The Falconeer

by Aethyna Nov 20, 2020 | 1 Votes | 41 Played | 0 Reviews

7 rate

Genres:

Action , Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Flying , Shooting , Fantasy Setting

Platforms:

Publishers:

Wired Productions The Falconeer is a third-person adventure game focusing on aerial combat on the back of a warbird. Best played with a controller, the game features a massive, steampunk-themed open ocean-covered world to explore, thrilling dogfights to dive into, and quests to complete. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Community Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

The Falconeer is a third-person adventure game focusing on aerial combat on the back of a warbird. Best played with a controller, the game features a massive, steampunk-themed open ocean-covered world to explore, thrilling dogfights to dive into, and quests to complete.

Plotline

Unfortunately, the story is kind of lost on me. From the introduction, I know that the Empress’ ship was shot down by rebels I guess but I’m assuming that this resulted in the breaking apart of her empire, with different factions clamoring for power in their respective regions.

That being said, I absolutely love the world-building here. The game features a vibrant ocean world reminiscence of the steampunk-powered post-apocalyptic micro-societies in Frostpunk, though the people here, due to living on islets that are far apart from each other, train magnificent warbirds – think “griffons” – as both transportation and as vehicles of combat or war. The world is just filled with so many different settlements, forts, shops and more, and it’s just fun to fly around, discovering new places and people as you go.

Gameplay

As I’ve mentioned, The Falconeer features a massive open world that the player can explore to his/her heart’s content! There are many different islets featuring various point-of-interests like fortified locations, seachantress, biochemists, shrines, temples, and weaponshop that players can land on, but the most important one is probably the settlements.

Here, players can take quests; buy stuff like weapons, serums to enhance your warbird, permits, etc from vendors; complete bounties, and even buy a new warbird once the pre-requisites (such as completing a time trial race within just 30 seconds) are fulfilled.

That said, most of the world is just plain ocean – it’s an ocean world, after all! – and navigation can be a bit troublesome. First of all, you can’t place custom markers on the map to guide you and the map itself isn’t as easily brought up whenever you need it since you have to go through the menu first. The map also has fog of war covering places that you have yet discovered but they can be hard to distinguish since they are made of bluish clouds which look almost similar to the bluish ocean. The map could even use a legend since the game doesn’t explain what certain icons mean, such as the yellow feather.

Considering that the game doesn’t allow fast travel even for places you’ve discovered, the game turns flying from place to place into a grueling chore after a while. Yes, it’s fun for the first few times and you get to practice handling your warbird but with slow-regenerating energy that gives your warbird that crucial speed boost, the flight becomes tedious over time. I wouldn’t have minded spending a bit of coins to quickly travel from one settlement to another in this game.

Now, in terms of combat, I’m a bit on the fence about The Falconeer. You see, as an aerial combat game that’s, somewhat, along the lines of Everspace, albeit with a fantasy setting, controls are crucial here. However, personally, I find the controls in The Falconeer to feel rather awkward. Note that I’m using the keyboard and mouse to play. Tried my PS4 controller prior to that but I got stuck in the tutorial where I was asked to dodge and roll but the button just isn’t responsive for some reason. Though, I have to clarify that this doesn’t seem to be an issue for other players – perhaps they are using Xbox controllers – so it’s likely just a “me” problem.

Aiming is also very hard in this game, not because you have to aim ahead like what you’ll typically do in a tank-based game like World of Tanks but rather, aim at a fast-moving target. The crosshair will jump all over the place (if not disappear outright) during a dogfight. At one point, the crosshair disappeared entirely, turning my warbird into a sitting duck. Flying isn’t as stable as I’d like as well. Maybe this is done in the name of realism, but I’ve noticed that sometimes my warbird will dip and fly lower for no reason.

Controls aside, the game comes with a story-driven campaign spread across 5 chapters, with each chapter focusing on a particular location rather than faction… excluding the prologue of course. Once you’re done with all the chapters, the last chapter will then be unlocked. You get to play as a different Falconeer character with different backgrounds, starting stats and even avatar and name, but I’m not sure if you’ll get a new map to explore with each chapter or if any exploration progress is brought over from the previous chapters. Note that the avatar and name you choose seem to be prefixed and that you can’t choose which warbird to ride.

Community

The Falconeer is a single-player game and as such, it doesn’t provide the opportunity for players to play the game with their friends, which I personally think is a loss for the game. Imagine how fun the game would be if you could take out enemy warbirds with a fellow buddy. The game already adds in an AI “friend” to help you during certain missions and it would have been great to replace that AI with an actual human friend if the player so wishes.

Graphics/ Sound

The Falconeer has some pretty gorgeous graphics but the game does like to give its settlements and islets a dreary look. The atmosphere is fantastic here and the ambience if great. Love that the game has photo mode as well! There are plenty of nice scenes you could take screenshots of and a customizable picture mode really helps.

Conclusion

The Falconeer has some incredible, unique world-building complete with beautiful graphics and atmosphere. The only unfortunate thing about the game is probably the controls. It’s very hard to properly navigate your warbird, let alone engage in intense aerial combat when it feels like I’m trying to aim at fast-moving targets while being completely drunk, and this is coming from someone who has greatly enjoyed games like Everspace. So, I’d say the game might be suitable for a more hardcore, high-skilled player base but not the average gamer.

BAFTA Games Nominated The Falconeer Soars to New Heights With Limited Edition Double Vinyl

by Aethyna Nov 3, 2021

Wired Productions and Limited Run Games on cloud nine as Pre-Orders for The Falconeer Double Vinyl go live, with two exclusive tracks.

BAFTA Games Nominated The Falconeer Soars to New Heights With Limited Edition Double Vinyl

by Aethyna Aug 6, 2021

Vocalist Mikee Goodman (SikTh, Disco Elysium) and violinist Abi Fry (Bat For Lashes, British Sea Power) lend their unique musical talents to celebrate today’s launch on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch