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0 Eko Software (How to Survive, Warhammer: Chaosbane) teams up with publishing from Nacon for their latest ARPG project Dragonkin: The Banished. Take up the fight as a hero of the realm to fight back draconic forces threatening to corrupt everything. It is now available in Early Access on Steam with a plan for release on consoles at a later date.
Dragonkin: The Banished is Certainly Not Eko Software’s First Rodeo
Having just recently taken a look at Coridden, it felt appropriate that I take a look at another contender in the isometric ARPG genre. Dragonkin: The Banished appears to be a completely different aesthetic though, with a darker but still striking setting. So what else does it have to offer with the experience Eko Software has under their belt? Quite a bit for an early access release. Check out my thoughts on the current build below.
Gameplay
Dragonkin: The Banished is set in a world facing complete corruption from draconic forces. As one of three heroes (with another coming this summer) you partner up with a wyrmling and set out to locate the dragons behind it all. Along the way advance your character and wyrmling’s skills and attributes. While also enhancing your home city to further your progress. Additional characters utilize the city advancements as well. This makes it even more of a worthwhile investment to take time and manage. Simply learning new character skills though isn’t as simple as you’d think.
Got the Skills
The thing I find most enjoyable in Dragonkin: The Banished is the skill system. While out exploring the world in pursuit of dragons, you pick up hex pieces that either have a skill or skill modifiers that may substantially change how you play the game. These pieces, which sometimes can come in linked sets, must be arranged in your Ancestral Grid in such a way that maximizes their potential.
You can see in my Ancestral Grid screenshot below that one of my pieces is a linked set of five whereas another couple are two or three. It’s like a mini puzzle to min/max your character’s abilities. Though you can only have up to 5 character skills and 5 wyrmling skills, connecting them to enough applicable modifiers creates a symbiosis with your wyrmling. During my time in the game I did manage to get my Ice Shard skill to a symbiotic state and blasted enemies with toxic infusion. (Screenshot toward the end.)
Pacing
I admittedly am not the biggest fan of the pacing at the start Dragonkin: The Banished. The intro gives you a nice overview and allows you to experience some of each of the hero’s abilities briefly, which was nice. But then the very, very long run from the entrance of the main city to the council hall was strenuous to stick with. I understand that this travel time is utilized for a lot of lore-dumping, but this early in the game I honestly almost just put it down out of annoyance. Granted, I’ve been running around destroying everything in my path with expedience the last month in Diablo IV so I might be a little biased. I would still prefer a dialogue exchange akin to those in Guild Wars 2 if there is a need for it.
Graphics & Audio
Dragonkin: The Banished is currently only available on PC with plans to later be on PS5 and Xbox. I like to swap back and forth between Steam Deck and my desktop PC whenever I have a chance. While not officially on the list as compatible, I was able to play it without issue. However, the graphics settings cannot go higher than Medium, which may or may not be intentional. On my desktop I was able to easily run the game on ultra in 4k (but found 2k to be a bit more to my liking).
Though certainly not as vibrant and colourful as Coridden was, Dragonkin: The Banished still boasts beautifully crafted visuals. Everything from the environment to enemies effectively immerses you in the corruption being wrought throughout. The visual addition to skills when achieving symbiosis is especially cool to see. I’m looking forward to exploring more as I progress and try new combinations and the other heroes. I’m going to sneak in a comment about the audio here since it’s always my worst subject – the game music provides a fitting atmosphere but the sound of my wyrmling often caught me looking around for enemies I didn’t manage to kill. I also did note that some of the dialogue sounds pretty monotone but was unable to determine if it was from a voice actor or being read by AI.
Longevity
Eko Software expects Dragonkin: The Banished to live in early access for roughly seven to ten months. This will largely depend on how much additional work they put into the game from player feedback. Parts of the current roadmap include additional end game content over spring and summer. As well as the addition of multiplayer in autumn. Where the game is already sitting, I feel it has a significant amount of longevity. You could easily sink upwards of 50 or more hours in. There’s plenty of content and skills and modifiers to play around with and it appears the level cap is currently 50. Just the mention of endgame content means they are already thinking ahead to where the game is going to leave players after the main campaign is complete.
Final Thoughts
Dragonkin: The Banished has a number of things going for it. There are going to be kinks to work out and hopefully some quality player feedback will help smooth things over. It already feels like it’s in a solid place if you enjoy the genre and are looking for something new. Eko Software also has a number of games under their belt. There’s little chance of project abandonment here.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this preview.
If you enjoy this review, check out my other reviews here.
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