PC Gamer's Fraser Brown wrote in his September 2024 preview of Greedfall 2 that the decision to completely overhaul the combat system of the original game and release it in a rough, early access state, was a "risky gamble" for developer Spiders. Prophetic words, as it turns out. While Greedfall is quite well regarded, especially among fans of ye olde Eurojank, Greedfall 2 is struggling badly.
The big issue is the combat system: Numerous negative user reviews on Steam, many posted by fans of the first game, call it out as slow, shallow, clunky, and just not much fun. Today's update aims to make combat "more dynamic," Spiders said, "with snappier reactions and animations, clearer visual feedback, new ways of handling different situations, and more."
"The reactivity and close-quarters combat in real-time have been significantly improved," Spiders wrote earlier this week in a pre-patch teaser on Steam. "Attacks now trigger sooner and chain together more quickly, with snappier animations and smoother transitions—there's no more returning to idle poses between strikes.
"Your character keeps their momentum more effectively, and micro-movements are better handled, especially when using abilities or when changing directions—the start of attack's movement blending with the change of direction to be more reactive and dynamic."
Character movement is also faster and "more fluid," and the target lock system has also been improved. Spiders shared a few before-and-after gameplay videos, and it definitely looks faster.
So it's welcome changes all around, and beyond the much-needed combat rework today's update also includes an entirely new region called Olima, a new companion, and the addition of the Hub, which is actually a ship (not a boat, sorry, a ship) where you can rest, manage your party, access your workshop and chest, and all that sort of inter-mission RPG business.
Whether it will be enough to kick off a turnaround for Greedfall 2 remains a big question, though. The original Greedfall, released in 2019, had an all-time peak concurrent player count of more than 16,000, according to SteamDB, while Greedfall 2 has thus far topped out at just 375. That's only one metric and can't be taken as the entire tale of the tape, but it's definitely not great: Spiders 2 is in a deep hole on this one and it's going to take some serious work to get out of it.
One other thing to note: Given the number of changes and additions made by this patch, existing saves will not be compatible. You'll need to start a new game once it's installed. Such is the way of early access, I'm afraid.
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