Preview: RuneScape Dragonwilds : Yearning for the Wilds

Survival Crafting games are starting become a dime a dozen. It is important that when someone makes one that it has this unique twist upon it, allowing it to stand out amongst the greats like Valheim and Enshrouded. While those have presented incredibly vast, familiar yet different experiences, there is still plenty of room for Jagex’s own RuneScape: Dragonwilds. Yes, the exact RuneScape that you are thinking of.

Dragonwilds, like the titles previously mentioned is a crafting survival game that has you running around, collecting resources, building bases, cooking, sleeping, eating, drinking, eating more, fighting intruders, drinking, dodging random dragon attacks, drinking more, fighting off raid parties, eating more, and so on and so forth. Did I mention eating and drinking?

A True Stand-Out

If you squint your eyes at the screen you can gain a sense of familiarity. A lot of Dragonwilds feels directly lifted from Valheim, but a little bit more honed in. It is a focused experience that allows itself to inject the RuneScape sense of humor directly into your veins without you knowing. This sarcastic swagger of Jagex’s writing style is still ever so prevalent that most fans will feel right at home. As someone who never fully engaged with RuneScape in the past, but simply meandered through the world as a tourist looking for some excitement, I can say that it is consistent.

The premise itself is an interesting one, as you are tasked with killing a dragon that will make its presence known to you whether you like it or not while tracking the adventurer that came before you. This plot brings you face to face with many of RuneScape’s biggest characters, some of which make sense while others do not, but as a non-RuneScape player, none of that really impacts me. I enjoy seeing the aesthetics of each character and understanding their position in this world.

To succeed at your mission, you must gather and craft your way to success. You’ll do this by following the basics that every game of this genre has laid out for you. You’ll use the standard axe, mining pick, and more to harvest resources. But, RuneScape has a trick up its sleeve that solidifies this game amongst the slowing maturing genre: Runes.

Choppin’ Wood and Minin’ Runes

Runes are the heart of Dragonwilds, as noted in the franchise’s name. These runes fuel the magical abilities you gain, streamlining your crafting, gathering, and combat abilities. Your wood cutting prowess is enhanced by cutting down trees in quick succession by summoning a phantasmic axe, erupting boulders into an explosion of stone, and adding an elemental effect to your weapons. These abilities are also placed on a cooldown of varying degrees. More powerful spells can take up to five minutes to refresh while others are as little as 30 seconds. There are a ton of them that you will discover as you continue to gain levels in all the skills and abilities you have at your disposal.

Every time you do something, you get experience to level up a skill. Grabbing wood off the ground or chopping logs increases your wood cutting, stone for your mining, and cabbage for your cooking. You can mine for rune essence and that also enhances your runic abilities as well, giving you more access to the flavor of runes out there to enhance your skills or productivity. Dragonwilds’ entire system is so airtight and simplistic but also has some contention within it.

While there are a ton of skills, Jagex left a few incomplete. Fighting enemies will increase the combat ability in one of three flavors; at least that is what we are lead to believe. In this case, Jagex resorted to only having the melee combat tree open for ability increases, leaving magic and ranged combat styles to the side. As per a roadmap, Jagex promises to infuse the game with both archery and magic skill paths within due time. It is a bit odd as to why they are not included as they are essential parts of RuneScape’s history.

Tightrope Balancing Act

Due to the direct involvement with the RuneScape universe, everything must properly reflect the core game experience of the past, but this is one of the few times where I think breaking that would be much better for the overall experience, especially if you are a solo player like myself.

Crafting paths in games like this are pretty simple. You start off with stone tools, go to bone tools, then copper, and so on and so forth. But once Dragonwilds starts asking you to explore, things can get a bit tricky. There will come a time where you want to cut down the big oak trees  around you and start making the home of your dreams. This involves improving your tools along the previously mentioned pathway. But getting these tools can be a challenge. While challenge can be good, there is a line that should be followed.

When you die in Dragonwilds, and trust me, you will, your items in your inventory are left behind. Any weapons and materials you were holding are now placed in a spot to which they can be recovered. If you are in a particularly rough spot, and you will be, backtracking could be quite difficult especially when you are alone.

This is because Dragonwilds is based all on a power level system. Enemies and areas have a power level that is treated like a difficulty management system. You see the next area is a level 2, so you must equip items and gear that will allow you to traverse that area without much difficulty. You do this by following the crafting and gathering path, constructing armor from the resources around you. It is when you must break out of this proverbial box that causes the imbalance.

There is a constant tug between the need for materials to enhance your gear and the reason why you need that gear. It’s sort of a vicious cycle. You need bronze, so you must mine for copper and tin which are both in the same area and then forge both materials to make the bronze bars. With a full set of bronze armor, you can then take on the level 3 enemies in the area. But the problem is every time you go mining for the materials, you are at constant odds with either the brutes or the wildlife. There have been tons of times I was caught off guard by a roaming enemy, who despite being only one level above me, absolutely decimated me. I would then respawn only to go back and make this slow journey back to my home base that revolved in me frantically grabbing my pack, getting attacked, and dying again. This constant cycle was as boring and frustrating, like watching your favorite football team constantly failing at the fourth down.

I feel like there needs to be a middle-ground here for players like myself who are finding the combat curve just a bit too steep. You could brute-force your way by constantly grinding away at the combat skill, but with multiple skills currently missing, it makes everything so much more difficult than it really needs to be. I have watched some group content and noticed that it is considerably easier to manage with a team of others to rely on. So I don’t think it really needs to change there.

Hungry Like the Wolves

Another complaint that I do have, I do not like how fast your thirst and hunger meter deplete. I feel like I am eating five full meals and drinking five gallons of water every five minutes or so, and I think this also works against the grain. I’m not a fan of either of these mechanics because all they are designed to do is add a hurdle to the experience. It’s a manufactured time gate that is designed to pull you away from the thing you were doing to go to a lake, gather dirty water, boil it, and drink it. I don’t think the excuse for immersion really gives this mechanic any legs to stand on. This is not a Dragonwilds thing by any means, it is a core issue with the experience across the genre. I know that this is a core element that some players might enjoy, but with finite time in our lives and having to manage hunter and thirst in real life, I don’t think it is necessary in a game as well, especially Dragonwilds which has a finite goal in mind.

If anything, I would like to see an increase in the effect that food has on these systems. Maybe drop it down to a general hunter meter. There is also a fatigue meter and that doesn’t deplete nearly enough to make it frustrating to manage. You should be sleeping at night and you can get away with two, maybe three full cycles without sleeping before you feel the effects. I think the better option here is to integrate the hunter system into the fatigue system and have some correlation between the two. Or have advanced foods that apply a buff to the character rather than just fill a bar at the most inconvenient times. Honestly, I don’t even care if it has that level of integration, I don’t need to be intaking this many carbs per-day and something needs to be done about it.

The Home that I Built

Building is the other core mechanic in Dragonwilds and it is really fun! I love constructing a home base and unleashing my imagination upon a blank canvas. There are a ton of options and I think the menus are well situated that I can’t complain. It’s easy to find what you want and snapping everything together is satisfying. I do like how there are multiple points that are highlighted so you know what you are connecting together, and it doesn’t cost a whole lot to get your first home off the ground.

When placing floors and ceilings, you’ll get some color coordination that instantly tells you something about the structure you are about to build. Green means it can be placed while yellow urges you to be cautious. Red means you can’t place anything down which might be due to you or another structure being in the way, but other times it is because you lack the structural support to build. This is where some engineering ingenuity is needed.

It isn’t as strict as one might think, you can get away with a pretty decent structure without placing wood columns on every connection point. Wide open spaces can be done as long as you have some basic idea on how a roof should be built. You don’t need to watch a handyman video to get it, but knowing how triangles work goes a long way.

I’ll also say that as you continue to go through the building part of the game, you unlock more decor to really fill the place out and make it look as extravagant as humanly possible within Dragonwilds’ realm. Unlike the actual construction part, I do suggest watching a Caroline Winkler video and picking a color you like.

I think it is unclear exactly how to unlock more plans. I want to build a fence but I haven’t unlocked that. Some vaults happen to keep these secrets hidden, but other times I wish there was a way to see how to get some items without resorting to external sources.

LandScape

There are plenty of different biomes within the game and I think as a designer this might be one of the most challenging elements of games like this. You can’t have the landscapes be too similar because in crafting survival games, the landscape is designed to tell you that something you have yet to explore is present. It is no different here. Dragonwilds is a static world which means no matter how many times you restart, the world remains the same. This makes perfect sense as there are moments that rely on particular set pieces.

You start in the lush green rolling hills inhabited by goblins, deer, chickens, cows, and rats. From there, you make your way into a dirty, cloudy swamp inhabited by goblins and a really large creature that lurks in the muck. Its red glowing skin cuts through the fog and made me freeze in place while it scanned the environment for my presence.

The next area has rolling hills, forests, and a pink hue along with crags that jet out from the ground along with a calming river that flows right through the lower areas. There is a huge emphasis on verticality here and it makes for a truly interesting experience. Exploration into each area is both exciting and anxiety inducing, one aspect that is perfectly balanced.

Rapid-Fire Thoughts

There are a ton of different thoughts that I have on the game but I can’t quite fit them into solid segments, so I want to just spit out a few other things that add to the experience.

There is a solid inventory system that works really well and doesn’t make me feel like I am being punished for carrying too much. If I am, it makes perfect sense and I rarely have to make considerations in what to drop and what to keep. Although I would appreciate it if items I picked up didn’t immediately transfer to my hotbar.

There is a day and night cycle which adds that sense of immersion. There are a few surprises that lurk in the dark and once you are able to interact with them, it makes the game a bit more unique. Also, enemies faces glow with a red and orange light, making them easier to point out in the dark.

I mentioned a dragon before, right? Well between your various activities, you might come across the dragon’s attacks which is projected by the sudden upheaval of battle music. You then have several moments to get ready to dodge the incoming poison spray and roars. On occasion, there may even be goblin raid parties which you can dispatch quickly.

Finally, you do have several storage solutions when it comes to managing your inventory. You have to always have items on you in order to craft and that can get a bit confusing. If you don’t know how to organize things, then you can easily overwhelm yourself with the slew of materials you come across. Other games handle this by allowing you to craft from a nearby box, and I think that would go a long way here. When your world is infused with magical capabilities, I can’t see why this wouldn’t be a thing.

Performance wise, there isn’t a whole lot of settings to play around with, but the game runs smooth enough to a point where making adjustments doesn’t necessarily impact me. There are not many accessibility options though, so your milage may vary.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Into the Dragonwilds

All in all, I really like RuneScape Dragonwilds. It is a fine crafting survival game that really stands on its own legs. It’s fun, engaging, and even areas like the super secret vaults are fun to explore while also a bit harrowing. Besides that, I look forward to becoming more engrossed with the world that Jagex has constructed here. As long as they keep on with the writing and focus on the gameplay experience, I can easily see Dragonwilds becoming one of the best games of the genre. Now, can someone help me get my stuff back?

RuneScape: Dragonwilds is currently in Steam Early Access. A code for RuneScape: Dragonwilds was provided by Jagex. We would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to the team for this experience!