While the world waits for The Elder Scrolls VI, a small team of just 13 people at Paraglacial has been hard at work on Fatekeeper. Supported by publisher THQ Nordic, this first-person action RPG has just launched into Early Access, and I have to say, so far, it’s mostly off to a promising start. 

You play as Core Kenim, a hopeful druid on a journey to protect the world. Alongside you is a talkative rodent of sorts, an ugly, yet charming, little guy. He accompanies you on this quest, offering plenty of commentary along the way, helping to make the adventure feel more alive.

There isn’t much of a story just yet, with the game lasting 2-3 hours. But the developers have stated they intend to fully flesh out the story and world into a solid 15+ hour journey. Yet it’s still enough time to get a good feel for the combat, which is really enjoyable. Each swing of your sword or axe is slow but feels weighty and has some real punch to it, thanks to some nice sound design as well. 

It’s as meticulous as it is rewarding, with groups of enemies often surrounding you, meaning each swing has to be precise and well timed, as a poorly timed attack can leave you open to a counterattack. Thankfully, you can also block attacks, which can quickly put the fight back in your favour instead.

If you are to become outnumbered, it’s not just melee weapons at your disposal. A range of spells also helps ease some encounters. Fireballs can be cast to set enemies alight, or if you spot oil slicks on the ground, setting those on fire really makes enemies suffer.

An ice spell slows enemies down significantly, whereas telekinesis is great for unbalancing enemies and pulling them towards you, and it can also be used to pick up items to throw or activate switches you can’t normally access.

Finally, there’s a push spell that is quite similar to a force push from Star Wars. In one encounter, I was surrounded by about six enemies, with a large hole in the middle of the room. I kited them toward it and pushed them all in, making the encounter a breeze.

Hitting enemies helps refill your mana bar, though consumables can be found throughout the world, and when consumed, they also refill mana or your HP. Brewing pots are found back at Haven or occasionally near campfires, and can be used to mix a bunch of consumables together to make stronger potions. 

XP is earned through fighting and exploring, and once you level up, you earn skill points to spend on an extremely large skill tree. It’s confusing at first, but simple once you realise each side is a different path. Health, strength, mana and alchemy are your four main choices.

Going down the Health-based skill tree grants you a larger health pool and more resistance. However, if you choose to invest in the Strength-based skill tree, you can speed up attacks, allowing you to do more damage.

The Mana-based skill tree focuses on spells, while the Alchemy-based skill tree offers utility. What I didn’t like about it, however, was that you can only select one path at a time, which locks you in for a while, meaning you may ignore other paths. Hopefully, this will be a change they can make down the line.

During the few-hour journey, the game follows a fairly linear structure, almost broken up into short levels. Explore for a bit, fight some enemies, explore a bit more, reach the end and traverse to the next area. As previously mentioned, the game is created and led by a small team, so I expect them to expand on this by adding more level design and additional puzzles in the future.

One thing I’m so impressed about is how this small team of 13 people have reached this level of fidelity. This is one of the most gorgeous games I’ve ever seen in my life. I walked out of a cave and looked out over an entire mountain range with a valley and a lake below.

It was stunning. Even the small textures are beautifully crafted, and a calming soundtrack plays in the background during those moments when you stop, look, and just take in the world.

Exceptional lighting further adds to the realism on display. I’m running an RTX 3080 in my PC, and I was genuinely blown away. At one point, light was beaming into a room onto a statue, and I swear it looked photorealistic. I’d love to see what this looks like on a big beefy PC. Performance-wise, I only really experienced a few stutters, so optimisation seems to be in a decent place for early access. 

A couple of quality-of-life changes, like the skill tree or adding controller support, are things I’d like to see them fix as they continue to add to the game, but honestly, this is a great starting point, and will hopefully only get better as they expand.

Overall, Fatekeeper is off to a great start with some punchy combat and an absolutely gorgeous world. If they can fix some minor things like the skill tree and an expanded story, the game could hopefully be something really special. 

Written by: Dylan Kocins