Canadian-made Eternal Strands is impressive but uneven

Eternal Strands is a game of very high highs and frustratingly low lows.

On the one hand, this debut title from Quebec City-based Yellow Brick Games features some of the most inventively fun magic gameplay I’ve seen in a while, but on the other, tired design tropes hold back that sense of wonder. The end result is an action-adventure game that is undeniably ambitious and impressive in many ways, but also somewhat tedious and run-of-the-mill in others.

Interestingly, Eternal Strands‘ greatest asset is also perhaps what works against it. That’s because it hails from a team led by Dragon Age veteran Mike Laidlaw and made up of several Ubisoft alums, among talent from other prominent studios, so there’s a significant pedigree at play here. Naturally, that leads to some preconceived notions, and those don’t always pan out.

In Eternal Strands, you play as Brynn, a warrior who is on a quest with her crew to discover a long-lost civilization known as the Enclave. Right off the bat, the game bombards you with bits of lore to an almost overwhelming degree. Given that this game has frequently been pitched as the “climb anywhere” exploration mechanics of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild mixed with the gargantuan boss fights of Shadow of the Colossus, I wasn’t expecting so much narrative early on. It eventually yields a compelling world, but it takes some getting used to the exposition dumps.

This feeds into a larger problem of a slow introduction in which you’re effectively sent on fetch quests for your allies for the first stretch. Unfortunately, as I soon discovered, you’re going to be doing those kinds of fetch quests quite often, even beyond this tutorial section. While I appreciate that there’s a surprisingly solid cast of well-acted characters behind this tedium, it still didn’t make that moment-to-moment resource gathering any more compelling. It also sometimes made the game feel like it was spinning its wheels in between what it really does well: combat.

Indeed, when you actually get into the much-publicized battles, Eternal Strands is an absolute blast. There’s an excellent degree of freedom with the physics-based magic system, allowing you to use everything from telekineses (on objects and smaller enemies) and elemental spells like fire and ice to even gravity manipulation to propel yourself upward. On top of those core utilities, Eternal Strands‘ world rather amazingly reacts to your spells as well, such as allowing you to freeze the water to create blocks of ice as makeshift shielding walls or even platforms to ascend. Conversely, ill-timed flames might ignite the entire area and damage you as well as your foes. It’s a wonderfully dynamic system that creates a fantastic power fantasy.

Then there are the boss fights themselves, which are even more thrilling. Shadow of the Colossus is one of my all-time favourite games, and Eternal Strands does right by it thanks to well-designed titans that evoke an awe-inspiring sense of scope. As in Shadow of the Colossus, there’s a sense of exhilarating white-knuckle desperation as you use your dwindling stamina to ascend a beast and shirk its attempts to fling you off before arriving at its weak points to deliver devastating stabs. And unlike Shadow of the Colossus, your powers can be used for more combat options. In the first boss fight against an automaton, I scaled him to break off the armour protecting his vulnerabilities before dancing around him on the ground as I lobbed rocks and other small objects I could lift telekinetically. If that weren’t enough, a majestic score from the ever-amazing Austin Wintory, the Grammy-nominated composer of Journey, only enhances the magnificent spectacle.

All in all, that’s what I find myself taking away from Eternal Strands. The lore and quest design can often be rote, making the game feel longer and more bloated than it needs to be. But if anything, that made me savour what it does do remarkably well — the core magic-based gameplay — all the more. Above all else, I have to commend this Canadian team for taking a big swing here. Breaking off from giants like BioWare and Ubisoft and successfully developing and self-publishing a brand-new IP that pairs an original fantasy world and clever, reactive gameplay mechanics is a feat unto itself.

While not without its issues, Eternal Strands is definitely worth checking out for its ambition and genuinely well-realized magical abilities. And hopefully, this gets a sequel or some other kind of follow-up to polish the rougher edges while expanding upon the exciting core gameplay.

Eternal Strands is now available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S (plus Game Pass) and PC.

Image credit: Yellow Brick Games

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