GreedFall: The Dying World review

I've been waiting for a GreedFall sequel ever since I played through the original in 2019. Rarely during that time could I dedicate myself to that amount of gameplay, but after about thirty hours, I rolled credits. While not everything worked, the lore and world-building captured my interest. I found a lot of the same when I played The Dying World in early access in 2024, and I was intrigued as to if the SPIDERS team could elevate the package. Now that I've again rolled credits, I'm left feeling somewhat akin to my original thoughts: GreedFall 2's story, universe, and inhabitants are worth the journey, but I'm not sure everything else is.

Everything begins in The Dying World in a rather alive section of Teer Fradee, with your character working towards becoming a doneigad – a spiritual leader with a connection to the land. After this extended introduction goes by, your chieftain is murdered, and you and your friends are abducted, taken across the waters, and delivered to the main continent: Gacene. This is a disparate take compared to the original game; that one had you trying to bond with the natives of Teer Fradee. Here, you're stolen from said land and brought to where the colonists are from in order to accomplish their nefarious purposes.

Thankfully, you manage to escape with the help of a few kind people who join you on your journey. From here on out, your adventure has a bit more openness to it, with the option of sailing to new lands in order to seek passage home. I will comment that the early hours are too scripted -- what GreedFall did best was let you make choices, and at the start those aren't as impactful given the drawn out opening. Seriously, it took me five hours just to get to the title screen, and I'd already played all of this in early access to have knowledge of what to do beforehand.

GreedFall's sequel largely succeeds in its narrative attempt. It does so two-fold: the setting and the companions. First, the setting. There is truly nothing out there with the lore GreedFall provides. I've often called it colonial Mass Effect and Great Value Witcher, and both of those comparisons are accurate. The idea of an island of natives, immersed in their tradition and magic, meeting an incoming invasion pulls on real themes from the early Americas, and they are poignant. While the first game touched on the colonialism note, the sequel runs with it. Moving to the perspective of the natives was the best choice, as it shows the other side. Plus, we get to see our hero be a Teer Fradeean, which is just awesome.

As with the first game, the environments are absolutely stellar. Traversing your homeland is great, moving through the enchanting forest and hills of Teer Fradee. Once you get to the continent, everything changes. The cold cobblestone of Peren, the lush boardwalk of the seaside city of Uxantis, the dusty and rocky crags of Olima; all of these exude the personality you expect from them. This is matched by the enemies you find, especially the creatures. Teer Fradee’s wildlife is quite different than what you’ll encounter in Gacene, for sure. I must comment on the scale as well – GreedFall felt contained, but The Dying World feels nearly open-world. Thankfully, a fantastic fast travel system has you places in a jiffy, with near instant loading times.

Secondly, The Dying World once again nails the companions. Each has a completely different look, style, and identity; you won't ever feel like a companion is wasted. As you traverse the world, they will earn XP just as you, and all of them give you the ability to unlock a new skill tree for more cooldowns. This is the one way GreedFall does unlocks right (more on that soon).

I'm enamored by their quests as well. All of them feel quite personal, and are multi-layered. You won't just do a single task and be finished -- engaging with your companions is fleshed out and benefits you in more than just XP. Not only do you gain more relationship points with them to open romantic possibilities, but it will also unlock bonus talents based on their character. I was struggling to accomplish a certain stealth check, but after finishing a companion quest for Fausta, a boost came in that got me through. This also makes choosing your companions more important as having the right one will elevate your chances in certain situations.

That's because the storyline is filled with impactful choices. It's the same reason I loved the first game; you have plenty of ways to accomplish your objective. I wouldn't say there's a perfect solution for every problem either. Building your character, whether you do so in your choice of talents or partied companions, is integral to how you'll get from point A to point B, and it's the most intriguing of the systems.

For example, when walking outside of a crime scene where I gathered information on a current mission, I was met with several outcomes. Another interested group came by, inquiring as to my presence there. Should I talk my way out of it (I had 100% diplomacy, so it made sense)? Should I simply fight them? Maybe have Sybille (a woman from a high-ranking family of Peren) talk to them and clear things up? All roads lead to Rome, but what makes GreedFall special is the journey there.

You do notice a lack of side missions, however. A few pop up at the start, but I found myself rarely coming across more past the title drop. Maybe it's the scope of the game being bigger, but one of my favorite things in the first game was naturally coming across ancillary quests.

Where GreedFall disappoints me, however, is the combat. I'll be plain: it's boring. Going from the action-oriented original to a pause-combat with tactical options just doesn't feel right. I remember playing the first Mass Effect with all of the extras they had for special bullet types and such, and it made the game too complex. Mass Effect 2 managed to cut the fat, and that's the opposite of what happened here.

Engaging with the systems in place in The Dying World feel obtuse and somewhat annoying. I don't care about buffing or nerfing percentages of attacks or defense, I don't want to learn an action point mechanic for cooldowns; they're already on a cool down, why do I need to wait even more? This, tied in with the pause-combat, makes the pacing incredibly slow, and the enemies feel more like uneventful sponges than satisfying victories. Even the outstanding guardian bosses of Teer Fradeean lore come off this way, especially after having to grind up enough just to face them. It also kills the ingenuity of swapping between your party as this is the one area where most will feel like they're doing the same thing unless equipped with magic or guns.

I eventually went the easy route and turned on invincibility just to progress more quickly and enjoy the story. While I applaud the accessibility aspect (similar to how SteelRising from SPIDERS excelled in helping new or disabled players to play), it made me more upset at how the combat was delivered. Given how exceptional the narrative can be, the combat creates a plodding pace and is an obstacle to getting to the best part of the game as you stand and wack at an enemy for a few minutes before rinsing and repeating. While the original's action combat was far from perfect, it was better than this. I might have suggested a different route, following Final Fantasy VII Remake's lead with action combat that allowed for tactical pause; it'd fit The Dying World better.

Build crafting doesn't get a lot better. You're greeted with a bloated menu system of three separate sets of skill trees that can quickly get confusing, with tons of stats and percentages no one wants to read. The worst part is that you'll have to use this for EVERY PARTY MEMBER. I don't know why a button for auto-assigning skill points to your party members is not here; it's an infuriating omission. Every time I went into the menus, I attempted to make choices to better my character, but it really seems like there is just too much information to process for very little benefit beyond a few percentage points. I get that plenty of RPGs are like this, but something like Cyberpunk 2077 at least seems to be more legible by comparison. Crafting a bunch of different skills to chase can be engaging – I really like how Outer Worlds/2 handled it – but here it just isn't.

Technically speaking, The Dying World performs admirably. I had a few issues with frame drops or pop-in while something was loading, and once where a fast travel wouldn't load because the game was left on in Rest Mode. Beyond those few items, it largely runs clean. I'm rather impressed and glad to see SPIDERS took advantage of their early access to deliver a game that runs well.