Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles Review

Let me preface this by saying that I didn’t like Tomas Sala’s The Falconeer nearly as much as I wanted to. On the other hand, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, the sequel which we couldn’t have predicted in a million years, is a much more enjoyable and surprising experience built inside an entirely different genre.

A Panzer Dragoon-ish, open-world air combat game filled with giant eagles and set in an oceanic world should’ve clicked with me, but it very much didn’t. I found it clunky to control too often and unengaging when it came to non-linear storytelling. That said, I was interested in exploring more of the Great Ursee, and an experimental RTS seemed like the perfect opportunity for the solo developer to convince us his off-beat universe was here to stay.

You won’t get lost in menus and sub-menus here

Described as “an open-world builder with freedom and expression at its core,” Bulwark doesn’t hand-hold players for too long, mainly because neither controls nor systems are too complex and information is kept to a minimum. Outside of the frictionless Freebuild Mode, where resources and war aren’t an obstacle for creativity, Bulwark is divided into three different scenarios that mostly define who you play as (with a bit of background narrative) and your starting location and conditions. From that point onwards, it’s up to you how to interact with other factions and expand across the sea.

Bespoke construction mechanics drive Bulwark forward and are likely to attract more players than the more traditional (and unwieldy) bits. For the most part, you can quickly ‘paint’ over the islands that are scattered across the Great Ursee as long as you have the necessary resources and your main airship can ‘link’ the new base to the rest to bring in and out workers as well as resources. This is done through docks and boats that need captains. Airships and squadrons of eagle riders, meanwhile, patrol the sky, looking for new opportunities and protecting the cities, outposts, and trade routes.

The biggest fortress cities are truly impressive.

Every action, whether it’s moving the main airship, building, contacting strangers, or appointing new captains to ships and commanders to towers, is done with little more than a couple of clicks. Bulwark is a fast-paced game and benefits from being easy to pick up for pretty much anyone. While I played it on PC, I could see it working with a controller very well too.

Not everything about Bulwark’s moment-to-moment gameplay and controls is great though. The method of jumping from one construction/node to the next and building from there (in pretty much every direction as long as there are no physical limits) works well for the snappy and organic town-building, but also defines how the camera behaves and ultimately feels restrictive for no good reason. The regular camera panning found in other RTS isn’t a thing here, as you’re always centered around either the main airship or a building, so quickly checking what’s wrong when things become hectic can be a bit of a hassle, and I’m struggling to think of a reasonable explanation for this decision.

Defending from and attacking enemies isn’t as fun as you’d think.

Likewise, combat feels like a remnant from an earlier, much more traditional build of Bulwark, which may or may not have been a thing. In any case, such a sprawling and anti-micromanagement RTS would’ve greatly benefitted from some automatization to the matter of defending one’s territory and key locations. While the might of your forces is defined by the robustness of the faction as a whole and the flow of resources, not a lot is resolved on its own, requiring the main airship to come to the rescue and awkwardly fly around (there’s not much you can do) alongside allied eagle riders until they shoot down and/or sink every enemy.

While the main airship and its supporting fighters can be upgraded, and cities, as well as outposts, can have defences of their own, battles are ultimately decided by who has the larger number of attacking/defending forces, as represented by two bars at the top of the screen every time that a conflict starts. While I get the minimalistic approach to the rest of the game, combat required to be either dialled down or allowed to give the player more control (and information) over what’s going on and how they can impact it. Last but not least, there’s the fact you can just open the map and fast travel with the airship to any controlled location at no cost, shooting down any possibility of ever leaving key areas unattended for long. It’s a bit of a head-scratcher.

The tinkering with each citadel and town’s performance and resource flow is a far more engaging aspect of the game, as it works well in tandem with Bulwark’s signature building mechanics. Likewise, I enjoyed venturing into the horizon with the airship to find potential new citizens, set up new ports and trade routes, and uncover mysteries that further flesh out the Great Ursee in ways that maybe The Falconeer struggled with; the open-ended narration and mystique that were already found in the previous game are a much better fit here.

The Freebuild Mode will likely become a fan favourite.

Visually, much like The Falconeer, Bulwark looks pretty good most of the time. It’s not just the strong commitment to the already established art style, but also a solid grasp of which lighting better suits the harsh geometry and moody nature of the Great Ursee. It creates, together with a truly standout soundtrack by Benedict Nichols, an absorbing atmosphere that adds to the addictive, easy-to-pick-up mix that’s been cooked here. Moreover, PC performance appears to be a non-issue in modern systems due to the downscaled simulations.

While there are limits in the main game mode to what you can and cannot do, Tomas Sala doesn’t lie when he – as the narrator of some bits of the game – says that Bulwark is all about experimentation, trying out new things, and learning from mistakes; seeing what works and what doesn’t. As a small reactive sandbox with a strong visual identity, his second game in The Falconeer Chronicles Trilogy shines. It’s just frustrating to see some conventional elements fail to gel with the whole, so maybe the Freebuild Mode is where you’ll be spending most of your time.