Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem Is A Promising ARPG Not Ready For Release

Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem is an ARPG that I didn’t knew existed until it was released on February 13, 2020, exiting Steam’s Early Access program. Let’s just say that I’m one of those people that was impressed with what I saw in their launch trailer. I bought it, clocked in at least 32 hours as of this writing and is a game that I genuinely enjoyed. But man, this is one of the roughest gem i’ve experienced in years.

Wolcen entered Early Access in 2016 and is a Kickstarter game that was once called Umbra, an ambitious ARPG that was backed by many due to the developer’s initial pitch. As development moved forward, key features that made the game appealing to fans were stripped as the developers went for a more familiar approach, which resulted in what we have today - Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem, the game that’s now available on Steam for just P829 (~$15). A game that unfortunately had a rough weekend launch. 

Wolcen has a passive tree with three rotatable layers.

Their spin on familiar features make this a must-play

The game is available to play on either online or offline, but you can’t move your offline character to online servers to play with friends, and vice-versa. It’s a weird restriction that plagued those eager to play Wolcen at launch as online servers went down a day after release and lasted all weekend. It was thanks to a series of game-breaking bugs that WOLCEN Studio, the developers, had to fix. 

The gameplay is what held everything together when I was going through the campaign. It was satisfying enough that while waiting for the servers to go up, I had fun playing my offline character who was a mage/gun hybrid. When online play was made available, I hopped back into my online character who was built to be melee-focused, and it felt great doing the same content I did a couple of days ago. Because in the end I was having fun. Build diversity was there from the start.

Skills level up and can be equipped with skill modifiers to alter their effects when used.

Wolcen is a game that borrows features from the best, like Path of Exile or the Diablo series. Jumping into the game for the first time and seeing the build possibilities made me excited again for these kinds of RPGs. Their unique resource management system was also a great touch to entice players to mix up loadouts as well. And to top it all off, performing the skills that instantly kills hordes of enemies was satisfying each time it happens. Wolcen has a lot going for it but despite it being in development for years, this title is undercooked for public consumption. Looking back, I’m surprised I endured this game for this long.

Champion of Stormfall is a new game mode that unlocks once you finish the campaign.

Wolcen needed more time for polish

Bugs are consistent that it felt like the game was being held together by strings and that the whole game could crumble at any moment. It wasn’t crashing, at least for me, as FPS was stable and ran smoothly all throughout, but everything else in-between just drags the game down to the point of exhaustion. 

I need to left click within my inventory for the details to pop up when I hover over items with my mouse. Audio keeps breaking in boss fights. I died so hard that the boss just disappeared. Some skills don’t hit if enemies are inside your character’s model. My legendary piece disappeared in my storage the moment I stored it. I fell down the world after porting back from town. The hilarious T-poses during cutscenes float. Server lag. The list goes on. 

Wolcen’s Discord and Reddit is filled with various complaints about the game from server issues to lost items, endgame issues, the ability to duplicate valuable items, and more. The posts are hilarious but concerning.

1.0.4 Working as Intended from r/Wolcen

This is a great ARPG that deserves the attention it’s currently receiving because they have a gorgeous game with the potential to be among one of the best games in it’s genre. But this is something that you should not jump into right this minute, like what I did. The current state of the game is more of a test of endurance and patience. Keep this one in your wishlist for now and wait for a series of major patches before fully committing. I applaud what the developers have here, but it’s hard to recommend Wolcen in it’s current state.

A full review of the game is in order but I’ve only finished the campaign and endgame progression is an integral part as to why many play these types of games. Champion of Stormfall, the new game mode that unlocks after completing the campaign, is their take on Diablo 3’s Adventure mode, complete with Greater Rifts-like dungeons and a town building simulation that’s tied to you finding the best gear and beating the toughest challenges in the game. Sounds fun, but will most of it work as intended?

---