Eternal Strands weaves together a deeply intriguing scene from its earliest moments, stitching together a picture of a fantasy world built around the concept of magic emulating threads. It’s a world I wanted to dive into from the jump, if only to uncover more of how it came to be and what the cultures of the different locations are like. And as much as the worldbuilding retains that wonder with incredible-looking environments that make for engaging play spaces for the physics-based magic system, the beat-for-beat details of Eternal Strands’ story aren’t nearly as rewarding to unravel.
Eternal Strands’ story too often hits on familiar fantasy tropes, such as an inexplicable magical disaster that changed everything and a corrupting force that seemingly has no weakness and must be avoided at all costs. But the history that story is built on adds a semblance of life to the world, building memorable NPCs that you want to come back to again and again to talk about what in their life led them to where they are now, and painting a somber undertone to the world that begs to be uncovered through its detailed lore notes and optional collectibles.
I especially love how Eternal Strands packages aspects of its history so they’re viewed through the art of weaving–not a typical choice for action-adventure games. Concepts like spells are recontextualized, transforming from arcane runes into fashion choices. You can largely avoid the historical exposition if you’d rather spend your time swinging a sword and spewing fire, but there’s some great writing to uncover here for lore hounds.
The moment-to-moment of the present-day narrative is less compelling, however, standing out in stark contrast to the far more interesting historical events that led up to it. The main characters are memorable enough, and conversations with them are brought to life with great voice acting–Rebecca Hanssen as Casmyn is a notable highlight, giving a guarded edge to the soft words of the horned quartermaster that makes you want to get to know her more (and her romance arc is so sweet!).
You approach this cast as Brynn, the recently anointed scout who ventures out into the wilds beyond the safety of her party’s camp to find resources, search dangerous locations, handle threats, and uncover the origin of a puzzling calamity. Her personality is shaped based on the options you choose during dialogue with other characters, allowing you to somewhat curate Brynn’s always-positive disposition and plucky attitude to be more assertive, jovial, or stoic, and these choices are reflected in how the other characters regard her, with the most substantial effect being the option to romance some of them.
The most interesting aspect of Eternal Strands is its magic system. Brynn can command the forces of gravity, ice, and fire, and both the world and enemies within it react to how you use these powers. At their simplest, they allow Brynn to throw, freeze, and ignite enemies, but they can also be used more strategically to both fight and explore in new ways. Brynn’s gravity powers can be used to propel herself skyward, for example, or pick up a dropped sword to violently skewer an enemy, or she can use ice to freeze the air and create a temporary bridge to cross a gap or stitch an invisible enemy to the ground to make them easier to hit. In the same respect, Brynn’s magic can affect the world as you imagine it would–fire magic can melt parts of the world covered in frost, ice magic can freeze water, and gravity magic can stack pretty much anything that isn’t nailed down.
This magic system is at its best when Brynn contends with the colossal threats that patrol each environment, ranging from fire-breathing dragons to lumbering constructs. These powerful, boss-like enemies must be strategically handled, often having weak points that you need to clamber up the monsters’ bodies to reach. I only defeated a fire-breathing drake after I managed to climb up its leg onto its back and started swinging Brynn’s sword at the one place its flaming breath could not reach, using ice magic to freeze its wings in place when it decided to take off so that I could send it back to earth. And I managed to defeat one of the armored constructs by freezing its foot to the ground, using gravity magic to rip away the plate armor around its torso, and then using Brynn’s gravity magic on herself to fling her upwards to instantly get to the revealed weak point.
Optional pieces of lore on these titanic monsters can be uncovered while exploring the world, but even if you do put in the legwork to better understand how these monsters might behave or be more easily defeated ahead of time, there’s still a need to react to their behavior and come up with new plans on the fly to take them down. There’s a fulfilling sense of victory to taking these behemoths down, and intuiting a new plant of attack in the moment and seeing my labors result in success was a consistent source of delight. These often long hunts are worth the effort too, as each successful kill results in a small explosion of colorful high-level materials that you can use to craft better gear and weapons, as well as the necessary components to weave new spells or upgrade your existing abilities.
Fights against the normal wildlife or human-sized constructs aren’t nearly as rewarding. Beyond her magic, Brynn also has a sword, shield, and bow, and she can unlock a two-handed greatsword–these tools can take care of the smaller threats easily with a little button mashing. About three hours into Eternal Strands, I killed a dragon, used the harvested materials to craft a bow that could deal fire damage, and pretty much managed to avoid combat against normal enemies after that by burning everything alive from a distance. It made traversing through most of each environment trivial, as I could snipe most enemies before Brynn got close enough for anything to register her presence. Only the larger-than-life monsters continued to pose any sort of challenge necessitating me to think about survival and how to fight.
Each locale that Brynn visits is beautifully realized, from stoic and empty cities to vibrant and noisy jungles. A few of the environments afford Brynn the chance to use her magic–specifically gravity and ice–to navigate them vertically, leaping between rooftops or towers and going off the beaten path to discover a secret or two. Rarely, however, are these places difficult to navigate, even when the random weather system introduces a danger like toxic miasma. They’re built in a largely linear fashion, funneling Brynn from one side to the other to reach her next objective, and although there are times when the scout has multiple missions active at once, it never feels like you’re actually getting a chance to explore these spaces. For a game that fashions its protagonist as a much-needed scout paving the way forward, Brynn spends an awful lot of Eternal Strands following the directives of others and being told where she can go as soon as she unlocks a new area to explore. For as much as Eternal Strands frees you to practice your agency in taking down the colossal monsters that dot its dangerous world, it limits you in almost every regard.
Eternal Strands is a straightforward action-adventure game. The physics-based magic system adds a lot of fun and satisfyingly strategic energy to Brynn’s regular run-ins with colossal enemies, but smaller threats rarely rise above being a tedious hindrance. And although the history of the world is interesting to uncover and conversations with Brynn’s party members a regularly lively delight, the actual moment-to-moment story beats don’t feel all that compelling. It’s a shame that Eternal Strands’ lows drag parts of its experience down, because the narrative and gameplay have clear highs that would excel in a game that wasn’t holding them back.