Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles review

Does city-building without the usual stress sound appealing?

Within seconds of booting up Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, it’s evident that you’re in for something different. In the corner of the game’s main screen, you’re greeted by a voiced reproduction of the game’s solo developer, Tomas Sala.

The wizardly-looking character explains that Bulwark uses a streamlined control system for its simulated city building and that experimentation is encouraged. What Sala doesn’t reveal is that his latest effort challenges many of the norms of game design.

A Wonderful, Water-Logged World

Although Bulwark is set forty years after 2020’s The Falconeer, don’t expect a continuation of the aerial combat found in the trilogy’s inaugural entry. Instead, the title revisits the same oceanic world of Ursee.

And as contexts go, it’s a wonderfully imaginative universe, filled with rocky atolls that jut from a tempestuous sea and skies that are alive with saline hazes and strikes of lightning. Like Falconeer, the structures that extend from these rugged cliffs are emblematic, with towering spires and labyrinthine walkways revealing humanity’s defiance toward an inhospitable ecosystem.

Construction Pared Down

Notably, Falconeer Chronicles shuns any kind of traditional control method, where you have a rather static, godlike perspective of your map. Instead, ground construction and navigation are largely node based, as you place towers that connect to your base, with the game automatically generating walkways. It’s far removed from the nested menus of most city builders, allowing you to freely create a spider’s web of structures.

In execution, it’s far closer to the relaxed take on civil engineering offered by Dorfromantic and Townscraper rather than the finicky micromanagement of something like Sim City or Cities Skylines. No, you don’t have to designate a location or even build lodgings for workers. Instead, houses automatically emerge around a flourishing settlement, like leaves budding from a well-tended sapling. And cultivating your outposts can offer the Zen-like feel of pruning a bonsai since you can trip away unneeded structures or craft elaborate decks around your towers.

Growth is not the End Game

Theoretically, you’re probably supposed to care about the game’s trio of resources: wood, stone, and iron. And I never found myself encountering the “oh shit, what do I need to fix?” resource shortages of Age of Empires or almost any other real-time strategy game. Instead, additional raw materials are used for tower upgrades that can bolster your defenses and units.

But since combat is deliberately downplayed (and often handled without your intervention), it’s nearly non-essential. If there’s a fail-state in Bulwark, I haven’t encountered it, even after attempting to trigger it. Instead, the game is more interested in letting you build without the kind of structure found in most 4X titles. But the freedom also means that the game is a persistently tranquil experience, without the customary pressures that city builders habitually present.

Finding Direction

For some, that might be an issue. Bulwark provides plenty of things to do. Across a trio of campaigns, there’s an entire map that can be explored. With different factions that can contribute to your reach of influence or create friction, you’re not alone in the Ursee. But since parties adhere to a simple friendly/hostile dichotomy, don’t expect any of the thorny geopolitics of Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Nobunaga’s Ambition. If you’d rather dodge all diplomatic activities, the game’s Freebuild mode lets you build a LEGO empire in a bathtub.

But if you’re accustomed to a sense of urgency, Bulmark could disappoint. As much as I complain about games feeling formulaic, much of my time with the title was spent admiring its break from traditions rather than truly enjoying the moment-to-moment play. As much as I want to champion the game allowing players to find their own form of gratification, Falconeer Chronicles never quite provides enough freedom to feel like a truly robust sandbox.

A Need for Control

And then there’s the occasional mechanical issue. Although the game allows players to use either a controller or mouse and keyboard, neither input system feels all that instinctual. At any time, you can seize control of a blimp known as your Surveyor. But navigation uses a click-to-move method that’s unwieldy. When you’re on the ground, Bulwark lets you rotate the camera around objects, but the inability to zoom in and see the details of your city is disappointing.

Then there’s the issue of experimentation. Undoubtedly, Sala wants players to interact and discover how Bulwark’s world operates, rather than direct them through it. As such, the obligations of resource management and commandeering war efforts are restrained, letting players focus on building and exploration. But neither of these components are relatively deep. You’ll learn most of the intricacies within a few hours before a sense of tedium rears, and you’ll move on to another game. And that’s probably the biggest issue with Falconeer Chronicles. The game’s ambitions are praiseworthy but at present, the in-game actions aren’t engaging enough to maintain your attention for too long.

Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.