Wolcen: Lord of Mayhem Review

Welcome to world of Heritics and Inquisition

Old school isometric ARPGS are hard to come by nowadays, especially outside of Blizzard’s Diablo franchise. However, during the nineties and two thousands they were commonplace with franchises like Titan Quest and Baldurs Gate dominating the market. Sadly, since the disappearance of these franchises there has been a large hole left in the genre that extremely bland and risk averse games like Diablo 3 could never fill. Yet, for a few years now a small team of around 11-50 people have been working on a game to rival the big companies.

Their name is Wolcen Games and the goal was to inject more creativity into what I consider an extremely restrictive and bland genre. Although the game’s release was rocky with a few major issues the overall experience has been extremely pleasant and I would love to show you why your money should be spent on this indie development rather than a game like Diablo 3. 

The Story

At its heart Wolcen has a very simple story, with many twists and turns thrown in. Simply put, you are a Child Of Heimlock, an orphan adopted by a grand inquisitor of the republic. You were one of two other children, You (the main character), Eldric and Valeria, each of you have fought countless battles alongside one another to push back supernatural beings and other armies deemed as “sinful”. The game opens up with your army currently fighting a group of flayers, when suddenly spirits started to rise from fissures within the earth.

As you begin to slowly drive these supernatural beings back, their sudden arrival becomes apparent; Yudai. A powerful spirit that wants you as their new host. However, as you two stand off a sudden light forms within you as you unknowingly transform into a giant divine winged warrior. This is called Aspect of the Apocalypse, basically it’s an invincibility mode which allows you to output a metric-ton of damage without worrying about dying. 

During the colossal fight with Yudai, you were thrown from the ledge into the ocean below. Waking up some time later after being washed up onto the shore. Eventually, you meet up with Valeria who seems to believe that you are in cahoots with the demon forces due to the mystical form you had achieved during that battle. Although this form, personally, seems extremely divine and something that the inquisitors would want to weaponize for their advantage. Valeria comes around to your pleas and soon sides with you. However, the republic does not share this same mercy as they instantly grow disdain for you; fully believing that you had made a pact with demonic forces. 

The story is honestly an amazing experience combining lots of beautiful cutscenes with interesting plot points to really flesh out this world’s design. As you run through the story you will hear random chatter of NPC’s talking about anything, even some shouting towards you as you deny orders and run into battle. One thing I love about Wolcen is how much your character speaks. They are at the forefront of the story and aren’t afraid to speak about anything and everything.

I understand that sometimes a player character speaking can hurt role playing. However, unlike Diablo and most other ARPG’s your character isn’t defined by a role. You’re not a necromancer or warrior etc… You are whatever you choose to be. Do you like swords? Then start using a sword, if you suddenly want to try out guns or crossbows then switch, there are no restrictions in place that will eventually hurt your experience. Therefore, your character having a big personality doesn’t hurt the fact that you can mold your ingame identity to better suit your preferences. 

The Gameplay

As I mentioned Wolcen’s core design philosophy is based on the idea that the less restrictive the gameplay the more enjoyment the user will have. This is mainly shown through the combat as you can not only choose to wield any weapon but there are also a large number of skills for each type of weapon. For example, pistols and bows can summon a turret or even fire a charged sniper shot. Further customization can be achieved by duel wielding weapons or including a shield. Another aspect of the combat customization is the skill tree which is a circle formed of 3 rings. As shown in the picture you can rotate each ring which unlocks a countless number of possible combinations.

This is why I love Wolcen at its core, it doesn’t force you to be a “class” you are what you want to be. A level of creativity that isn’t in most modern ARPG. Look at Diablo 4 Blizzard showed three mediocre classes for the upcoming title. And some of the biggest concerns shown were the lack of interesting classes. This concern is eradicated with Wolcen, you want to be a magic assassin? Go for it, a sith lord that shoots lightning out of your hands and flies across the screen while resurrecting corpses? Well, even that ridiculous combination can be achieved if you’re brave enough. 

But what about the meat of the gameplay? Well, the combat feels fantastic, impactful and satisfying. Everything that I could possibly want from an ARPG is fulfilled in the combat. Personally I drifted from being a mage originally to duel pistols in the mid game; yet, I have found my home with the two-handed swords/axes. As you hack and slash your way through the world you may feel that certain builds are weaker than others, while balance is an issue when it comes to gameplay it seems as though certain nodes in the skill tree are broken currently. Which is a shame as it does hinder the players that want to find niche and uncommon builds. Although, I’m sure that this issue will be patched out in due time. 

Also, off topic but please let me know below about what build you’re running and if there’s a reason why? I’d love to see to more underrated builds.  

Anyway, let’s get back on track with enemy types. Each enemy in Wolcen is home to a specific biome/environment. For example, the ghosts and demons typically only show up in the catacomb-esque levels. While spiders on the other hand have made the woodlands their home. However, this can change later in the game due to randomised dungeons. This is a great way of building enemy designs as you begin to piece together Wolcen’s world looks like outside of the levels and it really immerses me into the smaller aspects that I wouldn’t have noticed in other titles. 

While Wolcen is a world with many levels and multiple acts the home of your hero never changes. Stormfall is a small merchant city, where you settle early in the game. In the late game you become the Guardian of Stormfall, which is where the gameplay shifts to a city building sim. To best describe the end game of wolcen I would have to compare it to the garrison of Dragon Age Inquisition. You choose what you would like to build in the city and then complete randomized dungeons in order to earn productivity points; as you build more parts of the city more options will open to you.

For example to build a gold to primordial essence converter you need to have unlocked a planning committee. Which means that you can’t just unlock all the good parts of Stormfall. Making the end game much more of a grind. I would find issue with this repetitive loop if the combat wasn’t so enjoyable. But fair warning if you don’t want an ARPG with lots of end game grinding, then you might want to start looking for a different genre? 

The Graphics

The Cryengine brings a lot of positive things to Wolcen’s design; mainly that everything look clean and amazing. The art style is very Warhammer-esque with a focus on realistic textures. Honestly, the environments are stunning and the use of the camera in certain places creates a very immersive feel. For example, when walking up to the hulking door of the Stormfall palace the camera moves to a third person angle giving the towering structure even more weight. 

Another aspect shown in Wolcen that adds to the graphical flair of the game is the unique armor sets. Which, can be matched uniquely with one another. For example you can wear light rogue armor with tanky heavy armor and try to make it work. I honestly believe that the Wolcen’s end game experience will become similar to Warframe. Meaning that fashion will rule over gameplay, and I’m 100% on board. Some of the community have already created fantastic designs like Shrek. We need more of this, hell I need more of this. 

The conclusion

So maybe the game does have flaws. First of all the game upon start up runs like a second hand washing machine. Lots of hiccups and stutters. However, once it chills out and gets into the rhythm again it doesn’t fault again. Until you need to do that dreaded wash again (re-launching the game). Also, the exploits that have been talked about to death are pretty major issues in the game design. However, it’s a single player game with a co-op option; if you don’t want the exploits to affect your game you don’t have to let them. Basically, It is entirely up to you whether they show up. To find out more about the numerous exploits you can go here. However, Wolcen’s development team have been proactively patching them out; as the 1.03 update released. 

My time with Wolcen has been almost entirely positive; the very few issues I have had all seem to fade with each dungeon run I complete. In the end, all I wanted from Wolcen was a fun way to let off steam. When i’m not playing League of legends. However, what I got was so much more of an engaging story, fantastic gameplay and a deep customisation system. One that I have been dreaming off since I first played an ARPG. If you’re looking for a game that can hold your attention for more than a week, while also supporting a fantastic indie project then you should definitely give Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem a chance. Get it on steam here: and if not now then maybe when it’s on sale.