The light shines through the trees and there is an opening up ahead. I walk towards it and a deer runs towards me. Then a dragon emerges and opens its mouth. I fly up just as the flames fill the forest floor. I dash back through the forest flying between the trees as the dragon chases. I see my house up ahead. I turn to see where the dragon is and the fire consumes me.
A fantasy style sandbox game with many different elements that make it a joy to play. It is very similar to survival style games like Ark and Conan where you have a large map to roam, tamable creatures and base building but you do not have to eat or drink and the weather doesn’t have an effect on you.
There are many different options when creating the look of your character but it is pretty much the standard compared to many games that have character cosmetic creation. You can choose your gender, a preset head, hair styles and a range of colours to make your character unique.
Even though the character creation is pretty basic it doesn’t have a huge impact due to the use of first person camera and the third person camera but I wore a hood and robes throughout the majority of my gameplay so the cosmetic side of my character was ignored by me.
It also feels like a nice blend of Harry Potter, Skyrim and Game of Thrones. The flying and wands reminded me a lot of Harry Potter. The use of magic and the open world made me immediately think of Skyrim and the dragons and all the death was a lot like game of thrones.
There are multiple weapon types and a lot of spells to choose from that make each character unique. I really enjoyed using the wands and the ice bolt spell. There are also lightning and fire spells as well as a huge range of other spells.
One spell that is vital to your progression and sets Citadel apart from the other earlier mentioned games is the extract spell. This spell is used to gather many types of useful materials. The animation looks really nice, the range on the spell is considerable long and it just gives Citadel something unique and interesting.
One of the main elements of the game is PvP. It changes the game so much after playing PvE because of the enhanced danger and the raids on your base.
Citadel Forged With Fire is currently only on PC right now but it will be coming to PS4 and XboxOne. If they keep the user interface very similar to the PC version it will be a really nice smooth game and give the other survival style sandbox games a run for their money.
Overall it is thoroughly enjoyable. The taming is quite nice visually and fits with the style of the game but there aren’t many tamable creatures at the moment. The map is really good as it has a fast travel element to it and looks like an old style map. I can not wait for it to come to console to see how they have modified it and I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the survival/ Elder Scrolls/ Harry Potter themes.
GameCritUK 