Of Ash & Steel – First Preview of this zero hand-holding fantasy world

Once upon a time if you wanted to find a quest objective you had to pay attention, follow the clues, and find it for yourself. The team at Fire & Frost remember that time, and it’s a staple of their upcoming game, Of Ash & Steel. A third-person medieval adventure game, it looks to recapture the classic old-school RPGs, but with the conveniences of modern designs. Recently I got a quick look at the and some time with the developers to see the game for myself.

The story for Of Ash & Steel explores the once-prosperous realm of the Kingdom of the Seven. The Kingdom of the Seven in a realm that once worshiped seven gods, but over time has slowly consolidated that faith down to worshiping just one. You play…well, a nobody named Tristan. He isn’t the legendary hero of yore, he isn’t some powerful monster slaying badass. He isn’t even all that competent. This low-fantasy and cruel medieval world is going to chew you up and spit you out until you can grow your skills and forge alliances to shape your fortune, growing from lowly peasant to whatever you might become.

Another aspect the team at Fire & Frost want to embrace is methodical and skill-based combat. It’s not a souls-like, so don’t check out quite yet, but the game will feature three combat stances for your various weapons, and each will have advantages and disadvantages. In the demo we saw single hand and two-handed fighting, but a brief peek at the skill tree suggested there are several other weapons at your disposal.

The three fighting styles are just one way you can decide how your character evolves. Skills will allow you to be a heavy armor-laden knight type, able to wield heavy weapons and dish and take serious damage, or an agile bow-wielding archer, using range and various arrows and poisons to your advantage. You could also be a traditional sword and board fighter, or something unique that lies in between. The choice is yours.

To help skill up your character, you’ll spend points in an attribute pool, but you’ll also have to pick skills from three different trees – War, Survival, and Craftmanship. Investing in the War branch will allow you to learn more attacks and tricks, such as kicking objects in the environment at your opponents to distract or stun them, or delivering brutal finishers that can terrify other would-be attackers. Survival will help you with making beneficial food, bandages, and more. Craftsmanship is all about making or refining weapons, armor, and equipment that can make the difference in battle. Ultimately you’ll need all three to some degree, but we’ll have to wait to see just how much.

The demo we saw was roughly five hours into the game, and Tristan had scraped together a handful of meager skills. His bow, still rather weak, at least had an aiming reticule to improve his shaky aim, helping him stay on target. He took aim and struck down a deer. As he’d improved this skill, he was able to do so cleanly. Unfortunately, he didn’t possess the skinning and cleaning skills to make the most of the kill, so the best we could do was tear off chunks of flesh – another set of skills to eventually learn.

Since this a low-fantasy world the team has created, you won’t find dwarves and dragons here. It also means that monsters and magic are either rare, or non-existent. Time will tell how much of the supernatural elements we encounter. You will, however, find all sorts of lowlife bandits and monsters that skew more Slavic in nature in this world. That means Ogre type beasts, and I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest an occasional swamp witch or two. We walked up on one such camp, ambushing the bandits. This gave us an advantage of surprise which helped us overcome their otherwise-superior armor. Dispatching them, it was time to take their ill-gotten goods and take over their camp for some rest.

Resting isn’t just a way to catch up on rest, it’s also where you’ll cook meals, snacks, and brew potions. Potions will require some alchemical skill from one of the trees and hopefully some experimentation, but we didn’t get to see that element. What we did get to see, however, was making a meal out of the meat we got from our slain deer earlier. Combination of ingredients yields food of varying quality and effects, but you can’t expect you’ll be breaking from combat to eat a chicken in the middle of a fight – that’s insane, and it’s what potions are for. Meals are also eaten at the campfire. Snacks on the other hand are more portable and what you’ll take with you when you break camp. I’d tell you what foods are available, but most of the text in the demo was in Russian. (Not to worry, the game is being localized to English (including voiceover) and the game will also be localized (interface and subtitles) into Italian, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese and Simplified Chinese.)

Setting out towards the nearest town, we got to see some of the dynamic elements at work. Grass began to sway a bit, followed by stronger wind that tugged at the nearby trees. The Unreal Engine 5 helps bring the gorgeous world to life, and the dynamic weather looked fantastic as it turned from windy to torrential downpour. In true survival fashion, being soaked can have a negative effect on poor Tristan, and staying that way can lead to him getting sick. Undoubtedly that’ll lead us back to the Survival skill tree, but we’ll have to see that in action later.

While we didn’t get to see it in action, the team told us that there is a social system in the game as well. As we meet various people, our skills and renown will cause us to be recognized and, as they put it, “no longer be treated like a ragamuffin”, which is a great achievement indeed.

Building a world worth living in will make you want to…well, live in it. To that end, you can certainly move from place to place, using a bedroll and tent long-term, but if you want a place to rest your head, you’ll need to buy yourself a house. While we didn’t receive much more information beyond the simple statement that you could, the team promises that you’ll be able to eventually buy a house for yourself. Can I put up trophies of my kills and decorate? Time will tell. Personally I’m hoping I can hang a fish trophy, because yes – you can go fishing.

One of the key elements that the team wanted to ensure they focused on was a world where player agency matters. There are no quest markers, road signs, or breadcrumbs to lead to where you want to go, your actions will have consequences. Do you support the local smugglers, bounty hunters, grave diggers, or some other faction? They all seem to have some sort of grudge against one another, so you could always let them kill each other, but supporting one over the others is bound to have consequences. We saw a quick preview of that when we approached the town where we could either bribe the guard for entry, break into the town via a sewer grate, or climb the vines for entry. What happens when you’re inside and discovered might be the real question…

We won’t have to wait too long to see the world for ourselves – by the time you read this you’ll be able to wishlist the game on Steam. Prepare yourself – it’s almost time to rediscover a time when curiosity and discovery was what made a game worth playing. I can’t wait to explore the world Fire & Frost has built for myself – I have a feeling that that discovery was something we’ve all sorely missed for a very long time.

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