Though I've only spent a short amount of time with GreedFall, it's already shaping up to be one of my favorite games of 2019. Once I created my character (I'll admit, I wasn't particularly inspired to spend very much time with that part), I found myself becoming increasingly intrigued by Greedfall's overall grim, renaissance-adjacent premise.
GreedFall's prologue takes place in Serene - a nation rife with a mysterious plague that decimates its population while its theocratic government tears itself apart from within. It is not a pleasant place, to say the least. Its sky is blackened, and the air is riddled with ash and debris - perhaps from an unknown source, but certainly not helped by the many pyres scattered throughout the city that act as crematoriums for those whose lives were claimed by the plague. Meanwhile, able-bodied citizens continue to toil and scrape a living amongst the dead while Serene's oligarchy lives comfortably in their gaudy boroughs, removed just enough from the city's rampant death and decay to not be inconvenienced by it.
From the get-go, the game insists that the player only need to complete a series of fact-finding and loose end-tying quests before being allowed to embark on a grand voyage to a distant land - far removed from the disparity and discourse engulfing your character's homeland. Perhaps it was because I knew Serene was ultimately just a liminal space that I felt compelled to explore its every cobblestone-laden street and corpse-filled corridor, all in an effort to learn everything I could about its past and present before departing it forever.
Taking its prologue into consideration, I think it's safe to assume that GreedFall's underlying lore is probably its greatest attribute. The gameplay is very much on par with a Bioware-esque RPG, and its combat mechanics are more satisfying than I would have originally thought. That said, being able to check those two boxes off wouldn't necessarily be enough to keep me engaged, especially when it comes to a single player game. This is how I know GreedFall is something special, and I am thoroughly looking forward to what new mis-adventures await me in the new world.
