Crowfall: First Impressions

The game has finally launched. Although with little to no marketing most players don't even know it's out. The game is funded by Kickstarter a long time ago. I've been loosely following the game for years since I found out about it. It is a PvP MMO with some survival elements with a unique storyline. Please keep in mind while writing this it is my first impression. I do plan to play more and give a more in-depth guide.

Essentially you play the game as a "Crow". You are sort of the god's champion. When you die you will revive as a Crow and go into a new vessel. This is how the game explains you respawning. As long as you are surviving the gods you can never fully die.  This has some unique aspects of the game that I haven't fully explored, and so far have not fully been covered in the new player experience. So I won't fully go into depth on the vessel system here.

The inventory system seems pretty standard. You have your equipment currently equipped and your inventory/stats all in one screen. Every odd level you will gain some attribute points to put in to customize your character further. As you can see not all equipment is in one slot. The game has a looting system where you select what you want from the corpse by pressing "F". If you just want to loot everything then you press "G" you need to use your tools to gather resources. Each tool is used for a certain resource. For example, the knife is used to skin animals for their pelts The game feels as though there will be a lot of crafting to come.

The crafting menu is something I personally dislike. For example, look at the Basic Harvesting Axe. You need to form a triangle of wood. Each slot takes 1 wood. What annoys me is I have to find it in my inventory and drag it over or click it in place. I wish it just showed me what is available in my inventory on this screen so I can quickly craft. I recall from the alphas there is much more than what is shown. I'm sure that comes later on in the game.

Each class will get its own talent tree. I believe you get a max of 15 talents to place so you will have to choose wisely. A lot if not all classes seem to have a healing, DPS, and tank path to go through from what I could tell. The Frostweaver appears to be able to do all three.

One major concern I have is there are 12 races and 11 classes. This is a lot of work for an MMO that has just launched. I fear they bit off too much dev time to make this come together. With that said they have done it. You can pick any of the available races shown above however not every race can be every class. Race does have racial abilities so make sure you read over what they do.

Character customization leaves a lot to be desired. If you were hoping for fully in-depth customization Crowfall may not be for you. Personally, I did not care for any of the Wood-Elf hairstyles. While the game does have racial abilities you still should focus on how your character looks if you care about cosmetics at all. Personally, if I dislike how my character looks my enjoyment goes down.

The game has an action combat feel to it. As you can see by the hotbar you have quest a few different abilities and setups. What I found interesting is that the "R" key is for a relation ability. Essentially it will clear crowd control effects. Right from level 1, you are able to get out of those stuns or pesky blinds. There does not appear to be any tab targeting in the game. Instead, you need to aim like a 3rd person shooter for ranged classes. This also includes some of your abilities, while others appear to be a cone in front of you. It will be critical to know what all your abilities do once you get into a PvP scenario.

The questing in the new player experience is what you would assume it to be. Go from NPC to NPC as they teach you how to navigate the menus or how systems work. So far it seems fine, but only time will tell if the tutorial really is that great for new players.  So far it has done nothing to tell me about how campaigns work, or how to join them. I really hope it explains them in depth later on. However, as a new player that really shouldn't concern you.

Overall Crowfall feels okay. I was really hoping for more, and so far the new player experience is not what I was hoping for. I really hope after the tutorial it picks up into really what I was looking for. That said I really do believe you should try Crowfall. Until September 30th, 2021 you can use the link to get a free 10-day trial and 25% discount should you purchase the game. Make sure you check back later. I really want to do a more in-depth article on this game as I think it has a lot of potential.