FLINTLOCK: Siege of Dawn is an upcoming soulslike with the hook of combining melee with gunplay.
It feels like the publishers had a checklist in mind of all the features that should be in a ‘modern game’ and soullessly put them in one by one.
You have your immortal companion who won’t stop talking in the hopes of keeping your attention.
There are resources to collect to upgrade your gear, a number of side quests with uninteresting stories, and a skill tree with upgrades so small you don’t notice their effects.
Flintlock does take a few tentative steps outside of its comfort zone, but these aspects aren’t particularly inspiring either.
One of the main issues is that the environments all look the same, which makes the platforming feel worse than it is.
You have a double jump and air dash that you can combine with rifts for fast-paced combos, but they don’t mean much when you don’t know which direction to go in.
Then there are frustrating points, like how your character only sometimes grabs the ledge and others plummets to the ground.
The nice platforming options are also not used in combat, meaning it’s not significantly different from other soulslikes.
We were hoping boss fights would have more verticality and speed, but this never emerged.
The combat is serviceable, acting just as you expect it to, but it doesn’t do anything that other games do better.
Flintlock tries to separate itself with the armour and shield systems, but this just makes things more frustrating.
With this, you have to curse an enemy with your companion before attacking them, but it only serves to make fights longer.
We did like the firearms though. You build up shots by using melee attacks and can shoot to interrupt big attacks and deal massive damage.
It builds on the usual system of collecting souls, as when you defeat smaller enemies you not only gain more souls, but build up your gun attacks.
You can also cash in your melee multiplier at any time, getting bigger rewards the longer you last, but losing it all when you get hit.
When you break Flintlock down to the smaller parts there’s a lot to like here, and we’d love to see the firearms and platforming mechanics used in another game.
But when they come wrapped in the turgid world, unreliable mechanics, and lacklustre story of Flintlock, it’s not enough to keep us entertained.
If you want to read more gaming reviews, check out our Flock review.
Get the lowdown on more of the latest PS5 releases from our expert reviewers.
For Xbox Series X and Nintendo Switch, check out our full game reviews section.
