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Atomfall

Cumbria, 1962. An amnesiac awakens with no memory of their past or purpose. They are, somehow, in the security zone surrounding the Windscale atomic plant. In 1957, the plant suffered a partial nuclear meltdown. Thousands were evacuated, but hundreds decided to remain, with the military sent in to secure the area. But some of the locals have adopted strange beliefs, becoming raiders or "druids", conducting pagan rites in the forest. The memory-addled stranger may be a key to unlocking the mysteries of "the Interchange" and helping one of the numerous factions in the zone achieve victory and escape.

Atomfall is a survival action game from Rebellion, the team behind the Sniper Elite series and, way back in the day, the likes of Alien vs. Predator 2, as well as the owners of the 2000AD comic book and its numerous spin-offs (including Judge Dredd). The game is something of a change of pace from them, drawing influences from a huge number of pop media sources to create something that's interesting, though perhaps a little under-explored.

Played from a first-person perspective, you guide your character - about whom you know exactly nothing, not even their gender (since the character is unvoiced) - through the four districts of the Windscale Exclusion Zone. The game makes a very bold and interesting choice by eschewing the normal quest system of such games, instead giving you "leads," bits of information relating to the situation at hand. These lands may tie into the main story, or various side-quests or faction missions (or some mixture thereof). You can follow a single lead to progress the story, but sometimes continuing your exploration may find other leads related to the same event or character, revealing more information. Someone who first appears to be a trustworthy ally may turn out to be ruthless and amoral monster if you compare notes from different sources. This is a very interesting idea which kind of works, though the game's diligence in tracking leads in your journal does sometimes start to resemble a standard quest log.

Although the game has been compared a lot to the Fallout franchise from the name and the retrofuturistic vibe, the game is not really an RPG. There are skill trees you can advance along but these are fairly limited. There are dialogue choices but often there's nothing stopping you from asking every single choice, without it blocking off progression (that only happens through your actions, not words). The vibe is a lot closer to the STALKER franchise, which recently celebrated a big hit with the splendid STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl. You have a very limited inventory, can only carry a small number of weapons and supplies, and you rely on crafting skills to create new items in the field. There are merchants in the game (at least one per zone), although there is no currency. Instead you have to barter items you have for items they have, which is a very interesting spin on things. 

Combat is serviceable, with a reasonable variety of weapons: you have the standard submachine guns, rifles, shotguns, grenades and pistols, as well melee weapons such as knives and, very appropriately, cricket bats. There is also a bow for stealth. Ammo is extremely scarce, meaning that you quickly have to master the art of melee combat unless you want to blow all of the ammo you've spent an hour scavenging in two minutes. Stealth is, unfortunately, not very good. The enemy can spot you easily in long grass from quite a distance (making the value of long grass questionable) and, at absolute best, you'll only take down one enemy from a group from stealth before the rest of their comrades are alerted. Given that Rebellion have a very robust stealth system in their Sniper Elite series, it's a bit baffling at how poor Atomfall's is. Still, at least stealth is not an overpowered insta-win button, which is the opposing end of the problem. Enemy AI is generally good though, as is usual, the human enemies are far more interesting to fight than the various mutated creatures. The game also technically allows you to pursue a nonlethal playthrough, although that is tough, or kill every single character in the game (tougher due to respawning areas). In both cases you can still finish the game.

An important part of the game is exploration. Leads don't take you to every corner of every map, and important side-quests can only be picked up by spotting an interesting building on the horizon and heading over to take a look. Curiosity is well-rewarded, with optional bunkers, cellars and ruins often yielding fresh supplies, though sometimes at the cost of more combat. Quests can determine the hostility of factions, and aligning with a faction leader can see their forces stand down and allow you to pass, or even help you against other enemies or mutants. The four districts are not huge, but each is very well-designed and dense with points of interest. The four maps are also linked by a central structure, the Interchange, a base of operations which sprawls with sub-levels and areas sealed off. Getting the Interchange up and running, and opening all the areas and wings, is very satisfying, reminiscent of the space station in Prey, though rather faster to accomplish.

The tone of the game is fairly serious, though there is a thin vein of black humour running through things. British cultural references abound: multiple nods to Doctor Who (including those terrifying gas mask enemies from the Empty Child two-parter), Judge Dredd, Quatermass, Dan Dare, When the Wind Blows and even Last of the Summer Wine can be detected. One moment the game is making you think of the utterly terrifying nuclear war TV movie Threads, and the next the bucolic cottages and winding country lanes are instead making you think of Postman Pat. Tonal variation is something the game does very well.

The game entertains and amuses, but only relatively briefly. I put the game away at just under 16 hours, including unlocking three of the apparent six endings (the others require replaying the last few missions again). Normally I'm the first to applaud a game which resists the temptation to be a 150-hour bloatathon, but Atomfall risks falling on the other side of the coins. A lot of characters, factions and backstory are decidedly under-developed, and the central mystery of who you are and what you are doing in Cumbria never really gets addressed. The identity of the mysterious "Voice on the Telephone" is only alluded to, and you only get a partial explanation for what happened during the original Windscale disaster. Atomfall often feels too much like an extended demo or proof-of-concept for a larger game which has more room to breathe. Still, the game's size does mean its focus and pacing is pretty good.

Atomfall (***½) has a lot to recommend it, with an interesting atmosphere, solid story, fun exploration, great art design and a lot of player freedom. But the combat is only ever serviceable, stealth is pretty borked and other game systems (crafting, upgrades, skills) are just okay at best. The short length of the game is refreshing in some respects, but asks a lot of the player in terms of things being left unexplained. Atomfall is solid but feels like it needs an expansion or sequel to start achieving more of its potential.

The game is available now on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and XBox One and XBox Series X.

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Tactical Breach Wizards

Years ago, freelance tactical wizard Zan had to make a hard choice between saving a civilian and saving his team-mate. The choice has haunted him ever since. When his former colleagues resurface, now working for a ruthless paramilitary organisation subverting several nations for their own ends, Zan teams up with private investigator Jen to find out what's going on and stop them. Along the way, they accumulate a number of allies and have to tackle a powerful, insidious enemy and her capable henchman...and also the totally non-feared Traffic Warlock, Steve Clark. Screw that guy.

Before we continue, a moment of thanks for Tactical Breach Wizards, one of the best video game titles of all time. This is a video game about wizards, who like to breach things. Tactically. Short. To the point. Succinct. Violent. It sums up the game quite well.

Tactical Breach Wizards looks a bit like an XCOM clone, with its isometric (but fully 3D, pannable, zoomable, tiltable etc) view, grid of squares, the ability to take cover, set up intricate special moves, unleash standard shots, use once-per-mission special skills and combos etc. We've been here before, many times, but rarely with as much panache.

It helps that this is one of the best-written examples of the genre, with a script that mixes dry humour with wry observations on the absurdity of what's going on without quite crossing the line into Marvel "did that just happen?" quip-humour (it gets tight a few times, but the game mostly avoids it). Instead, it feels a bit more Douglas Adams, which isn't a bad place to be. The game deploys a cast of five playable characters who are all various shades of messed-up, and the game develops their personalities and backgrounds through their in-mission abilities and solo training missions which delve into their psyches at the same time they are delving their fists, bullets and spells into enemy skulls. It's a very time-efficient process of deepening the characters, getting the player more acquainted with their abilities and just blowing stuff up. And throwing people through windows. A lot.

The worldbuilding is also exceptional, being basically a modern world with magic, but the story is a good exploration of how that would work, and why anybody would choose to direct traffic as a job when they can bend reality to their will. I'd like to see more of this world.

The early game does suffer a little from you having access to only a tiny number of abilities, so the early missions tend to have very optimal ways of playing them and anything else will either cause you to fail or take a lot of damage in the process of winning. This is something I dislike about tactical combat games - the subgroup that pretends to be tactical combat but actually are just puzzle games with a single way of completing them - but Tactical Breach Wizards only spends a brief amount of time in this space. As more characters join the team and more abilities unlock, your options for completing each mission increase almost exponentially (and certainly chaotically), with huge amounts of fun to be had on working out how to combine Banks' portals with Rion's werewolf bites and Dall's rugby-style tackles to maximum mayhem.

The minimalist graphical style is extremely characterful and works well, whilst also meaning the game will work on a potato (seriously, this thing could have come out before the turn of last century and still played as well). The lack of spoken dialogue may be a barrier for some, given there's a lot of it, but it's at least frugally effective, and allowed the writers to tweak dialogue right up to release. The game also has good pacing, taking 15 hours or less to put away the main campaign storyline, but mastering the various optional challenge levels, optional side-missions and the bonus objectives within the main missions will take significantly longer.

Tactical Breach Wizards (****½) does what it says on the tin. Play wizards blasting people through windows, with much better writing and worldbuilding than you'd expect. The game is available now on PC.

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A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett

Tiffany Aching has begun her apprenticeship as a witch, working for Miss Tick, who has one soul but two bodies. After a dull start to her work, they are accosted by a hiver, a formless spirit which can possess living bodies, driving them to acts of malice. Tiffany has to fight for her body and soul, but fortunately has a group of surprisingly capable allies: the diminutive, oft-drunk Nac Mac Feegle, and the formidably competent Granny Weatherwax.

A Hat Full of Sky is the thirty-second Discworld novel and the second (of an eventual five) to focus on the character of Tiffany Aching. Originally published in 2004, Terry Pratchett had decided to write a series of Discworld books aimed at younger readers. Amusingly, due to Pratchett's utter refusal to talk down to children, he doesn't entirely seem to know how to do this, so has knocked off the occasional double entendre from his writing and shaved off about 100 pages from his average page count but otherwise carried on as normal.

As a result, A Hat Full of Sky feels like vintage Pratchett, just more focused (no bad thing; some Discworld books tend to circle the drain a few times before finding their point, which is not the case here). The cast is much smaller than normal, the scope more intimate, bordering on the claustrophobic. Given the nature of the story is very internal, this feels appropriate.

The main story, ostensibly, is about Tiffany getting possessed and "turned bad," although Pratchett seems to be ahead on the curve on how this could have been tedious. Tiffany only spends a small amount of time possessed by the hiver, with most of the book revolving around events before and after. Pratchett is often less interested in the most obvious route to humour or action, and more interested in causes and results. Pratchett is also a very human writer, so here his focus is more on the impact caused by events on Tiffany's character and even feeling empathy for the hiver, the "monster" of the story.

That's not to say the book isn't funny. Pratchett's skill at wordplay and minor-but-amusing worldbuilding details (some of them drawing on real-life folklore, as the afterword attests) remains undimmed. He also spends a bit more time making the Nac Mac Feegle a deeper and more interesting culture. Them showing up drunk, head-butting a badger and yelling "crivens!" can only get you so far, so here a more thorough exploration of Rob Anybody's character and the motivations of his new queen - who finds the tribe's allegiance to Tiffany bemusing - adds more depth to a group previously only known for knockabout comedy value.

Pratchett also deploys Granny Weatherwax with restraint, though she has more page-time than in The Wee Free Men. One of Discworld's most iconic, formidable and impressive protagonists, it would be easy for Granny to take over the narrative and deal with Tiffany's problems for her in five minutes, so Pratchett is good at using her tactically during the book's finale, so as not to outshine our actual protagonist. Tiffany herself develops nicely here, the traditional "why am I not being taught actual magic on Day One of learning to be a witch?" storyline being quickly displaced by a more thoughtful, intelligent examination of responsibility, empathy and consequences.

A Hat Full of Sky (****) is Pratchett at his most focused and disciplined here, delivering a smart, tight story. It's not the most expansive Discworld story and some may prefer the more widescreen/deranged antics of, say, the City Watch in Ankh-Morpork, but it's a very solid read.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

DOCTOR WHO celebrates the 20th anniversary of its revival

Doctor Who is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its revival. The episode Rose, written by Russell T. Davies, aired on the BBC on 26 March 2005, introducing the Ninth Doctor (played by Christopher Eccleston) and his companion Rose (Billie Piper) to a whole new generation of fans, sixteen years after the original run of the show had come to an end.

Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, in a publicity still for the launch of the new Doctor Who in 2005.

Russell T. Davies had been a Doctor Who fan since childhood and had been trying to resurrect the show since he began his writing career. One of his first projects, Dark Season (1991), was almost a stealth teen revival of the show, featuring an eccentric, brainy protagonist (Marcie, played by Victoria Lambert) and her two "companions," one of whom was played by Kate Winslet, fighting an evil corporation trying to conquer the world with a killer AI. As Davies' star rose, he tried several times to relaunch the show, with the BBC strongly considering a proposal from him called Doctor Who 2000 in 1999 but demurring due to ongoing attempts to launch a feature film based on the franchise. It was only after the enormous success of Davies' Queer as Folk on Channel 4 that the BBC courted him seriously and agreed to revive Doctor Who, announcing the news in late 2003.

To revive the show, Davies decided to make sweeping changes to the format, many of which troubled long-time fans who'd been waiting a decade and a half for regular new episodes. He chose to model the show after contemporary American genre dramas like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He decided 45-minute episodes could pack more story and worldbuilding in than the old 25-minute format, but he also decided to make most of the episodes standalones, compared to the old format of serials consisting of 4-6 episodes (with outliers of stories lasting up to 14 episodes). This meant mostly doing away with cliffhangers - a staple of the classic show - and wrapping up stories very quickly (after some consideration he did allow for a few two-parters, restoring the cliffhanger experience, albeit occasionally). A common complaint of Davies' initial run was that episodes were too fast-paced, hectic and difficult to follow. But he also integrated serialised storytelling, with each season having a mystery or story that unfolds in the background of the individual episode storylines, only coming to the fore at the end of each season.

David Tennant is the most popular actor to play the Doctor since the show's return. He played the Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010, subsequently returning for the 50th anniversary special in 2013. He then returned again for three special episodes celebrating the 60th anniversary in 2023, playing the Fourteenth Doctor. 

He also decided to revamp the show's mythology. Between the original show and the new run, a vast "Time War" had taken place, in which the Doctor's homeworld of Gallifrey had been destroyed and his species, the Time Lords, rendered extinct. The Doctor is dealing with the stress of this event, leaving him somewhat more aloof than he was before, until he meets young London shop-worker Rose Tyler, whom reminds him of his sense of adventure and morality. As the first series unfolds, we learn that the Doctor's most enduring foes, the Daleks, were also destroyed in the Time War, but it's not too long before the Doctor starts encountering survivors of the conflict. Events culminate in the epic series finale, where he has to hold off an entire battle fleet of Daleks from destroying Earth.

One of Davies' masterstrokes was casting Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. Eccleston was known mostly for very serious, intense roles in TV shows like Our Friends in the North and Cracker, and movies like Shallow Grave. Davies had worked with Eccleston on The Second Coming, a mini-series where Eccleston plays someone who may (or may not) be the Second Coming of Jesus, except this time around the Son of God has decided to incarnate in Manchester (where else?). For himself, Eccleston had wanted to try his hands at more comedic roles and being a role-model for children. His casting brought gravitas to the project. Davies was also impressed with the audition of Billie Piper, a former teen pop star who was looking to reinvent herself as an actress. Piper brought tabloid interest to the new show and cynicism about stunt casting, but her performance ultimately won over doubters.

Matt Smith played the Eleventh Doctor from 2010 to 2014. He remains the youngest and least-known actor to have played the role, but was a huge success, with the show achieving arguably its highest level of international success during his run. The role made Smith a star, paving the way for his later roles in The Crown and his ongoing role in House of the Dragon.

Many people, including those at the BBC, were worried about reviving the show. They feared the premise was too hokey and kids playing video games or watching reality shows or cooler US series wouldn't be interested. They needn't have worried. Doctor Who's return was an immense ratings success and, after some initial doubting, a critical one as well. The BBC, impressed with the show's performance, quickly commissioned another season, and almost immediately ran into a major problem.

Christopher Eccleston had not enjoyed filming, especially in the early going of the season, and had clashed badly with one of the directors. Eccleston felt he did not have sufficient backup from the producers and decided to quit (he almost changed his mind after the later blocks of filming went far more smoothly, but decided to stick to his guns). The story was threatening to leak to the media, so the BBC rushed out a press release which included quotes from Eccleston that he'd never said, leading to friction.

Peter Capaldi played the Twelfth Doctor from 2013 to 2017, with Jenna Coleman playing his companion Clara from 2012 to 2015. Although several of the show's most critically-acclaimed episodes aired during this tenure, the Capaldi era was criticised for being too adult and dark, and saw the show start to lose viewers, despite dealing with more interesting storylines.

Davies steadied the ship by convincing David Tennant - whom he'd worked with on a Casanova mini-series - to step in to replace Eccleston and quickly moved into production on the second series. However, it appears that attempts to mend fences with Eccleston, if any were made, were not successful. Though Eccleston later returned for some audio dramas and renewed his friendship with Billie Piper, he refused to consider returning to the show under Davies' stewardship (he did consider a request to return for the 50th anniversary celebrations under Steven Moffat, but ultimately demurred).

Despite that bump in the road, Doctor Who's return was extraordinarily successful. Since 2005, the revamped Doctor Who has aired 188 episodes across 14 seasons of television. It has managed to air at least one episode in every year since its return (though 2016 and 2019 only saw one episode apiece air for the whole year). Six actors have played the Doctor since the show's resurrection: Christopher Eccleston (2005), David Tennant (2005-10, 2022-23), Matt Smith (2010-14), Peter Capaldi (2013-17), Jodie Whittaker (2017-22) and Ncuti Gatwa (2023-present), although several alternate/"guest" incarnations of the Doctor have been played by actors including John Hurt and Jo Martin. In addition, all of the surviving earlier actors to have played the Doctor have made returning guest appearances, with the deceased ones returning via stock footage or being recast. At least sixteen regular "companion" characters have also starred in the show (depending on how you count them, there could be quite a few more). Three showrunners have helmed the show since its return: Russell T. Davies (2005-10, 2023-present), Steven Moffat (2010-17) and Chris Chibnall (2018-22).

The revamped show also resulted in three spin-off shows airing: Torchwood (2006-11), The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007-11) and Class (2016).

Jodie Whittaker played the Thirteenth Doctor from 2017 to 2022, the first woman to play the role long-term. Although her performance was praised, her era was contentious for inconsistent writing, dubious lore retcons, too many characters and, after a strong start, declining ratings.

Doctor Who has faced some stiff challenges since its return. The BBC considered cancelling the show when both Tennant and Davies decided to leave after a run of special episodes ending in 2010, but decided to give new actor Matt Smith and new showrunner Steven Moffat a chance, with both delivering the show to new heights of success. The show arguably achieved its cultural zenith during its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013, with a special episode shown in cinemas around the world and the show making a breakthrough in the United States, albeit a relatively short-lived one. However, the show suffered from the BBC's declining fortunes through the 2010s, with the corporation's funding under severe strain. The show went from airing a season a year to sometimes splitting a season and its attendant specials across two or even three years. The episode count was gradually cut from 13 at the start of the decade to 10 by its end. The show was also buffeted by the arrival of streaming platforms, with first-run ratings gradually declining over the latter 2010s. Production problems caused by COVID badly impacted the end of Jodie Whittaker's era.

Critically, the revived era of the show was always somewhat divisive, but with the showing enjoying huge ratings, merchandising sales and popular success, this was not a major problem until ratings started falling during the Peter Capaldi era. Some critics and fan reviewers argued the show had become too dark and depressing during this period, and younger viewers did not relate as well to Capaldi playing an older version of the Doctor. However, there was widespread praise for occasional classic episodes (like Listen and Heaven Sent). Reviewers became more negative with the arrival of the Chris Chibnall era, with widespread criticism of the writing and characterisation, particularly the issues caused by a more crowded TARDIS crew (with four regular characters instead of just two, to try to lighten the workload on the actor playing the Doctor). There was also anger about the decision to retcon the Doctor's origin story, which was poorly-explained, even more poorly-explored and never really resolved. After an initial bump, this era saw ratings continue to decline.

Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday and Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor, the incumbent TARDIS crew. Their era has seen Disney take over as co-financiers and international distributors for the franchise, but has had a mixed critical and commercial reception so far.

To reverse ailing fortunes, the BBC re-hired Russell T. Davies and entered into a co-production and international distribution deal with Disney+. First-run ratings on the BBC continued to decline, but Disney acknowledged the show had performed solidly for them (though not spectacularly). Critics continued to be divided, but there was at least universal agreement that the 8-episode seasons under the Disney deal were far too short to deliver satisfying story arcs, and a scheduling issue with new actor Ncuti Gatwa (that saw almost half his first season be made up of "Doctor-light" episodes) adversely impacted the show.

All sorts of rumours are now floating around regarding the show's future. A new eight-episode season, the fifteenth since its return (and forty-first in total), is in the can and will start airing on 12 April. A five-episode spin-off mini-series, The War Between the Land and the Sea, is also in the can and is expected to air in late 2025, completing the deal between the BBC and Disney+. Whether the deal will be renewed or not remains to be seen.

If the revamped Doctor Who does end here, it will have been a hell of a run, mostly very successful but with some missed opportunities. Given Doctor Who's universal and timeless themes, I'm pretty sure it will eventually return in some form or another, hopefully not taking another sixteen years to do so.

Avowed

The Emperor of Aedyr has sent an envoy to the island-continent known as the Living Lands. A plague known as the Dreamscourge is ravaging the land, transforming all it touches into monsters. The Envoy has to coordinate with local forces and representatives of the Empire to locate the source of the infection and neutralise it. But with the Living Lands ravaged by political intrigue, religious debates, insularity and extreme suspicion of the Empire's motives, this is easier said than done.

A new Obsidian Entertainment game is always worth a look. As Obsidian and, before that, Black Isle Studios and, before even that, the internal RPG development studio at Interplay, this group has almost thirty years' experience making intriguing, if often janky, RPG experiences. These range from the original Fallout via Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Knights of the Old Republic II, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas to Tyranny and the two Pillars of Eternity games.

Avowed is their third game in recent years designed to court a larger, more commercial audience, following on from the solid (if slight) The Outer Worlds and the excellent survival game Grounded (which is their most successful game ever). Avowed is a first-person action-RPG with a very solid story that eschews the current trend for open-world games in favour of more tightly-designed zones. However, any thought that this is "The Outer Worlds with magic and swords," should be banished. Avowed's five zones are each pretty big, there are a much larger number of side-quests and there is a much more elaborate system for gear, including upgrading, enchanting unique weapons and selling.

The game's story follows the Envoy (you design the character, generating their name and stats, and choosing their gender and appearance) as they try to track down the source of the Dreamscourge. Your mission gets off to a bad start with a shipwreck and then being marooned on an island, which acts as a tutorial area. Once you get off the island you are quickly assigned a bunch of missions by the local Aedyran Ambassador but can also take on additional quests to try to win over the trust of the locals. Despite the fantasy setting and first-person viewpoint (a third-person mode is available, but is a bit janky), there's actually a whiff of the original Mass Effect to proceedings. Your status as Envoy give you a wide latitude and special powers in dealing with missions (a bit like a Spectre) and you almost immediately meet a charismatic cynic of a warrior voiced by Brandon Keener (here playing big green man Kai rather than Turian sarcasm-generator Garrus). The wide-open areas and the non-linear questing does quickly dispel that familiarity but it is a sign of how Avowed likes to cherry-pick influences to build itself up.

There aren't any character classes in the game, with you instead picking skills from one of three trees as you level up. Ranger skills emphasis stealth and ranged attacks (Skyrim fans will be happy to know that a Stealth Archer build is viable, though not as overpowered as in that game), Mage skills emphasise magic, and Warrior skills emphasise melee combat and shields. You can mix skills impressively and can switch between wielding a bow, sword or spellbook mid-combat. Avowed's combat is fast, furious and quite ridiculous fun, with different builds allowing you to vary your combat styles immensely. Weaknesses in one area can be mitigated by your companion characters. You have up to four companions and up to two of them can join you in your adventuring (although, apart from Kai, they require some convincing first). Kai favours melee, cynical dwarf Marius prefers ranged combat, Giatta acts as a magical support and healer and Yatzli unleashes high-powered destructive magic. Periodically you can make camp and exchange information with your party-members.

I did find the small size of the party a bit odd. Most RPGs, like Mass Effect, the Dragon Age or Baldur's Gate series, allow you to build up a considerable number of allies, perhaps up to a dozen, and only take 3-5 of them into battle with your. Avowed only having 4 companion characters makes you wonder why you can't just take all of them with you on quests, a possibility given more weight by important major quests which actually allow you to do just that. This feels like the next RPG sacred cow that really needs to be slain.

If combat is fun, then simply travelling around can be even moreso. Avowed uses a parkour-like traversal system, with your character happily yanking themselves up cliff-faces and onto roofs. Movement is slick and enjoyable, though the occasional first-person problem of sometimes getting stuck on a bit of scenery you can't see easily mid-combat does rear it's head from time to time. Avowed rewards exploration, with side-paths often leading to treasure, gear or optional combat encounters your can undertake for more experience.

The main narrative is...fine. It's perfectly serviceable, and sometimes intriguing. Avowed takes place in the same world as Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity series, a more traditional and old-skool isometric CRPG series, and this gives them access to a vast amount of worldbuilding and background lore. Familiarity with the earlier games is not required but it does add more depth to events. My main complaint about the narrative is that it does rely a bit too much on the "mysterious voice in your head" trope. Cyberpunk 2077 handled this well, Baldur's Gate III not as well but that game had so much going on it wasn't too much of an issue, but here it feels like the idea is painfully overused. I can easily go another twenty years at this point without ever exploring this idea again.

Though the story is fine, it's nothing special. The theme of colonisation is handled in a thoughtful manner with lots of arguments and ideas floating around it, but it's nothing revelatory. Dialogue is also fine, sometimes over-expository and occasionally clunky, but with a wry sense of humour and the ability to spin on a dime and become more serious. The problem is that Obsidian are known for excellent writing, more thoughtful exploration of themes and much more in-depth storytelling, so for those elements to be downplayed here feels odd. Still, maybe the recent Dragon Age: Veilguard'svery poor writing and dialogue will flatter Avowed in the comparison here.

In fact, that's a good assessment of Avowed: excellent combat, traversal and exploration but so-so storytelling and dialogue is the complete inverse of their normal approach, which is to have brilliant storytelling but janky gameplay mechanics. Given that approach may have won them a small group of hardcore fans and complete indifference from the mass public, perhaps inverting it is the right idea (it certainly paid off hugely in Grounded).

I also appreciate the game's breeziness compared to recent games (particularly as I played this immediately after Final Fantasy VII Rebirth's interminable, seemingly never-ending cavalcade of quests, side-quests, battle challenges and minigames). At about 40 hours - rather more for full exploration and achievement-hunting - it's not a short game by any means, but it doesn't outstay its welcome, and the shorter size means a replay with a different build becomes a more tempting prospect.

The only other complaint I can muster here (temporarily, at least) is technical: Avowed launched in a splendid state and playing the game was absolutely smooth sailing, with the game being probably their most polished ever on release. Unfortunately, something broke in one of their updates and the game started crashing, some quests became incompletable etc. Obsidian have promised to fix that quickly, but I ended up having to finish the game without using elemental status weapons (which kept causing crashes after 35 hours of being fine) and had to replay half a dungeon with a different companion to properly trigger an ending cut scene. Sigh.

Avowed (****) is a tight, focused RPG experience with outstanding combat and exploration. Its storytelling and characterisation is decent and occasionally great. The format of using tighter zones to tell a more constrained story results in a much less flabby game than some recent ones. But there is a slight feeling here that Obsidian are not playing to their strengths, and maybe next time around they can couple great gameplay mechanics to a stronger narrative. As it stands though, Avowed is a very good time, but not a classic.

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Terry Brooks announces semi-retirement from writing

Fantasy author Terry Brooks has announced that he is "semi-retiring" from writing at the age of 81. His Shannara setting will continue to be explored through new books by Delilah Dawson, with him providing advice, editing and feedback. Brooks noted that his recent writing had become more difficult mentally and physically for him, and he wanted to bow out before his skills degraded further.

Terry Brooks began his career as a lawyer, and started writing as a spare-time hobby. A fan of Tolkien, he began writing his first Shannara novel in 1968 and completed it in 1974. He submitted it for publication, and Judy-Lynn Del Rey at Ballantine Books picked it up. She worked with Brooks on a thorough revision of the novel for over two years, because she had a firm belief it would be a commercial smash if handled right. Towards the end of the editing period, Ballantine gave Del Rey and her husband Lester their own imprint, Del Rey Books, and they selected Brooks' novel to be one of their first titles.

The Sword of Shannara was published in early 1977 and was an immediate smash hit, despite derisive critical reviews for its alleged similarities to Lord of the Rings. Alongside Stephen Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, the first book in The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the novel was credited for kickstarting the post-Tolkien epic fantasy boom.

Brooks took a while to capitalise on the success. His planned sequel novel did not work out well, and he eventually junked the book to start over with a new title called The Elfstones of Shannara. Finally published in 1982, the book was more warmly critically-received (and is still often cited as his best novel) for taking the series in a different direction. The Wishsong of Shannara concluded the initial Shannara Trilogy in 1985.

Brooks did not immediately plan to over-exploit the series and instead wrote a new series of comedic fantasies called the Magic Kingdom of Landover series, which saw a person from our world inherit ownership of a fantasy kingdom, with resulting hijinks. The first book was titled Magic Kingdom for Sale - SOLD! (1986) and was succeeded by five more books, published irregularly until 2009. The series never matched Shannara's profile.

He returned to the world of Shannara in with the four-volume Heritage of Shannara series (1990-93) and prequel novel First King of Shannara (1996). His apocalyptic urban fantasy series The Word & Void (1997-99) initially appeared unconnected but was later revealed to be a prequel to the Shannara series, revealing how our world becomes the one seen in the books.

After this point he wrote the Voyage of the Jerle Shannara series (2000-2002), the High Druid of Shannara trilogy (2003-05), Genesis of Shannara trilogy (2006-08), Legends of Shannara duology (2010-11), Paladins of Shannara short story trilogy (2012-13), Dark Legacy of Shannara trilogy (2012-13), Defenders of Shannara series (2014-16) and the Fall of Shannara quartet (2017-20).

Galaphile, due for publication tomorrow (!), is the first novel in the First Druids of Shannara series and will now be the last novel written by Brooks alone. Delilah Dawson will complete the series with Brooks' input.

Brooks has also written or co-written several Shannara spin-off books. The series spawned both a 1995 computer game and a TV show that ran for two seasons on MTV in 2016-17.

Brooks has written other works, including the Viridian Deep trilogy (2021-23), Street Freaks (2018), and a writing memoir, Sometimes the Magic Works (2003). He also wrote the novelisations for the films Hook (1991) and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).

Delilah Dawson is best-known for her Star Wars work, including the novels Phasma and Black Spire. She also worked on the Rick & Morty, Star Pig and Sparrowhawk comic series. Her original fiction includes the Blud series, Shadow sequence and, alongside Kevin Hearne, the Tales of Pell trilogy.

It's very unusual for an author to end their career gracefully and on their own terms. In a 48-year career, Brooks has published 45 novels in total, 33 of them in the Shannara universe, and sold over 50 million books, making him one of the biggest-selling living epic fantasy authors (possibly the biggest-selling, only behind George R.R. Martin). He was rarely a critical darling, but gained an enthusiastic fanbase by writing energetic, pulp fantasy and by being widely-regarded as one of the nicest guys in the business. Here's to an enjoyable retirement.

JV Jones completes ENDLORDS, the penultimate SWORD OF SHADOWS book

Fantasy author JV Jones has completed Endlords, the long, long, long-awaited fifth and penultimate book in the Sword of Shadows fantasy series.

To say the series has been gestating for a while is an understatement: the first book, A Cavern of Black Ice (1999) was published last century. It was succeeded by A Fortress of Grey Ice (2002), A Sword from Red Ice (2007) and Watcher of the Dead (2010), all very fine novels cumulatively building one of the greatest epic fantasy series of the last generation, with superb writing, characterisation and worldbuilding. But after Watcher's publication in 2010, Jones dropped off the radar and many years of radio silence followed. She finally resurfaced in late 2017 via Patreon, confirming that her writing career had been thrown off-track by a succession of personal crises (including bereavements and cross-country moves).

Since then, Jones has been working on a stand-alone urban fantasy novel called Sorry Jones to get back into the swing of things, and then Endlords, the fifth book in The Sword of Shadows. The book's writing process has been slow, due to Jones having a day job and other time commitments, but progress has been steady. Progress exploded in the last few months as she was freed up from those other time commitments and was able to work full-time on the novel to deliver it over the finish line.

The book consists of 62 chapters, which is more than any other in the series, although she notes this may come down in the edit. The full size of the book is unclear, except it is longer than Watcher of the Dead.

ETA: The book is about 250,000 words, compared to A Cavern of Black Ice's 293,000 words. This would make Endlords the second or third-longest book in the series, by a whisker either way.

When the book will be published is unclear. The previous four books were published by Tor Books in the US and Orbit in the UK, but the fifteen-year-wait for Endlords has exceeded all the timelines in her contracts. The prior books in the series have also become harder to find in recent years, and Jones' profile is lower than it was back in the late 1990s and 2000s. There'll likely be contract re-negotiations and extended publication timelines to consider. Tor may also be looking at how fast the sixth and final book in the series could come out, so they're not left hanging again for a long period of time.

Jones does have an interesting additional carrot in any such dealing though, as the rights to her earlier (and still very fine) Book of Words trilogy, set in the same world as Sword of Shadows, has recently reverted to her. This would give any new publisher an impressive eight books with a lot of critical acclaim (and Robert Jordan cover quotes) to relaunch the series.

Hopefully the publishers will be able to confirm a publication plan soon, though I think late 2026 to early 2027 might be the earliest we could realistically expect to see the book.

Jones is also the first (albeit least-known) of four fantasy authors who have left us hanging for over a decade for their next books to actually deliver the next one. Hopefully a good sign that George, Patrick and Scott can follow up soon.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

The resistance group Avalanche has been fighting a desperate war with Shinra, the ruthless corporation that rules the city of Midgar and its surrounding regions with an iron fist. However, the return of Shinra's ex-special forces operative Sephiroth, now with his own agenda that may imperil the entire world, has caused a rethink of priorities. The Avalanche splinter cell led by Barret Wallace has joined forces with Cloud Strife, Sephiroth's former protege, and set out in pursuit of the ruthless soldier. His aims remain murky, and may extend far beyond this one world...

So here we are again. Five years ago, Square released Remake, which took the opening 5-7 hours or so of the original Final Fantasy VII and expanded it into a 35-hour long epic JRPG, complete with gorgeous (if often interminable) cutscenes, spectacular battle sequences and enhanced scenes of world and character-building. When it worked, it was brilliant, adding texture and depth to the great, but occasionally sparse, original. When it faltered, you abruptly realised you were wading waist-high through sometimes repetitive and often tedious filler which, due to the game's relentless linearity, you had no choice but to engage with.

Rebirth picks up the story immediately after the events of Remake and adapts the middle 20 hours or so of the original game into a staggering 100-odd hour odyssey. Rebirth is a lot of game, hurling so many stories, characters, quests, side-quests, minigames and cutscenes at the player that it sometimes feels genuinely overwhelming. But it also has a huge strength over Remake: this time most of the filler stuff is easily identifiable and can be avoided to focus on the main storyline.

Rebirth also opens brilliantly, with our heroes taking refuge in the town of Kalm after their flight from Midgar at the end of the first part. During this sojourn, Cloud regales his team with the story of his visit to his home town of Nibelheim with Sephiroth five years earlier, culminating in the destruction of the town and the slaughter of most of its citizens after Sephiroth discovered the secrets of his own origin, hidden from him by the merciless Shinra Corporation. This flashback sequence - fully playable as it was in 1997 - serves as a new tutorial section and reacquaints the player with the controls and combat from Remake.

From there the players can explore the town of Kalm, picking up side-quests and learning to play Queen's Blood, a popular card game. Having as much interest in digital card minigames as a capybara has in nuclear physics (New Vegas' Caravan and The Witcher III's Gwent both left me cold), I was prepared to play the required one game to advance the main quest and then forget it even existed, only instead to find the best card minigame ever put in a video game. Queen's Blood is brilliant and, to my eternal shame, I spent a nontrivial amount of Rebirth's run time enhancing my deck and defeating every player I came across. More bemusingly, Queen's Blood turns out to have an entire questline dedicated to the dark secret of its creation and the fate of its creator which brings in at least one other iconic Final Fantasy VII character and ended up being very compelling despite an abruptly anticlimactic ending, making me wonder if the final game in the trilogy will revisit it. This turns out to be a recurring theme in the game, which puts what appears to be filler candyfloss in front of you which you think you can ignore but then turns out to be unexpectedly great.

From Kalm you can venture into the first of six open world zones, each one of which replicates a distinct biome or area from the original Final Fantasy VII world map. The main difference between Remake and Rebirth is the open-world approach of the latter, with a main quest marker leading you to the next chunk of the main narrative, but a whole ton of secondary icons leading you to other objectives. Seasoned Ubiclone veterans may be surprised to see the unexpected return of that old open world standby, the Radio Tower which lights up the surrounding part of the map like it's still 2013. Each one of the zones has a distinctly similar array of side-options, including finding Mako crystal formations to scan, altars to various powerful monsters to gain the insight needed to summon them on the battlefield, and Moogle traders to convince to sell stuff to you (by collecting their wayward itinerant children; by the end of the game you really want to report the Moogle parents to some sort of safeguarding authority for cute Japanese fantasy creatures, they are really terrible parents).

None of the zones apart from Corel are truly massive and are helped by different traversal options, starting with your feet but then expanding to the chicken-like chocobos, and then later a desert buggy and an aircraft that is forcibly converted into a boat. But they are absolutely packed with stuff to see and do, which can be thoroughly enjoyable but then start leaning towards the exhausting. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth often put me in mind of Baldur's Gate III for its sheer, unrelenting assault on the player's free time and focus. Arguably Rebirth suffers a bit more from this, as its story is somewhat simpler (in the original you're basically chasing Sephiroth through these zones to a showdown at an ancient temple, with Shinra occasionally showing up to throw curveballs at you) and wholly unchangeable, without the multiple endings BG3 offered. Its side-quests are also much more of a mixed bag than BG3's mostly great side-offerings, though some of them (like Barrett and Red XIII helping a Gongaga local write a children's book based on their adventures) are very charming.

Some of these side-activities are very repetitive (scanning Mako formations or doing limited Quick-Time Events to get more Summoning intel gets boring around the third time you do them, out of forty-plus times you have to do it in the whole game) and are made worse in that they are foisted on you by disturbing boy-android Chadley, whose "man in the van" role in the first game was tolerable by a relatively limited amount of screen-time but here he is an almost constant presence, constantly yelling at you through largely unskippable cutscenes to scan things or fight things for his intel purposes. Apparently he has more dialogue in the game than any of your party members, which is ludicrous. Ignoring side-missions in favour of the main quest does mean reducing your interactions with Chadley to a bare minimum, which is a strong argument in itself for that approach.

The game is at its best when it refocuses on the very things that made Final Fantasy VII so incredibly iconic: the central narrative, with its three-sided battle between Avalanche, Shinra and Sephiroth; and the superb cast of characters. Remake focused on Cloud, Barret, Aerith and Tifa, not to mention Yuffie in the Intergrade DLC (Rebirth integrates Yuffie into the main team, but takes its sweet time about it). Rebirth furthers their stories but also focuses on Red XIII (introduced at the end of Remake but here expanded to main character status) and Cait Sith. Cait Sith is easily Rebirth's biggest success over the original game, with the fairly flat original cartoon character here enhanced into a deeper and more interesting character with an endearing Scottish accent and far more useful combat utility.

But all the characters get their time in the sun: we visit Barret's home town and uncover more of his personal history and what happened to Marlene's biological parents; Tifa gets to relive the events in Nibelheim and later makes a special connection with the planet itself; Aerith uncovers more information about her ancestors and her role in the events to come; and Cloud himself uncovers more information about his past, and his muddled memories. These aspects, all highlights of the original game, are given much greater depth here and represents the remake project at its best, enriching the original to make something better.

Combat is another aspect that Rebirth has improved on. The combat system from Remake was broadly similar to the original but, instead of your characters standing around like lemons whilst their time gauges slowly filled up, they could launch basic attacks and block, filling up their time bars faster. When the time bars filled up, they could unleash special attacks or use magic or items. That system is still the same here, but now enhanced by synergy abilities, where your party members can cooperate in carrying out attack moves in concert. Combat is certainly more complex here, as you can reach a much higher level than in Remake with access to a much vaster array of Materia and weapons, but not overwhelmingly so, with a nice array of tactical options and the game almost urging you to find broken and overpowered builds. Combat can look insane and random in videos, but when you're in the thick of them they can be surprisingly deep and tactical. That said, some boss fights (like the final one of the game) do go massively overboard in how long and gruelling they can be.

Environments are impressive, with a nicely evolving sense of locations as the game continues. You start in the medieval throwback town of Kalm and then cross the vast Grasslands to the swamps and mountains, beyond which lies the rocky coastlands around Junon. Then it's across the ocean to the balmy seaside resort of Costa del Sol and then the Corel Region, with its mixture of desert badlands and temperate woods (plus the gleaming techno-paradise of the Gold Saucer, this world's Las Vegas but only somehow more garish, fake and tiresome). South lies the thick jungles of Gongaga, whilst the vast Cosmo Canyon lies to the west. To the north lies Nibelheim and its mountains and islands rearing out of the ocean. A final journey sees you crossing the Meridian Ocean in search of pirate treasure and the fabled Gilgamesh Island (site of the game's most insane, but fortunately ignorable, battle challenges). These environments are all well-realised, and the best thing about Remake - taking those grainy 2D backgrounds from the original game and turning them into amazing 4K locations, fully explorable - is turned up to eleven here. Iconic locations like Junon Harbour, the Gold Saucer and the Temple of the Ancients are realised here on a scale and in a fidelity utterly unthinkable in 1997.

Graphically, though, the game can be a little of a mixed bag. The character models, especially of the main cast, are all incredible, with amazing detail, skin textures and hair. But the environments can sometimes feel a bit undercooked, with weirdly low-res textures on mountains, rockfaces and roads even with everything turned up to eleven. The game's graphical options are also limited (particularly annoyingly trying to turn frame generation on even if your hardware is good enough not to need it). The PC version of the game still does look amazingly beautiful at times, but Final Fantasy VII Rebirth definitely isn't quite challenging recent games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Alan Wake 2 or Baldur's Gate III in terms of consistent visual quality.

Like Remake before it, though, the soundtrack cannot be faulted. OG Final Fantasy VII has one of the best soundtracks of all time and both Remake and Rebirth faithfully recreate the original soundtrack and then enhance it with stunning and far more epic new arrangements of the classic songs, as well as wholly new tracks. The amount of music in the game will cause your brain to start melting at a certain point, especially when you realise Rebirth's most random new mission type - escort missions for certain types of cats and dogs (!) - has its own dedicated set of songs.

Rebirth does eventually come to an end, and like Remake before it, the ending is a bit too smart-arse for its own good. The remake trilogy is not just retelling the original Final Fantasy VII story but expanding it with some kind of parallel universe/alternate timeline gubbins. Some of this new material is great - a chance to play as perennial FF7 also-ran character Zack in an alternate version of Midgar in brief interstitial storyline moments is surprisingly enjoyable - but it's a ton of complicated new material on top of a game that already famously has a dense, complex storyline complete with fake memories, plot twists and intricate politics. Rebirth's endgame is even more interminable than Remake's and the crowning emotional moment of the entire FF7 narrative (you know the bit if you know) is left a bit swamped by vagueness in its retelling here.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth (****½) is a vast amount of video game, with a colossal amount of story, characters and gameplay. Fans of the original game with its much tighter focus and story may find the constant interruptions from new side-activities in this remake extremely frustrating, but at least this time around you can mostly ignore that material. But some of that stuff is great, and genuinely worth a look for how it enhances the original story and character arcs. There is so much in this game that I've barely scratched the surface here. I haven't even mentioned the Gold Saucer opera that you get to take part in, or the full-blown J-pop number that greets you on your arrival there, or Cloud's potential new careers as a professional photographer or Segway advertiser, or the stuff related to late-arriving party members Cid and Vincent or...you get the idea.

The game is overstuffed, sometimes too silly, sometimes too grimdark and sometimes too disrespectful of your time, but it's also heartfelt, funny, touching, action-packed and epic in a way too few video games genuinely are. It's also a major improvement over Remake, and leaves the decks clear for the third and final game in the trilogy to end things (hopefully) in style.

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