Final Stand: Ragnarök Hands-On Preview - Facing Insurmountable Odds

“There aren’t a lot of games like this out there,” Mark Jacobs, president and CEO of Unchained Entertainment said when describing Final Stand: Ragnarök during a recent preview event. It’s certainly a bold opening claim that’s often used when enthusiastically describing new projects, but what truly piqued my interest was the intention to create “just a fun, old-school style hack and slasher” which “is all about co-op beating the snot out of all the forces of Hel.” The concept itself may not be all that novel but could manage to scratch that itch for a more straightforward experience.

Final Stand: Ragnarök has been around for a while now, releasing to little fanfare back in 2021, in what Jacobs calls “first access.” An all-time peak concurrent player count of 37 (as per SteamDB’s charts at the time of writing) doesn’t paint an encouraging picture. But the latest round of investment secured by the studio formerly known as City State Entertainment gives the team the resources to not only launch its debut title into “official early access,” but also finish its projects and properly focus on marketing.

According to Jacobs, the version that goes live on March 13, 2024, is “way different” thanks to a series of graphical and performance improvements alongside touched-up game modes and more NPCs.

Diving in for the first time, I immediately discovered a fairly traditional third-person action RPG that focuses exclusively on co-op wave defense gameplay while throwing huge numbers of enemies your way. Rendering thousands of on-screen entities is a key feature of the studio’s proprietary Unchained Engine, which has been built to both fuel its projects – including the long-in-development MMORPG Camelot Unchained – and those of other studios interested in licensing the software.

Jacobs tells me that building games with large player counts isn’t obligatory for anyone who might end up using the engine. At the same time, he is quite confident of its capabilities to render so many on-screen characters on a variety of PC configurations.

“We have been running tests with both real people and our testing clients which are remote – they mimic a person – we’ve got them up to about 83% of the bandwidth and CPU of a player, so that’s pretty good. I know with a thousand there isn’t a problem. We’ve done it.”

The question that arises then is how players with lower-end machines might fare. Jacobs recognises trade-offs as inevitable when dealing with particularly older hardware – which is a reality for any game – but remains optimistic about both the studio’s titles running on aging PCs.

“When it comes to a game like Camelot Unchained, which has more limited [area of effect abilities] than, say, Ragnarök does, we’ve been up to almost 3000 [entities],” Jacobs notes. “And in terms of the performance of that game on older machines, I’m pretty confident in saying that, for that type of game, a thousand – easy; two thousand – probably easy, because we’ve been, again, up to three. And, one of the things we haven’t done that could improve performance, would be [starting] to cull at a certain distance.”

Sacrificing the number of entities shown on-screen and potentially lowering other graphical settings are, thus, expected solutions. Testing has so far been conducted on a range of hardware that included Nvidia 9-series cards whose users had “a real good experience.” Jacobs also praises the Unchained Engine’s networking capabilities, noting that “no matter what [testers] thought of the game, whether they loved it, hated it, liked it, they said the networking performance was something they’d never seen before.”

Although I only got the chance to play two matches of Final Stand: Ragnarök, my PC had no trouble holding a consistent 60 FPS, only encountering a few negligible stutters when casting certain abilities. I wouldn’t describe the stylised graphics as impressive by any means, but they fit the mythological conflict at the core of the game while being eerily reminiscent of titles like Smite. I also didn’t encounter any connectivity issues or rubberbanding, even when hundreds of Draugr flooded my screen.

Hel Comes Knocking

But how exactly does it play? Rooted in Norse mythology, Final Stand gives a team of players control over powerful heroes while tasking them with thwarting Hel’s nefarious plans. Righteous violence and magic play a central role in eliminating the vast minion hordes looking to destroy structures that are vital for your efforts. The narrative didn’t strike me as the primary concern, being relegated to snarky, adequately voice-acted exchanges between Hel and other deities that trigger at specific points during matches.

Each controllable hero boasts five active abilities that help you gain the upper hand. Gwen the Spearmaiden alternates between melee thrusts and ranged throws as her main attacks. In addition, she can also summon spectral allies and buff her team’s attack and movement speed.

Yuki the Ice-Demon is an elusive, frost-infused ninja who, aside from her own set of melee and ranged strikes can also unleash a devastating cyclone around her, easily wiping out tens of enemies in an instant. Her Death Mark ability makes enemies vulnerable, ensuring that bosses or structures with lots of health take considerably less time to crumble under the weight of your blows.

Final Stand: Ragnarök isn’t built around specific team compositions, according to the developers who joined me during my session, launching with a roster of characters who primarily focus on dealing damage. This freeform approach, however, still encourages teamwork.

Applying Yuki’s Death Mark, for example, becomes far more effective when your allies also target the same foe. Enemies attack from different directions and objectives can be spread across a wider area, which is when smaller mobile squads shine. At the same time, you can also tackle missions as a loud group of ten very angry berserkers, should that strike your fancy.

Although it launches into “official early access” with a focus on 10-player matches, a scaling system ensures that smaller teams can still tackle Hel’s forces without being heavily disadvantaged. Jacobs also says that he hopes to increase the player count in the future.

Both of the matches I played ended before reaching the final phase, with my team crushed under a relentless Draugr tide. The overall challenge did, however, feel adequate, especially for a first session. Jacobs “actually wanted the game to be harder” but the team “toned that back a little bit” at the advice of designers and testers.

Getting the general gist of how characters play was simple enough, but the lack of a minimap – which is something the developer plans on addressing – did make sticking with my allies harder than it should have been.

On-screen indicators helped with keeping track of the distance between me and the buildings I had to defend, but things can get quite hectic when desperately trying to keep at bay hordes of enemies. Speaking of foes, there’s a decent amount of variety, from melee draugr to ranged mages, agile spiders, and towering frost giants.

Amid battle and when facing hundreds of them, the effects of their attacks blend into a ball of damage, but Final Stand: Ragnarök nails that feeling of the odds being stacked against you.

During each phase, a series of pick-ups spread across the area help your defensive efforts through bonuses like health increases and items that can help turn the tide. These spawn for all players on your team, so you won’t have to fight over who picks up a fiery bomb to chuck at enemies. Aside from a variety of explosive, frosty, or poisonous items that help cull enemy numbers, you can also use healing crystals and trees that regenerate mana to stay in the fight.

Each champion can also equip several runes that provide additional passive bonuses as the match goes on. This looks like Final Stand: Ragnarök’s take on meta progression and, in the game’s menu, I spotted multiple choices waiting to be unlocked.

The Tower map structured its objectives in so-called “chapters” that saw my team defending moving across an open area covered in snow. Each wave lasted for several minutes, starting relatively slowly before significantly ramping up.

There were always plenty of enemies on-screen but maintaining control becomes particularly difficult during the latter stages of a wave. On several occasions, I found myself woefully trapped in the middle of what felt like hundreds of enemies, with no chance to escape were it not for the intervention of my teammates, who somehow mowed down foes and triggered the wave-ending tower blast.

A second map – The Arena – will be available once early access fully kicks into gear, but I didn’t get the chance to try it out myself. The main reason for this – aside from having had an interview scheduled – was the random queue system the game currently relies on. The ability to select maps won’t be available when the game launches, to avoid splitting the community, but is something the developer will take into consideration if the game becomes popular enough.

Since Final Stand has been around for a while, I asked Jacobs if the game’s design philosophy changed in any significant way during this period of relative dormancy and whether or not players can, perhaps, expect surprises going forward.

“It’s, again, big battles, big bad enemies, and different settings. That’s always been where I wanted to go with this. And when you look at the Tower and the Arena, they’re very different, and The Maze is even more different because it’s almost all indoors.

“If you follow engines at all, a lot of the rendering engines tend to start as one type of engine – either you’re an outdoor renderer or you’re an indoor rendered. We started as an outdoor renderer and one of the things we’ve been doing over the last year is adding really good indoor rendering. Now, we’re not there yet, we will be soon, but that opens up not only different areas for Final Stand but it also is gonna be kind of important for Camelot Unchained’s The Depths.

“So, should people expect surprises? Absolutely. Will maybe some of them be unexpected? Maybe. But if you look at the evolution from Tower to Arena to Maze, you have the things in the Maze that you would expect in a good dungeon, so of course you have traps and you have other things that we don’t have in these two arenas. So I would like to think that we’ve been pretty consistent other than toning down the incredible difficulty.”

Jacobs goes on to explain that the Overmind – the system that controls matches – allows the difficulty to be easily turned back up. “I do wanna press that at some point by having, you know, the toughest scenario yet. I wanna do something that will challenge the players and not by just throwing numbers at it, because, after a while if all you do is throw big numbers, then people go ‘okay, what’s your next trick?’

As much as it presents itself as a title with old-school sensibilities, Final Stand: Ragnarök will feature seasons and battle passes. The developer is aiming for a “very light [microtransactions] system where you cannot buy success or advantages, no in-game advertising, and no ‘in your face’ push to buy, buy, and buy some more.”

Battle Passes will only be available for a limited time and “the intent is also when we say that they won’t be available down the road to actually mean it.”

Then, as with any early access title, Unchained Entertainment plans to expand Final Stand: Ragnarök’s content offering over the coming months. First on the way is a patch that “takes care of some small bugs.” Afterwards, the team will be tackling a series of quality of life issues before “pushing hard at getting the Maze in as probably the next major patch other than, of course, any major bug patches.”

The Maze, which is the third planned map, will first be featured as part of upcoming First Look Fridays. These are essentially temporary beta tests that allow curious players to sample upcoming content and changes while providing valuable feedback.

Further into the future, the champion pool should also expand, with multiple playable characters already in development, while a swamp area and more NPCs will see the game growing even bigger.

“We intend to keep the players of FS:R busy with new things and, just as I did back with Dark Age of Camelot, and even back to my MUDs, I believe that people who are paying you money, whether it’s for a game or a game as a service, deserve to continue to get more from you, and I’ve done that my entire career, and I’m going to do the same thing with Ragnarök and I’m going to do the same thing with CU.”

My brief time with Final Stand: Ragnarök revealed a competent, intense third-person wave-based hack-and-slash game that fits well into its developer’s plan to make a fun, straightforward experience. While I found its simplicity refreshing, I’m not yet sold on it being as unique an experience as Jacobs painted it at the start.

Hacking and slashing my way through hordes of foes felt satisfying, but I can’t say I noticed much in the way of unique behaviors. The differences between the game’s three maps also came up here but, having only played one myself, and with the Maze remaining a future addition, it’s difficult to say whether or not that’s the case.

I also have a hunch that the title’s long-term lasting power will greatly depend on successfully delivering post-launch content that keeps things fresh at an alert pace.

Final Stand: Ragnarök is already available in Steam Early Access but “officially” begins its journey on March 13, 2024. As for its full release, Jacobs acknowledges that the trajectory of early access projects isn’t always set in stone and, should it become “this amazing hit […], like so many games have, maybe there’s not a rush to get it into final. But that’s not something I’m even contemplating now, it’s just not, so I do expect this to be out before CU, at least out of early access.”

Camelot Unchained and the Issue of Trust

Although the preview session was focused on FS:R and the capabilities of the Unchained Engine, it was difficult to fully avoid the subject of Camelot Unchained, the MMO that, more than a decade after its successful Kickstarter campaign, still isn’t fully playable.

When this latest round of investment was announced, Mark Jacobs explained that he hopes “by the end of 2025 to have CU up and running as a viable, commercial RvR-centric game.”

To many, that will sound like a very ambitious goal, so I asked Jacobs for his opinion on why, given his studio’s tumultuous past, both new players and older fans who might be on the fence at the moment should consider giving his projects a chance.

“First, I wouldn’t really describe it as ‘tumultuous,’” he said. “Challenged? Absolutely. But, let’s face it. We have kept working on Camelot Unchained, we’ve kept working on the engine, we’ve kept working on FS:R. So, while we certainly haven’t been (?) perfect, and I would never admit that we were perfect, or say that we were perfect, because we weren’t, we have kept the faith with our backers in terms of trying to make the game. That has never stopped..

“Now, if we had stopped or did, again, equity crowdfunding, or done something else to try and get money from players to fund it, then I think ‘tumultuous’ would be a fair word. But we’ve kept that part of the bargain, we haven’t gone back to them and said ‘give us more money, please.’ We’ve done that with professional investors, including myself. But, we are very late, there’s no question about that.

“So, why they should trust us – well don’t! I mean, it’s really simple. They can try Ragnarök – and FS: R wasn’t necessarily made for the CU backer. But if they want to try, they can try it on Steam or if they’re still Camelot Unchained backers, they get it for free. So, have you ever seen that happen? We told all of our CU backers that they’re getting Ragnarök for free if they want it. So we’re not asking them to pay a dime for a brand new game.”

Work on Camelot Unchained continues and more details about it should be out “either this month or next month.” Unchained Entertainment is also actively hiring while working on its three projects – the engine, Final Stand: Ragnarök, and the MMORPG. The studio went from 30 staff members to “over 50 and we’re going to hire even more,” Jacobs tells me.

“So all I ask of people is very simple. If you bought Camelot Unchained already, give it a shot when it comes out and if you like FS: R, play it,” he adds. “But, you know, the nice thing about Steam [is its] automatic refunds, less than two hours [of playtime], right? You don’t have to trust us, you don’t have to trust me personally. Get it on Steam, if you like it, play it, if you don’t, don’t. We’re trying to make a certain type of game, we want it to be fun.”

Jacobs reiterates that, over the years, work on Camelot Unchained and Final Stand: Ragnarök never stopped and the studio “never gave up.”

“And that’s unlike a number of games who quit, and I was fortunate I was able to convince people, investors, that we had something worthwhile. And, since you’ve seen Ragnarök […] you’ll see that we’ve done exactly what we said we would – is build an engine to drive games that nobody else has built before it, including me back in Mythic or since.”

This is what Jacobs names as “the biggest reason that people should trust us, because we can prove it.” He points towards the studio’s approach to testing, which involves spending “a significant amount of money to bring in people, very reputable and very well-known testing groups to certify that, yeah, this is exactly what Unchained says it is, because other companies haven’t done that. We’re gonna do that. So, hopefully that will convince some people, but, if not, I want the games to speak for themselves.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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