Bleak Faith: Forsaken review — A beautifully desolate world that desperately needs polish.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a souls-like action roleplaying game. You take the role of an unnamed character and set out on a mission to explore the remnants of a broken world. As you do so, you’ll find pockets of civilization. This game takes place in the Omnistructure, and as you traverse it you’ll get lost in a beautifully desolate world unlike any other in the genre.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken does a lot to differentiate itself from other souls-like games. The biggest difference is that you don’t lose anything when you die. There is no class selection in Bleak Faith: Forsaken. Instead, it’s up to you to decide exactly how you want to build your character. This game also features a feature that allows you to climb giants, something that looked promising but that I never reached during my playthrough.

Before diving into Bleak Faith: Forsaken, I want to discuss my qualifications. I love souls-like games with a burning passion. Souls games ‌are some of my favorites. My top contenders for this genre are Lies of P, Nioh 2, and The Surge 2. Elden Ring and Demon’s Souls are my favorite souls-like games ever and while I mentally divide this genre into two groups, I am ‌open to new contenders in the space. I love seeing what world’s people come up with and how they try and break away from the classic souls-like game formula. It came as an absolute shock to me when Remnant II was so damn enjoyable. All of ‌that said, I am open to these games and ‌I love them, even when I suck at them. There is something satisfying about getting better as you progress, getting new gear, and improving your character. Sure, each game has its differences, but ‌these things remain the same.

I also recognize that Bleak Faith: Forsaken was made by 3 developers and I commend them on their achievement. A solid foundation exists here, and I believe that the developers could turn this game around. However, the state of the game is unacceptable and for $34.99, I feel like the developers could’ve taken more time to polish the game.

I didn’t finish Bleak Faith Forsaken. After running into a plethora of bugs and crashing twice on the PlayStation 5, I decided that my time with Bleak Faith Forsaken was over. I made it about eight hours into the game. This review consists of two parts. The first part details my experience with the game before defeating the first boss. The second is my experience with the game afterward.

World Introduction

Bleak Faith: Forsaken takes place in an omnistructure, a vast structure that consists of many floors. The setting allows for amazing displays of architecture and pushes forward the atmosphere of the world.

As you travel through the omnistructure, you’ll begin to notice that the world is a blend of science fiction and fantasy. You can see pipes going around the rooftop you land on, and that design element continues throughout the first area. I found it refreshing to see science fiction elements included, as the two genres blend extremely well.

I am pulled into souls-like games by the way they introduce the world. Bleak Faith: Forsaken starts with a couple of words via on-screen text before showing you some scenes of what I assume is your character. There was no voice-over set up, and I had no idea what was happening.

After the opening scene finishes, you’re dropped on a rooftop, and from there you can explore to your heart’s content. There are three different paths for you to take, and I can only assume they would lead you to the same location. My first issue with Bleak Faith: Forsaken comes into play in these three paths. The exploration is unrewarding at best and needlessly complicated at worst.

Exploration

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is a semi-open world game and true to what is advertised on the store page, there is a lot for you to explore. What I noticed is that it becomes difficult to tell where the explorable map ends. Bleak Faith: Forsaken has a lot of areas that look explorable but either lead to you glitching into the map or getting stuck. While I enjoyed the traversal a lot, I quickly became annoyed with how many times I hit a dead end or ended up falling off of the map.

As you reach the first boss fight, a monster that’s leaning against a tree, the openness of the map becomes so much more clear. This whole section suffers from having too much space with nothing to see. What’s worse? The closer you get to the rocks on one side, the more muddy the boss becomes because of the game’s color pallet.

Regardless, finding the areas where things connect was satisfying. Everything ends up coming together by the end of the first area in a couple of cool ways. At one point, I found myself climbing a broken tower that eventually took me back to the area where the tree boss was located.

Exploration quickly takes a turn for the worse when you consider how many paths lead to nothing. Many times in the first area you’ll find a cool path to go down and not only is there no enemy to fight, but there are also no items to pick up. The area with the pipes that I was excited to explore just behind where you spawn in, was a dead end. What’s worse is, I ended up getting trapped in a pipe while I was walking on it.

It’s a shame because Bleak Faith: Forsaken has an art style that I adore. It’s extremely stylized in a way that I find oddly appealing. The art style borders stylized realism but never pushes itself over the edge. The art style fits the tone of the game exceptionally well. Everything is pushing you towards feeling the emptiness of the world. You can tell that something bad happened here. Houses are decrepit, paths are falling apart, and everything looks withered.

A lot of the areas I got to see were extremely cool. In tight corridors, the science fiction elements come out more. The blues and reds have a better glow and everything pops more. The browns and greys don’t wash out the scenes and, in general, the enemies look a lot better when they’re not in the open world.

Combat

One of the biggest challenges of Bleak Faith: Forsaken is how floaty the combat feels. Jumping is like gliding, swinging any weapon feels off in a way that becomes hard to describe. I could move past all of this. However, I ran into multiple bugs that made me not want to continue my experience.

Combat is inconsistent and can often be boring. It is far too easy to stagger lock enemies, even when hits are not registering. You can take on four to six enemies at once and have no issue, even when you’re fighting the heavier enemies. I appreciate that each of the weapons felt different, but the effort felt wasted when every enemy in the first area felt the same.

The first boss fight had me scratching my head. During the whole fight, I felt like I was missing something. This boss has no sound whatsoever. I figured it was a bug and for the most part, I was right. After dying and reloading the game, I came back to this boss fight and finally had some sound. However, the boss had no sound design for any of the moves. The animations are stiff and often misleading and it can be hard to follow what’s going on.

The saving grace of the combat is how fun it is to mix and match armor and try new weapons and shields. I love doing this for two reasons. The first is because most of the weapons have a slightly different swing. The animations could be better and more varied, but it’s still nice to see. The second reason is I love the fashion. My go-to look is an axe, a shield, and a gas mask. The armor you’re wearing gives you bonuses too, and those can be mixed and matched. There’s an element of experimentation that keeps the combat feeling fresh and unique.

Gameplay

Bleak Faith: Forsaken has a lot going on in the gameplay department. It doesn’t always feel good, but it was extremely refreshing to see the developers trying something new. The armor designs vary and every single armor piece I have picked up looks good. Yes, some of the animations clip, but it didn’t detract from the experience. You’ll find armor that looks like what you would expect from a knight, some helmets with hoods, and tons of pants.

I specifically enjoyed the addition of shoulder pads because they still give gameplay advantages and add to the fashion. Any type of cloth that hangs off of the armor is going to clip. Often, this would happen when I was running. The clipping didn’t bother me until it happened with a hood.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken features a detailed crafting system, using items found from exploration to give yourself crucial advantages and upgrade your gear. You can make as many health potions, stamina potions, and arrows as you want. I’m sure you would unlock more things to craft as you move through the game. You start only being able to carry two health potions, but they will recharge. My current save has 112 health potions, so when I’m outside of combat I can heal as much as I want.

When you die you don’t lose anything. Leveling up is straightforward and done by adjusting your stats on the character screen. The lack of a death penalty had me confused at first, but I quickly grew to love it because it gave me a chance to explore with freedom.

You can also choose from a selection of skills and upgrades: This is how I got the extra third potion that you see in some of the screenshots. I like this feature because it allows you to mix and match skills and abilities. You can choose up to three and more unlock as you progress through the game.

After Konrad

Bleak Faith: Forsaken opens up after you defeat Konrad. The game becomes lighter; the environments look better, and the world opens up to you. The beginning of the game needs a serious re-design because the world of Bleak Faith: Forsaken isn’t all bad.

As you climb up some ladders, you’ll eventually reach the “hub” area. Here, you can upgrade your weapons and armor and get a good look at the world. The architecture is completely different, the lighting is a huge improvement, and the overall atmosphere is leaps and bounds better than what you experienced at the start of the game.

You’ll also finally get to see new enemy types. The first one you’ll be introduced to looks like an alien with a sword. I love these guys so much. Yes, they’re easy to kill but they jump around and bring me a lot of joy when they’re on the screen.

The second new enemy type I ran into was spitting fire, or something, at me. The third looked like an android with a large, long sword. When it one-shot me I was beaming. Don’t get me wrong, all the enemies are doing more damage now and the spike is slightly jarring. However, I was excited to see what the developers had in store as you progressed through the game.

There is also a noticeable increase in the amount of loot you’re getting. Specifically, I got four new rings, a new helmet, shoulder armor, and a chest piece. I also found tons of new crafting components and finally increased the amount of potions I could carry. The area after Konrad makes more sense in exploration as well; the amount of dead ends with no loot is significantly cut down. There is also less confusion about where the explorable portion of the world begins and ends.

Bugs

Throughout my time with Bleak Faith: Forsaken on the PlayStation 5 I ran into a series of bugs and issues that crushed my enjoyment of the game. The biggest reason I had to put the game down was because of the bugs and frame rate drops that happened at every turn.

As I played through the game, I tried to turn up the gamma, change the sound settings, and more. For a moment they would work, but after a death the settings would revert back to the defaults.

Konrad was one of the buggiest boss fights I’ve ever had in a souls-like game. Every time you dodge or parry the screen, “flickers”. It’s just for a second, but that’s enough to cause eye irritation. I got stuck twice during this fight because I clipped into a wall, and I had to restart. My first big crash happened during the tree boss at the beginning of the game, while my second happened just after defeating Konrad. Both times the game crashed, I had to restart the PlayStation 5 completely.

After beating Konrad there are more issues, some that I find bigger and more concerning than the ones in the first area.

The frame rate drops in these areas are so significant that I had to pause multiple times, save, and close the game to try to fix it. Even with no enemies on the screen, the frames would skip around for as long as I moved my character.

Twice when I was talking to the npc that upgrades your weapons and armor, her dialogue cut out and I had to once again close and reopen the game. The final nail in the coffin was when I found a tunnel that would take you to a new area. After clicking yes to move to the next area, my game froze. I let it sit for a moment and closed the game about five minutes after it froze.

Final Thoughts

Bleak Faith: Forsaken on the PlayStation 5 feels like an early-access game. I crashed twice, froze once, and had constant frame rate drops in the second area. The early enemies all feel the same and are easy to take down in large groups.

The first boss fight, the tree boss, has incomplete or missing audio. The animations are clunky and often easy to miss while the entire area feels incomplete and the boss itself blends in too well with the tree it’s perched on.

Bleak Faith: Forsaken shows a lot of promise. The world is interesting and was easy for me to get into once I beat Konrad. Some design choices feel out of place, but regardless, the science/fantasy atmosphere is extremely refreshing to see. The atmosphere is the highlight of this game and every time I get to see more of the architecture, I’m happy.

Unfortunately, the bugs brought down my experience and at this time I feel as though Bleak Faith: Forsaken was not ready to launch on the PlayStation 5.

 

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