Where to start? This game has so much going for it; it is hard to figure out what to address first. All you need to know about Blue Isle Studio’s new game, Citadel: Forged With Fire, is that it is an open fantasy world that allows players to do just about everything and anything they want. Although there are some technical issues and less refined parts, the game as a whole is a massive experience with an incredible amount of things to do.

Story

Choose your own adventure—that is what this game is. No, it isn’t like a book with branching options and many endings. This game is a journey for your character in whatever avenue you want. If you want to do a lot of the quests and follow a general set of storylines, that’s all there. But the game is really about building your character and expanding/growing however you want.

Gameplay

Citadel: Forged With Fire is basically a high fantasy playground. Between resource hunting, actual hunting, character growth, and building massive edifices, there is almost a never-ending list of things to do. Because there are so many details and parts of the game, the overall character progression and different things to seek out, we’re going to talk about the general execution and quality of all these things.

The game for sure looks good; I am currently on the PS4. The connections to other players and general service quality are good, but there are small hiccups here and there. This may be subject to change as the game grows in size and on other platforms, but in general, it works just fine to play with and meet other people online.

The leveling system is mostly good. The first 20 levels come quickly enough, and there are plenty of skills to learn, things to craft and build after those first chunks of levels. But with the exponential scaling of experience, it seems a little steep and artificial when a player has sunk in 30 hours and needs another 5 hours just to unlock a specific wall type. 

However, the talent/knowledge tree system overall is really great and allows for pure customization of what a player may want to do, like focusing on building, combat or equipment. This is one of the great innovations for the game, play the way you want to at your pace. Some play styles like a focus on capturing animals can also benefit from other skills like learning to build a place to keep said animals safe and secure, so staying somewhat balanced in character growth will help most players in the long run.

The magic system is probably the most original out of everything in the game. Instead of learning spells and leveling into more advanced versions of those spells or building a skill tree of magic and abilities, we see something very new. Players will pick up things called “Essences.” A player will then take that essence and attach it to a weapon through one of four magic schools: Blast, Area of Effect, Self and Utility. When an essence is equipped in one of these four ways, a specific spell will be attached. The Spell made will depend on the Essence and the School. For example, an Arcane Essence and Blast school will make a basic blast attack, but a Nature Essence and Blast school combination will make a ranged ground attack that blows enemies in the air. Blast normally does burst damage to one or a few enemies. Area of Effect attacks deal widespread amounts of damage or debuffing. Self is normally some form of boost or buff to oneself. And Utility does general types of things in the world like taming animals, gathering resources and other things. All this means that the Essences and the four schools used to create spells will create a massive amount of different spells that are readily available as a player discovers and uses the Essences. There are a lot of possibilities and it really frees the player with a bunch of options of battle and interaction.

There is also flying on brooms and dragons which opens the world to exploration at all times. The exploration leads players to enemy groups, crazy powerful creatures, and unique and powerful items. After players grow and grow in levels, they get a greater reign over the world, farming, being able to make castles and explore high-level areas with unique rewards. Players can also join just about any other server, PVP or PVE, and start again or make their own services with specific rules and invite others to it.

Visual

The game looks good overall. The textures and general style look pretty good at first. However, it is easy to see a lot of bugs, pop-ins and outs of various objects or terrain. The animations look more and more clunky as time goes on. The night cycle also gets so dark or oddly colored that it can be confusing and disorienting (especially as a new player). The game doesn’t look bad, but there is so much going on that a lot of short-cuts seemed to have been taken to make the game look and play “smoothly.”

Audio

There is very little audio presence. Not much mood music, even in the menus. The sounds of all the actions, enemies and players are very generic, but okay. They get the job done, but they are hardly noticeable as either good or bad.

Replayability

There are so many things to do here. However, there isn’t much a huge amount to achieve in a normal sense. Other than a bunch of straight forward quests and leveling up your character, there is no end or completion, and that can kind of kill the game for some people. But for most players, this limitless possibility to build structures, grow characters, hop into a variety of servers and vast amounts of creatures to hunt and tame is a dream world and way to explore and enjoy a very real fantasy world. So some players may only get 100 hours or so out of it, but others will play hundreds of hours and still have so much more to want to do.

What It Could Have Done Better

The graphics and sound can always be improved, but those aren’t the main focus of the game. The progression and gameplay is the star. I found the steepness of leveling to be a little high, especially without too many ways to gain more experience, faster. But the biggest issue I found was the combat, it plainly isn’t very fun or designed well.

Even though there are a bunch of weapons and spells to use in combat (and that is great!), most of it just reverts to running backward using spells or standing there, getting hit while hitting the enemy back, hoping their health depletes before your own. Yes, spells can mix things up and tamed animals can fight with you, but the basics of battle are like stale bread: not great, but edible. If there was a perry system or dodge mechanic, that would make combat much, much better and entertaining.  

Verdict

The core gameplay of exploration, growth, and building is honestly incredible and has strong potential. But needs a review and score, and it’s going to get a certain score based on the overall quality of the game. This score might not reflect how the game will be in six months, a year, or beyond. With updates and changes, this game could easily be an 8 or even a 9. But the issues with combat, technical bugs, and late, sluggish progression holds the game back, for now.