Frozen Flame By Dreamside Interactive is an open-world RPG with a mix of survival and MMO elements and PvP. The game is currently in early access and I gave it a shot recently. I found the gameplay interesting and it might be worth checking out once it releases. However, due to its current early access state, I would not recommend it and you should wait until the full release of the game to see if it fulfills your expectations.
Do note that the game is far from complete and anything I mention in my preview might be obsolete in a future patch. Frozen Flame is an unfinished game and there’s no way to give a solid verdict on the game in its current state. I will share my experiences with the game in its current state in March 2023 and also point out the shortcomings that are holding it back.
Going Through the Early Game
Once you launch the game for the first time, Frozen Flame is like any other survival game. You need to figure things out by yourself after you are given a few basic pointers. The game lets you know how to craft and get started in the game and nothing much beyond that. You need to build yourself a base but something I learned the hard way is that you really need to choose where you set up carefully.
There is not much of a story. There is a nondescript curse that is plaguing the world and you are tasked with stopping it. The game offers essentially everything that you would expect from other sandbox survival games like Valheim or Don’t Starve.
The building and crafting systems are well done. You can make everything from armor and weapons to things you need to build the fantasy castle of your dreams. The building mode is fairly straightforward and I had no trouble building my first base. There are architectural geniuses who should be able to take far better advantage of the in-game building menu than I can, and there’s plenty of room to express your creativity. Even cooking feels rewarding as most food items that I’ve run into offer some sort of bonuses and it was fun trying out new recipes and seeing what I could get out of my resources.
The gameplay loop involves collecting quests from NPCs and completing basic tasks like solving puzzles or clearing time-based challenges. The environments in the game are well-detailed and look fantastic. The game feels like a happy mix of Fortnite and Immortal Fenyx Rising’s graphics.
After understanding the core gameplay loop I completed a few challenges and unlocked some collectibles along the way. I delved into the character upgrades and it is a fairly straightforward system and anyone should be able to understand what each attribute does.
You can build into various classes like rogue and arcanist and there may be more classes in the works for a future release. The upgrade paths feel somewhat basic in their current state and it’s definitely no Path of Exile skill tree, and I doubt it wants to be overly complex either.
Each of the regions looks fantastic and I had a blast going through the playable areas that are in the game right now. They look distinctly different from each other and I have no complaints when it comes to the visuals and music, but the gameplay is where the cracks of Frozen Flame begin to show.
A Few Improvements Could Make Frozen Flame a Lot More Interesting
The rate at which you need to repair your building differs based on where your base is located. During my time with the game. I had to repair my base almost every session and it got very frustrating. It is something that the developers will hopefully address as keeping up with the resource sink can be bothersome. Do note that I played the game in January 2023 and only hopped on to check out the PvP update that dropped recently, so things may have changed.
The combat is where Frozen Flame really struggles. I found it very difficult to keep playing the game mostly because of how funky the hitboxes can be at times. You cannot lock onto targets, which makes combat feel very tedious and unfun. It is the one department that needs the most attention as the overall aesthetics of the game are vibrant and eye-pleasing.
The AI falls short as well with some bosses losing track of you if you move in and out of the boss arenas. The bosses look menacing at times but their AI behavior does not do them any justice. The difficulty of the game could do with a bit of retuning. I noticed plenty of Steam reviews that are asking for a lock-on mechanic and it is something that would definitely improve the player experience. Being able to lock your aim to specific targets to ensure you land your damage on the right targets would go a long way in fixing the issues with the game’s combat system.
Most of my complaints begin and end with the combat itself. The amount of content available in the game is not quite enough and the activities feel a little shallow. The puzzles get boring after a certain point and they lack variety after the first few hours. As it stands, there is not much to make you want to keep playing after the initial honeymoon phase. The game is still in beta so I am hoping that there’s a lot more in the works than what is currently available to the Early Access players.
Should You Play Frozen Flame?
I cannot recommend the game in its current state. In my region, the game is priced below $20 USD. Despite its flaws, Frozen Flame was a fairly enjoyable experience so far and I intend to jump back into it once the game is complete. We do not have a definitive release date just yet and you should wait to see how the development of the game unfolds.
