Eternal Strands begins with a calamity. In this magical world, Weavers use their command of elemental forces for the good of the people. That is, until they sealed themselves within their lands – the Enclave – and left the rest of the world to war and chaos following an event known as the Surge. The remaining Weavers, and magic in general, become about as popular as Justin Bieber at a heavy metal concert, and that’s where we meet Brynn, our hero.
She’s on the road with a Weaver band, attempting to do right by her Weaver heritage, while also looking for a place or group to call her own. Through sheer dumb luck, this group break through the Veil that surrounds the Enclave, beginning the game’s adventure as they find a settlement and begin to explore this abandoned realm.
It’s an evocative starting point, and is followed through with major storytelling accompanied by attractive animated cutscenes, crafting a world that you feel invested in from the off. It’s a shame then that once the opening has concluded, the narrative slows to a glacial pace, with Brynn mostly venturing into the unknown to search and collect something, before bringing it back to base.
Thankfully, you’ll barely notice, as Brynn’s exploration is consistently enthralling. If you’ve played any recent survival game, you’ll recognise many of the crafting and foraging mechanics that Eternal Strands uses. Your earliest encounters see you chopping down trees and bushes, gathering various resources while fighting off the low-level creatures you find dotting the landscape before returning to craft a new item or strengthen an existing one, and then heading out to do it all again.
Where Eternal Strands finds its own identity is in the use of the titular Strands. These Strands are fundamentally the Weavers’ form of magic, giving them elemental powers such as fire and ice, or telekinesis that allows you to throw enemies into crevasses or drag armour off them. There’s more than a hint of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom about the way these powers function, and that’s an immense compliment, even if it’s not wholly reimagined.
New or improved Strands can be gained by taking down the giant enemies that form the other highlight of the game: combat. The different elemental powers can be used in a variety of ways, and become even more interesting when you mix them together. The Ice strand lets you freeze enemies in place, leaving enemies open to a solid thumping with one of your swords, or you could take the extra time to launch them across the map with a different Strand. Alternatively, you could set them, and the ground around them, on fire, watching their health slowly dwindle while everything burns.
The early moments culminate in the arrival of the first Ark, a huge robotic construct intended for building that seems set on dismantling you. Here, you’ll find a smattering of Shadow of the Colossus, and a smidgen of Dragon’s Dogma, as you’re tasked with clambering and climbing up this immense foe while attempting to stay firmly attached to them, rather than grabbed and flung away. As you climb, you can attack specific parts of the Ark, chipping away at armour, cogs and connectors, until you can hack away at the soft and squishy stuff within.
These types of encounters are brilliant, and up to a point, they’re replayable, so you can return to them for the materials you gain from them, letting you strengthen your loadout to deal with the next area’s stronger baddies.
Alongside the incredible giant beasts and memorable smaller creatures you fight, the character design of Eternal Strands is excellent, helping to bring the wonderfully presented world to life. I have to admit, I was often a bit dumbfounded by just how good the game looked, though its smaller-scale leanings become clearer when you dig into it further.
Little things, like the way you’ll come across houses you can’t enter, but can damage the entirety of with a swing or two of your sword, or just the way the mechanics, especially climbing, can feel a bit clunky. That said, as long as you don’t expect AAA production values, you’ll find Eternal Strands a great-looking and vibrantly imagined video game, and one which you’ll love spending time with.
That’s helped by the reliably excellent audio provided by Austin Wintory. His compositions heighten the medieval fantasy setting, adding drama to the action-packed showdowns, while gently easing you into the more thoughtful and melancholic moments of the game’s narrative or your character’s downtime in the central hub. There’s a quiet plaintiveness to Eternal Strands that I wasn’t expecting, with the sense of loneliness and decay accentuated by Wintory’s work.
Your base plays host to various crafting stations, and there’s a nice interplay between discovering new items and reforging your weapons and armour to include them. Brynn doesn’t actually level up, instead taking the Monster Hunter route of putting your progress into your equipment, and I particularly enjoyed the way that each component can alter the colour and composition of each item. There’s just about enough variety here, with new blueprints found out in each area, but I would have liked more armour and weaponry options as well as distinct visual looks to kit Brynn out in. That’s probably being a bit greedy though.
Eternal Strands grabs you with a force not unlike the telekinetic energy Brynn uses. You’ll find hours melt away exploring the world, while you fight against the elements and put your different powers to use in new and interesting ways. Few games achieve the same feat, and while it’s smaller in scale, it shares Breath of the Wild’s ability to wholly absorb you in its mechanics and world. At times, the solitude and disquiet may become overwhelming, and the narrative could feel grander, but this is a genuine delight, and, in many ways, an unexpected one.
