, but I feel it's far too late for that.
Prove me wrong, WOLCEN Studios.