It's a tough start to get off to in Bellwright. For the first two or three hours, you get the faint feeling that the game doesn't respect the player's time, and that a lot of things seem sluggish and like work. The approach to this adventure is characterized by subtly fiddly operation, clicking when picking up the many scattered resources and a lack of idea where and how best to start pitching your first tents – and they are literally tents.
Then again, this difficulty on the way to wresting a piece of self-determination and prosperity from the hostile environment is, to a certain extent, inherent in this type of game. Why else should you bother making friends with surrounding villages, hiring people and gradually building your own settlement out of the ground?
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Strong together
In a game like this, not a little inspired by Valheim or Rimworld, and which should also appeal to fans of a Manor Lord's commodity cycles, the help and well-being that one can experience in a virtual community is the central motivating factor. As soon as you gather the first helping hands around you, everything seems much easier. It has a liberating, empowering effect and is therefore all the more engaging in the experience of initiating a rebellion against an evil queen. So if you have a little grit and the will to push off the rough edges of this game in Early Access, you've come to the right place.
The foundation is a survival system that is reminiscent of Valheim: You don't starve, but you have less life energy and stamina when your stomach is empty. You eat up to three different types of food at the same time and each of them increases your values a little until it is “used up” and you have to refill it. Building buildings and facilities, on the other hand, is more reminiscent of The Forest, except that it still seems a little fiddly to use, because as I said, branches and leaves have to be placed manually and individually in the appropriate place.
However, you quickly gather a few people around you, all with their own names, jobs and values, who can help you with everything possible, which already works excellently in practice with a clever prioritization system. For example, put damaged equipment on the workbench and your blacksmith will take care of it. They also carry out larger construction projects for you on the side. It's up to you whether you want to help fill the basket of ingredients for repairs or construction sites, or whether you want to organize the collection so that you hardly want to have to worry about it yourself anymore. Even if the NPCs currently often get stuck on environmental objects, overall they are doing a very good job.
The first steps in Bellwright
By doing a lot of work, you can then play Bellwright almost like a “normal” action RPG if you want. The combat system relies on directional strikes and blocks in the mount and blade style. Once the punches have been started, the character always follows through and in the beginning you lose patience and eventually rhythm. So it still seems a little stiff, but it is functional and, after a little practice, quite fun. When a horde of bandits, whose aggro you accidentally pulled, run screaming up the hill towards my small entourage, it regularly sends me into a brief panic. Luckily, screen deaths aren't handled too harshly. Your inventory stays with your corpse, but you keep equipped items.
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The fear of the first arrow
The solution to the permadeath of your subordinates also finds a nice middle ground between lax and threatening: If someone from your entourage is struck down, they will respawn in the village seriously injured. Only if he falls in battle again before he recovers is he truly lost. Because settlements are regularly attacked (and thankfully with prior announcement), there is still a lot at stake. Just having to keep track of the condition of your people adds a nice extra layer to the experience. If you have a lot of wounded people, you try to protect them in particular, because every NPC is a valuable, important addition to the village.
This created some magical moments in my first few lessons. When the rapidly approaching winter makes itself felt with growling stomachs and gently falling snowflakes, which turn the green plains grayish, then white, while you face an enemy onslaught, the ruthlessness of the game world hits you with maximum cold. The fear of the first arrow flying into the camp is enormous and motivated me even more to the necessary defiance to steel my burgeoning rebellion against what was coming. In terms of atmosphere, it's done well.
Maybe a word about co-op: You can only come to another player's server as a guest and a new character. You don't adopt your own character from the campaign, which wouldn't make any sense for the game's fiction. In addition, there are currently no dedicated servers. So you only play if the host runs the game on his computer. However, the incredibly large technology tree is tied to the host's score. If you're not that advanced in your world yet, you can still access some cool things straight away. And there is always enough to do to ensure an engaging division of tasks.
Technically and visually, the game has a lot of good moments, but also a few where it doesn't look so great. Especially in cloudy weather (not snow, it looks great), Bellwright's world doesn't seem particularly inviting, with all the space it leaves for your creations. However, standing on the top of a hill at sunrise and looking down into the valley pretty effectively compensates for one or two less pretty views. When it comes to bugs, the NPCs' difficulty finding their way is particularly noticeable. The fact that co-op guests physically remain stationary in the world when they log out only caused more problems for the AI colleagues when I left a friend's game directly in front of a work table that was no longer usable for the AI. I also had to complain about a few crashes. Overall, nothing that wasn't to be expected for early access.
The great skepticism
In many places, people are suspicious when it comes to Donkey Crew's new game. The last title from the Breslau-based company had incredible potential, but is now being handed over to the community for completion so that they can use the new mod tools to find the fun in the PvP aspect that Donkey Crew was unable to uncover. The Bellwright, which is designed solely for solo and co-op, is guaranteed not to have this problem, so that the team can concentrate fully on its talent: creating exciting and ambitious titles about building and fighting. Bellwright could be really good.