Xbox Game Pass gem is a delightful monster hunting adventure

When I first started playing Eternal Strands, I experienced quite the rollercoaster of varying opinions. However, after many hours, I simply have to recommend that everyone gives it a chance, which is simple to do on Xbox as it’s available via Xbox Game Pass. The opening hour was rough, I’m not going to lie. For lack of a better word, the combat felt a little ‘janky’.

At first, I was getting to grips with melee combat, switching between guarding with a shield and fighting with a sword. It’s basic, but serviceable. There I am, wandering the wilderness, slaying wolves, dodging via a swift roll, managing my stamina to ensure that I don’t use up my energy mid-swing of the sword. It was feeling good, and then I bumped into a wolf with ice powers and suddenly everything felt like a chore.

I was being frozen in place, my stamina drained, and left unable to properly fight. Even jumping away caused the hero, Brynn, to float awkwardly, sustaining damage. Then I died.

I turned off the game, went to play something else, and returned a few days later. I found my opinion was overly negative, but I wanted to give the game a solid chance because visually, it was appealing, using a slight cartoon aesthetic - some would say it’s very Fortnite-coded - and the world in which Brynn finds herself was a sumptuous environment that felt like I’d fallen into a fairy tale.

Yellow Brick Games

So, back into the world I went, and this time, I took things a bit slower. I juggled my melee skills with my magic abilities, taking on the vicious wildlife by freezing them in place before battering them over the head. Unlocking new magic skills pushed me into tackling encounters with more thought, and suddenly it clicked.

It perhaps helps that the core gameplay mechanics are a riff on roguelikes, with a dash of extraction shooter stirred in. You see, Brynn is trapped with her exploration team in an exotic world where magic lies dormant and history, plagued by war, has shaped the land. It’s her job to save the team and find a way out by exploring, dispatching enemies, and collecting materials and items along the way.

Back at camp, your team will upgrade your gear, fashion items using crafting recipes, and consume the materials you find. It’s clear there are inspirations being pulled from all over the place. Monster Hunter gets a big nod from the team in the farming of enemies to craft stronger gear. If you die, you can choose to keep a few items, much like a storage container in an extraction shooter, and the cast of characters feels as if it has been pulled from a Dragon Age instalment.

Time passes, day turns into night, the world revolves around you, with different creatures appearing. As you pass through each area, the world expands, offering new places to explore and find better materials, so on and so forth.

Yellow Brick Games

Here I am, traipsing the worn paths, looking for treasures, fighting small critters and robotic-like constructs that are trying to prevent my progress when suddenly, Eternal Strands pulls from another classic game, Shadow of the Colossus, in the larger enemies that exist within the world. The first is a much larger construct; a creature built from large metal plates that Brynn will scale and climb.

Later, in the second area, I found a dragon to kill. Any of these big enemies require you to scurry across their bodies breaking off armour by hitting weak points, then slowly damaging them via focused attacks. A large life meter slowly trickles away and once the creature is defeated, super rare materials are yours for the taking. Or, you can make your way to their heart and pull out a thread, which grants you more magic abilities.

From this point, I’m blasting out cones of fire to vanquish those horrible ice wolves, or launching rocks via telekinesis, occasionally placing orbs of energy that pull in objects and enemies to then detonate them all in an explosive crescendo.

Yellow Brick Games

At this moment, I realised that I could play the game however I wanted. There’s a dragon breathing fire at me? Then I’ll try to seal their mouths with balls of ice. An area frozen over with ice needs exploring? I’ll use fire blasts to defrost the environment. I’ll admit, some of the jank remains, but it instead adds to the charm of Eternal Strands, because you realise that if something isn’t working, you can adjust your tactics and approach.

On the whole, I can’t recommend this one enough. In my downtime, between playing, I found myself yearning to play. I wanted to explore the world more, see the hidden areas where treasure could be found, or harvest more materials to improve my armour, weapons, and stats. The opportunity to scale and tackle huge beasts is a constant appeal, and provides the foundations for some delightful mechanics and story beats.

If you’re an Xbox Game Pass subscriber, this is one you have to try. Eternal Strands feels incredibly accessible, offering an escape into a fairy tale world boasting plenty of engaging reasons to keep returning.