GreedFall: The Dying World Review - The World’s Dying and So Am I

SilentSigns
2 hours ago
7 min read

GreedFall: The Dying World

PC/PS5/XBOX Series

3/10/2026

Spiders/Nacon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKrqFL9Ps4A

Early access is a bit of a double‑edged sword. On one hand, some folks enjoy having a hand in shaping a project they’re excited about and providing the developer with meaningful feedback that will ensure the finished product meets the expectations of hungry fans. On the other hand, it means putting up with a lot of technical growing pains in the process and having to front the money for a game before it is fully realized. Early access certainly worked in the favor of titles like Hades 2 and Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, but not all games have fared as favorably. What category does developer Spiders’ “GreedFall: The Dying World” fall into as it leaps into version 1.0? We have a lot to talk about, so let’s jump right in.

GreedFall: The Dying World is the follow‑up to GreedFall, a 2019 RPG that was met with mostly positive reactions despite a few quirks. The goal with the sequel was to expand upon the original game in nearly every way, with deeper storytelling, character development, combat mechanics, and improved visuals. Spoiler alert: it fails in nearly every regard. Sorry, there is only so long I can hold in my disappointment with this title. Yes, despite lingering in early access since September of 2024, the game is chock‑full of more bugs than a seedy Motel 6, making progression in GreedFall: The Dying World my most formidable foe in my nearly eight years of reviewing games here on the channel.

Serving as a prequel, this second installment in the franchise takes place 3 years prior to the events of the original. Here you play as an indigenous person of Teer Fradee, which can be customized to your liking. Our protagonist is forcibly removed from their homeland shortly after an initiation ceremony to become a sage. Now they’re faced with fierce foes, political scheming, and unlikely alliances in this nearly 40‑hour adventure that features a few familiar faces from the first game. Since this RPG is quite a large undertaking, fans of games like the Elder Scrolls series or, to keep it indie, Tainted Grail, will have a good inkling as to what to expect, though this particular campaign takes place from the third‑person perspective exclusively. A massive world to explore, tons of loot to gather, quests to complete, equipment, weapons, and conversations with The Dying World's many inhabitants. What sets this adventure apart from the pack, however, is its…”unique” combat system. Heavily inspired by the likes of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age, the active pause system is the star of the show here, allowing players to plot out each command, controlling all party members.

In theory, GreedFall: The Dying World should at least be a functional entry into the genre, but in execution it’s more like trying to have a meaningful conversation with an AI chatbot. There’s the vague outline of a game here, but it’s so unnatural and disjointed you could never mistake it for something real. For its many problems, GreedFall: The Dying World does feature some decent writing with interesting enough plot points to support the many quests and battles. While it certainly skews on the generic side, its anti‑colonization focus and the weight of your in‑game decisions will certainly resonate with some.

Before embarking on this adventure, you’re able to customize the difficulty and playstyle with some decent options. First, you choose your battle style, with the game recommending the “tactical” style where you’ll have control over the entire party and you’ll be able to use the tactical pause to the full extent for strategy and planning. If you’d prefer to focus more on an individual character, you can choose the “focused” style, where you’ll really only need to be concerned with the main character and your options in the tactical pause are more limited. You’ll also be able to select from an assortment of difficulty options, from a story mode to the more advanced “tactical.” I opted for the recommended tactical battle style and adventure difficulty to start, as it seemed the recommended way to experience GreedFall: A Dying World.

The game consists of a constant flow of quests that are easy enough to track with a detailed journal and well-marked map. These tasks range from freeing prisoners trapped in mines to finding the source of a mysterious illness that is killing the local game and making your people ill. There’s no shortage of things to do—both required and optional. Regardless of how you approach the game, expect a steady stream of combat encounters as well, whether you’re facing dangerous wolves or heavily armored knights. You can’t say The Dying World doesn’t try to stand out with its combat engine. It’s an interesting mix of real-time action and turn-based tactics that, in theory, gives you full control of your entire party and plans out your attacks ahead of time.

The problem is how clunky it all feels. The pace of battles is slow, and while releases like Final Fantasy VII Remake have proven you can make this hybrid style exciting, The Dying World manages to drain every ounce of energy from the formula. It becomes a tedious slog through menus—cluttered and mundane at the same time. Battles were, in fact, so annoying that I almost wanted to avoid them at all costs, though that would mean not gaining precious experience points. Then, of course, you’ll eventually reach boss battles and other fights that are completely unavoidable. Sure, you could turn on invincibility and cheese them, but that completely defeats the purpose of playing a game like this.

When outside of battle, you'll be journeying from location to location, either by land or by sea or via fast travel points. At times, you’ll need to use stealth to remain undetected in enemy territory. You’ll also need to use your tracking skills, an option that transforms the entire world to greyscale, save the yellow highlights of key items and the red highlights of enemies. This mode will allow you to follow footprints and find things otherwise hidden to the naked eye, though it will also slow your character down to a near crawl, even while running.

Each character also has their own skill tree and attribute points, which can be distributed with each level gained. For more tangible changes, there is plenty of equipment to play around with and upgrade via crafting. Equipped items do make visual changes to your characters, which is a nice detail and can also help you blend in more with your surroundings. Practical skills like crafting and mechanisms can also be developed over time, allowing you to increase your chances of success with certain actions like picking a lock or negotiating with an NPC.

As you would expect, there are plenty of people to meet with conversations that shape the way the game unfolds. There are also relationships to foster and a good variety of party members to choose between. Throughout your time with GreedFall: The Dying World, you’ll have to make tough choices about who to help and who you can trust. Again, it’s clear that the bones of an epic RPG are here, but it’s the technical performance that holds it back from greatness.

Visual quirks are one thing, but frequent crashes are another. These crashes happened so frequently that it seemed like the game was actively trying to prevent me from progressing. Apart from straight-up booting me from the game, other bugs ranged from wolves wildly spinning around, cutscenes breaking, characters glitching into walls during battle forcing you to quit, your main character getting stuck disarming a bear trap, and, of course, being sent back to the desktop, leaving you with nothing but lost progress and dark thoughts. Thank goodness for autosaves. The performance of this game makes it extraordinarily difficult to progress. It’s like the soulslike of technical difficulties.

When they’re not falling apart at the seams, graphics are decent with some nice character models and lighting effects; however, they never seem to reach their full potential due to all of the aforementioned issues. The music is deep and moving, fleshed out with haunting vocals, which almost feels out of place in a game that suffers from as many issues as The Dying World. The soundtrack comes to us from the same composer that worked on the Plague Tale series and Dying Light 2, which explains the quality of the work on display here. Voice acting is decent as well, even implementing a unique language for the native people.

It's truly a shame GreedFall: The Dying World gets in its own way more often than not, as the developers clearly wanted to make a large and immersive experience. It feels like the heart was there but not the budget for an undertaking of this size. The degree of available options, whether it be customizing difficulty, different tactical profiles for combat, and the many hours of story development and dialogue show me that the game began with a lot of care and lofty goals. Unfortunately, that glimmer of hope is buried under a thick film of glitches and unpolished performance, which undermine the entire experience. The Dying World feels like a boat that’s been patched up with paper and duct tape, and water is quickly seeping through the cracks. It is my sincere hope that some of the more pressing issues like the crashes can be patched out, but in the meantime, it leaves the experience frustratingly unplayable.

KRAMPUS/TERRIBLE