Love ’em, hate ’em, or pine for the good old days, we are most certainly in the age of extraction RPGs. Just as spring brings with it the warm weather and fresh new flowers popping up all around us, this year it’s also popping in fresh new extraction games. Today I’m taking a look at one I’ve been excited about playing from the creative mind of Chris Kaleiki, founder of Notorious Studios and former developer at Blizzard.
Readers might recall I interviewed Kaleiko earlier this year when Legacy: Steel and Sorcery hit early access during Steam Next Fest. He had so many interesting and unexpected things to say about Legacy that I couldn’t help but catch a bit of the enthusiasm for the game he clearly has.
Now, at the time of our interview, I was able to take a look at some of the info the developers had available, but I didn’t have a chance to really get my hands on the game and see the action for myself. But having recently played it – alongside Dark and Darker Mobile, Vaultbreakers, and even Dungeonborne (may it rest in piece) – I think I now have good grip not only on how the game plays but where it falls in the hierarchy of the ever-growing field of extraction RPGs.
In standard extraction RPG fashion, the gameplay revolves around the player choosing a hero/class, entering a competitive PvPvE zone, gathering as much loot as possible, and finally locating an extraction point to escape. If you are able to get in and get out without dying, then you’ll gain some XP and hopefully stronger gear so that you are better-equipped to take on greater challenges the next time you enter the map.
The lobby interface of the game contains several menus for upgrading, customizing, and preparing for your next run. There are quests to pick up too. It’s basically a primary quest joined by some secondary ones. You’re able to have three side quests in your log at a time, and they will refresh on a schedule. I couldn’t tell whether these were hourly refreshes, daily, or something in-between. You can essentially consider them your MMO equivalent dailies, though. All the quests I saw through playing were simply fetch and slay quests. They weren’t simple to complete by any means, just simple in their requirement.
One of the features that most caught my attention during the interview with Kaleiki was the Lodge. Here, players are gain various bonuses such as increased resting XP, cooking items, and improved crafting. It’s essentially another set menus to browse through, not a physical space your heroes can interact with, but the functions are cool. The fireplace enables you to use the cooking pot and bed, but you need to keep feeding the fire for it to continue to function – so you’ll always be hunting down some firewood.
The ossuary ties into the game’s merchants, which is another neat way that Legacy provides a feeling of progression. While completing quests and leveling, you’ll also gain reputation with the merchants. I presume this will be the method of unlocking additional and stronger items and gear to purchase or higher levels. I didn’t get that far in my play, but it’s a nice feature.
There are only the four hero classes to choose from currently, but the developers are already working on two more. One downside is that you can’t really change the heroes visually right now. There’s no customizing their looks beyond the gear you equip, but I don’t see any reason for it to stay that way permanently. Unlike heroes in so many games where you’re playing “Madlock the Bruiser from the Mountains of Muscle” who is a hero defined by the game, these feel more like classes that could one day be customized beyond applying just an outfit.
So far, I have played the Priest class and and to a lesser extent the Warrior, but it seems as if they both had a couple of different weapon options that would change their skills slightly. As the Priest, I could have a staff, which gave me ranged magic attacks and a heal spell, or I could go sword and board to pick up a spell that increased my damage for a short time. In addition to that, each class has a trait tree for you to further customize your character’s build. I do love buildcrafting, so having some options is a big plus for me.
In practice, the PvPvE gameplay of Legacy leans a bit more towards the PvE end. I can’t put my finger on exactly why that may be because the threat of running into other players is high, and the nerves I felt when I saw another player were real. Like, damn I need to get out of here now, and there’s another player right there in my way. If I can just slip past them… and oh hell, they saw me, time to get running now!
Legacy also offers clear-cut game modes for solo and group play. As someone who so often logs in to play a few rounds of a game without a group, I’m pleased to know I won’t always be playing from behind. However, the group modes did offer a PUG type of play where you can queue solo and be slotted into a group that has availability.
Combat in Legacy was a dream compared to so many of the other extraction games I’ve played. I’ve whined so much about how slow combat in these games often feels when you’re swinging your weapons as if they have 40-pound weights attached to them. In Legacy, you get a more natural combat game. It feels like the combat in most action RPGs, actually, and I really, really love that. There’s still plenty of time for dodging and reactive skilled play as well. It’s just better than any other extraction-centric combat I’ve seen so far.
That said, the act of looting is a bit of a pain, which is rough since that’s a big part of the whole extraction game as well. The first problem is the full-screen inventory menu that pops up when you’re looting. And I do mean full-screen. You cannot see any of the environment around you while you’re picking and choosing what to take, plus there’s no loot all or auto-loot button either, so you’re hovering, quickly reading some tooltip text, and double clicking as fast as humanly possible to get that loot and get out of the inventory screen. Perhaps it’s meant to add to the sense of danger, but as gameplay, it felt pretty rough.
So here’s a spot where Legacy could take some pointers from Vaultbreakers. I mentioned in my time there that I really liked how the screen dimmed down to just you and a small area around you while you’re looting to give the feel of distraction – but you weren’t completely blind to the world around you.
Legacy is also extremely deadly, and it’s not just other players you have to watch out for. The monsters are no joke! I said most of my fights were PvE, but I died a lot even against them, which is not something I’m as familiar with in video games. PvE is usually the easy stuff. It could be that I was still a lowbie and not that familiar with the controls, but I found I had to be really careful in my fights with skeletons and other monsters – especially with the threat of other players around.
One interesting thing about the PvP in Legacy was the audio cues I’d hear when other players were near. I’m not sure whether it just had open voice chat on by default or the game was inserting audio, but whenever I could hear some chatter, I immediately got ready for a deadly encounter.
Overall, I was impressed by my time in the game. True, there were some annoyances; in my very first match, I spawned right next to a monster that killed me before I even finished loading in, and that did not feel good. However, that was clearly an anomaly, as my following matches were better. I made it to extraction only once, but I had so much fun getting there.
So of the current crop of extraction RPGs I’ve played through, I’d say Legacy is showing the most promise. It’s still under active development, but early access is available on Steam right now for those who want in early.
Every other week, Massively OP’s Sam Kash delivers Fight or Kite, our trip through the state of PvP across the MMORPG industry. Whether he’s sitting in a queue or rolling with the zerg, Sam’s all about the adrenaline rush of a good battle. Because when you boil it down, the whole reason we PvP (other than to pwn noobs) is to have fun fighting a new and unpredictable enemy!
