The Falconeer: Warrior Edition

At first glance, the life of a falconeer looks fun and adventurous. You soar high above the ocean's waves, visit far-off lands and rescue those in desperate need of help. What could be better? But like any job, that initial excitement begins to wear off as the day-to-day work starts to feel more like a grind. That's how I felt as I played through The Falconeer: Warrior Edition, an aerial combat game with the perfect blend of fantasy elements and Game of Thrones-style politics. It has the kind of set-up that would normally lead to an endless variety of action-packed missions. And yet, no matter how many wars we fight or pirates we drown, the job always seems to play out the same way. Not even soldiers riding on giant falcons can escape the monotonous drudgery of work.

The Falconeer is set in a fictional world that is mostly made up of ocean and tiny islands. The Ursee is controlled by a number of powerful houses and countries, all of which seem to be in a constant struggle for control and dominance. The Falconeers are gun-wielding soldiers who put their life on the line by riding on the backs of giant birds, all while running errands and protecting civilians from outside attackers. It's a tough job, but in a world as precariously balanced as this, somebody needs to do it.

If you've gotten into a dog fight with an airplane, then you'll feel right at home on the back of a massive falcon. The birds may flap their wings and dive into the ocean to eat fish, but they control remarkably similar to what you would expect from an aerial combat shooter. The big difference is the bird's agility and ability to pick up bombs and other items using its sharp talons. The rest of the combat boils down to the falconeer lining up shots and taking out the enemy's own set of flying creatures, all of which is made easier with the lock-on system and secondary homing missiles.

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Although we're thrown into an exciting fantasy world filled with possibilities, almost all of the missions comfortably fit into only a few different categories. For example, a lot of the jobs revolve around taking a special weapon or item to an allied country, which usually involves getting ambushed by one of the other armies. There are also levels where we need to protect an allied boat from getting ambushed by one of the other armies. And don't worry, we're not always getting ambushed, because sometimes it's our job to race into an already-started battle and help our friends by defeating the other armies.

If all that sounds a little repetitive, it's because it is. The falconeer's job is surprisingly predictable, because no matter what you're doing, it's guaranteed that you'll run into some sort of ambush or battle. A lot of the levels will start with you aiding a friendly boat, only to have our hero get ambushed, pick up an item, drop it off at another island cluster, get ambushed again and then fly home, where you'll accept a reward and jump into another identical mission. And no, that's not an exaggeration. You may not always need to deliver a useful item to a friendly neighbor, but a combination of those events will happen in every single job you take on.

Before I get bogged down in all of the ways the developers have clipped The Falconeer's wings, I first want to focus on my favorite part of the game. More than anything else, The Falconeer is great at world building. Right from the start, it tosses us into a fully-realized fantasy world that feels unique and lived in. They pump us full of backstory and lore, all of which helps make every political decision feel that much more important. And what's great about the way the game is structured is how we'll see the story unfold from the perspective of the different countries and houses. By the end of the surprisingly lengthy campaign, we'll have experienced the conflict from all of the sides, giving us a well-rounded experience that helps sell this dystopian water world.

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Unfortunately, by spending so much time focusing on the lore and world building, the game forgets that it still needs to tell a proper story. The structure makes it almost impossible to care about any of the characters or their country's plight, something that ultimately left me feeling detached from the narrative. I could be fighting on the front lines of what amounts to a world war, yet I always felt like a cog in the system. I was being told about the big picture as the action was happening around me. There was nothing keeping me invested in any of these factions, which is frustrating given how great the world building is.

The repetitive missions certainly don't help. Because so many of the levels play out the same way, I found that the game's structure had a demoralizing affect. If I'm doing the same predictable missions in the same predictable way and the only thing that's different is my allegiance, then what's the point? Nothing is going to change. The game has a way of seeming like a series of déjà vu moments. The missions may get longer and the point on the map may change, but what I'm doing there remains the same.

Speaking of the missions getting longer, The Falconeer could definitely use some sort of checkpointing system. There are jobs where you'll go to five or six different waypoints and deal with multiple ambushes, all of which takes a substantial amount of time. If you die at any point in that mission, you'll have to go back to the beginning and start over. And it's actually worse than that, because there were multiple times where the mission took me so far away from my home country that I would respawn at a completely different base, forcing me to either fly back or use the fast travel.

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And that brings us to the design of the open world. For as good as the world building is, I wish that the world they built was more interesting. Yes, it's unique and feels lived in, but it's also completely empty and mostly ocean. I suppose that may be realistic and it does help to underscore the size of the world, but it's also not much fun to look at. Many of the aerial dog fights take place over the water and usually at night. There's so much water that the game will constantly recommend using the fast travel feature. The game is aware how boring its world is.

That's a shame, because I really like the look of the different islands and nations. I had a good time exploring Ursee and locating all of the landmarks on the map. The Falconeer gets a lot of the atmosphere right, especially when it comes to the lighting. It's also incredibly fun to play, especially when you're in the middle of the epic sea battles that always seem to happen during lightning storms. There is a pretty great game buried deep below the crushing repetition.