Developed by Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive, GreedFall is an action role-playing game that’s set in a 17^th century fantasy setting. This game will feel familiar to players who’ve spent time with western RPGs over the past few years. Here, players accept missions from a fraction leader, with some missions offering branching paths.

GreedFall offers everything you could ever want out of an old school RBG with exciting combat and excellent quest writing. Taking place on Teer Fradee, a lush island full of resources, people, and secrets to explore. The game is set in a fantastical where colonialism is fueled by a need to cure a ravenous disease.

A trio of colonial-era nations have discovered a magical island that’s inhabited by elf-like natives and magical creatures. Like any 17^th century empire would do, the newly arriving factions promptly begin trying to conquer the island to claim it as theirs, pushing out their rivals while showing no concern for their well-being.

You play as a person who has newly arrived on the island and in the role of nominal peacekeeper. You must deal directly with both the natives and colonizers. You’re highly motivated to keep peace because you’re trying to cure a mystery illness that is afflicting people back in your homeland.

The fascinating backdrop for GreedFall is inspired by the Baroque period of history. Many quests deal with the repercussions of outside nations settling on native islands. During the first few hours of play as you explore the Teer Freedee port, you’ll encounter questlines with fun twists that keep you guessing.

In one early questline, you’ll be tasked with unmasking a charlatan alchemist who is trying to sell a fake remedy for pancea, which is the disease you’re trying to cure. When you show the alchemist evidence that he’s pulling a charade, you’ll discover that he was under contract to sell his concoction, which is actually an experimental cure. Your end goal in the charlatan quest is to do away with the charlatan alchemist by either arresting him and turning him in or helping him escape. Later in the game, the quests get even better and often begin in mundane locations.

During your travels around the island, you’ll accrue five party members. However, you can only have two of them with you at any given time. Each party member comes from a different faction and each provides you with different perspectives on quests.

Basic combat actions are on the simple side and attacks take too long to wind up. When being attacked or moving out of them, there’s a lack of finesse, which was aggravating and non-precise. However, you are given some options to ease the frustration like swords, hammers, matchlock pistols, melee weapons, traps, and magic.

Just as you’d expect from an RPG, GreedFall puts a lot of weight on the choices you make. Depending on which dialog choices you make and the character stats you invest points into, the different quests play out differently. Because it’s not an open-world game, you spend your time exploring multiple smaller areas on the island, with various question marks springing up as you wander through them on your way to the next quest objective.

GreedFall offers an in-depth gear system that gives you many ways to customize swords, firearms, helmets, and other tools of the trade. This game wants you to explore the island and rewards you for your curiosity by giving you some nice loot. This is why you should venture well off the beaten path and use out-of-combat skills like climbing so you can get to those more remote areas.

Even though the game has some glitches and bugginess that keeps it from being excellent, GreedFall is enjoyable and rewarding. The landscapes are gorgeous and the combat is exciting and snappy. It’s easy to get hooked into the rhythm of exploring, investigating, interacting, and brawling with the various characters while getting lost in the beautiful lush greenery of Teer Freedee. I found it especially rewarding to run into more challenging enemies and engaging in boss fights.