DLC for Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning
Brand new content that extends the game world by 5+ hours. Agarth visits you and explains that the resurrection by the gnome in the Well of Souls has caused massive disruptions to the Weave. You are the ‘epicentre’ of the potential dissolution of the Weave or the beginning of the first threads that will start to unravel in the Weave.
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Let's talk of the 20€ DLC, Fatesworn: a 2021 release exclusive to Re-Reckoning.
Imagine being a fateless hero, and being now able to close portals from where chaos creatures spawn? How would you design that? See, Dragon Age Inquisition somewhat has that, and it’s epic.
In this DLC the portals are just a purple cylinder, and to close it, your character plays the same animation of picking an item from the floor. Nothing epic, the character just squats, and the portal goes from 1 to 0, then disappears.
The map is empty-er, even more than in the base game, and it has so few checkpoints to teleport to you find yourself having to walk even more than in the base game.
The DLC added 10 more levels to the level cap, except that to make it possible for the player to reach the new level cap with such little content everything gives 10 times more XP and every room is filled with enemies to the point the map looks red.
They added new lorestones, but I think they had problems with the engine as usually, the game shows the name of the lorestone when obtaining it, while in this DLC it would just say “Lorestone” in all cases, which makes it hard to track for completism as there is now way to know which "Lorestone" of 15 have you missed.
Following the great game design of the ladders in the Teeth of Naros DLC, during a mission, instead of allowing the player to swim, which they can, in a big lake to an island with an objective, for the first time there is a boat that is just a teleport and gets you to the island including the pop-in of the LOD. There's an invisible wall if you try to swim to it too!
The City where this big lake is is the biggest they ever did in the game, and I can see why since I ran the game perfectly with barely any hardware usage, but had FPS drops in this area and the pop-in of things in the back was noticeable, while still not using my hardware at all.
Chaos damage is a new addition, except this time, to make it important it acts as a gatekeep from damaging enemies, so compared to beast damage this is a build-breaking addition with a frustrating application that makes it mandatory.
I think the devs knew and were aware of how diluted and badly done this expansion was, to the point that even the NPC that gives the story quests promises you this is the last one before the finale. However, in a turn of events, what really happens is that to access the final boss you must complete a multiple steps mission to get an armor-set. To do that you have to play through long and full-of-enemies dungeons with a number of small portals to close just so that you can enter the bigger portal, which is also a dungeon in itself, to get one piece of armor.
Rinse and repeat 5 times.
Did I say 5?
I mean 25 times because the devs as a final gift put these portals in the rest of the map from the main game.
You get nothing for it, except an achievement.
DLC might be big, but damn is it empty.
The worst offender to me was its ending because, after this "epic" journey, I expected a better resolution.
I cannot suggest this DLC at full price, only as part of the FATE Edition.
At the time of writing the base remaster including the original DLCs are 19.99€ respectively and the FATE Edition including Fatesworn on sale is 21~€ and includes everything, the soundtrack too.
So for the devs, this DLC and soundtrack are worth 2€, and I agree with that.
Imagine being a fateless hero, and being now able to close portals from where chaos creatures spawn? How would you design that? See, Dragon Age Inquisition somewhat has that, and it’s epic.
In this DLC the portals are just a purple cylinder, and to close it, your character plays the same animation of picking an item from the floor. Nothing epic, the character just squats, and the portal goes from 1 to 0, then disappears.
The map is empty-er, even more than in the base game, and it has so few checkpoints to teleport to you find yourself having to walk even more than in the base game.
The DLC added 10 more levels to the level cap, except that to make it possible for the player to reach the new level cap with such little content everything gives 10 times more XP and every room is filled with enemies to the point the map looks red.
They added new lorestones, but I think they had problems with the engine as usually, the game shows the name of the lorestone when obtaining it, while in this DLC it would just say “Lorestone” in all cases, which makes it hard to track for completism as there is now way to know which "Lorestone" of 15 have you missed.
Following the great game design of the ladders in the Teeth of Naros DLC, during a mission, instead of allowing the player to swim, which they can, in a big lake to an island with an objective, for the first time there is a boat that is just a teleport and gets you to the island including the pop-in of the LOD. There's an invisible wall if you try to swim to it too!
The City where this big lake is is the biggest they ever did in the game, and I can see why since I ran the game perfectly with barely any hardware usage, but had FPS drops in this area and the pop-in of things in the back was noticeable, while still not using my hardware at all.
Chaos damage is a new addition, except this time, to make it important it acts as a gatekeep from damaging enemies, so compared to beast damage this is a build-breaking addition with a frustrating application that makes it mandatory.
I think the devs knew and were aware of how diluted and badly done this expansion was, to the point that even the NPC that gives the story quests promises you this is the last one before the finale. However, in a turn of events, what really happens is that to access the final boss you must complete a multiple steps mission to get an armor-set. To do that you have to play through long and full-of-enemies dungeons with a number of small portals to close just so that you can enter the bigger portal, which is also a dungeon in itself, to get one piece of armor.
Rinse and repeat 5 times.
Did I say 5?
I mean 25 times because the devs as a final gift put these portals in the rest of the map from the main game.
You get nothing for it, except an achievement.
DLC might be big, but damn is it empty.
The worst offender to me was its ending because, after this "epic" journey, I expected a better resolution.
I cannot suggest this DLC at full price, only as part of the FATE Edition.
At the time of writing the base remaster including the original DLCs are 19.99€ respectively and the FATE Edition including Fatesworn on sale is 21~€ and includes everything, the soundtrack too.
So for the devs, this DLC and soundtrack are worth 2€, and I agree with that.
This review contains spoilers
All of the Kingdoms of Amalur DLCs are amazing, and this one is no exception! New map to explore, a new soundtrack, new characters to meet, new quests to do, and new armour and weapons! Fatesworn felt refreshing after waiting for new content from the game for years! This DLC gave a final conclusion to the game in general, although a bit sad, it was still an amazing ending!
Also, it felt great to see Alyn Shir for a bit again! I missed her so much!
Also, it felt great to see Alyn Shir for a bit again! I missed her so much!
I am afraid I don't recommend Fatesworn. Kingdoms of Amalur, while a good game, was already a bloated one and didn't really need more content. The new region added by this DLC is gorgeous, the architecture is fantastic, the landscapes pretty, it's great. But the main story is not great, and some of the side quests strangely lack choices that were common to have in the base game, many times the side quests just end with a "haha, I fooled you, I'm a bad guy." and then you have no option and there is no point earlier in the quest to find this out or call it out. I guess you can murder them, but that would count as a crime in the game, even when some of these characters are admitted slave traders and smugglers profiteering off of refugees. It's very strange.
The amount of bugs is also unforgivable, you have a series of three fistfights you do and it disables your active spells and unequips your items, and also for some reason drags your known alchemy recipes into your inventory? Inventory clutter was already a problem in Amalur, with quest items that were glitched and wouldn't go and non-easy ways to locate stuff. So in addition to those, I hope you enjoy having 200+ recipes in your inventory now! If you delete them or sell them, they're gone forever and you'll have to respec your character to get them back. You're welcome. Oh and also, reading books/notes before you pick them up doesn't count them as being read for the quests added in this DLC for some reason, so have fun scrolling down all the recipes to get to the books you have to read again!
The main quest also just teeters off into busy work that is not fun at all, the chaos weapon mechanic is horrible and I have no idea how they could think it was a good idea, taking a weapon slot for less powerful weapons to only break off armor that goes away quickly. Oh and being required to grind uninteresting dungeons and enemies when I was just ready for the game to end. I was still mostly positive on the DLC until the grind came up, then it was just irredeemable.
Listen. If you love Amalur and it is a world that you find deeply interesting, love the characters, lore, and played it back in the day or just now and loved it and you desperately want more of it, I'd say this is worth it on a sale, knowing going in that some bugs and grinding will happen. But for others like me who were already exhausted by the game's endpoint though still had a good time with it, just don't get it. Keep that positive end in your mind, enjoy the regular game and it's original expansions and don't touch this. I know if I ever replay Amalur, I am not doing Fatesworn ever again.
The amount of bugs is also unforgivable, you have a series of three fistfights you do and it disables your active spells and unequips your items, and also for some reason drags your known alchemy recipes into your inventory? Inventory clutter was already a problem in Amalur, with quest items that were glitched and wouldn't go and non-easy ways to locate stuff. So in addition to those, I hope you enjoy having 200+ recipes in your inventory now! If you delete them or sell them, they're gone forever and you'll have to respec your character to get them back. You're welcome. Oh and also, reading books/notes before you pick them up doesn't count them as being read for the quests added in this DLC for some reason, so have fun scrolling down all the recipes to get to the books you have to read again!
The main quest also just teeters off into busy work that is not fun at all, the chaos weapon mechanic is horrible and I have no idea how they could think it was a good idea, taking a weapon slot for less powerful weapons to only break off armor that goes away quickly. Oh and being required to grind uninteresting dungeons and enemies when I was just ready for the game to end. I was still mostly positive on the DLC until the grind came up, then it was just irredeemable.
Listen. If you love Amalur and it is a world that you find deeply interesting, love the characters, lore, and played it back in the day or just now and loved it and you desperately want more of it, I'd say this is worth it on a sale, knowing going in that some bugs and grinding will happen. But for others like me who were already exhausted by the game's endpoint though still had a good time with it, just don't get it. Keep that positive end in your mind, enjoy the regular game and it's original expansions and don't touch this. I know if I ever replay Amalur, I am not doing Fatesworn ever again.
The only expansion to have a shot at (but decidedly miss) rivaling the base game's quality owing to its fantastical map.
+ sizable environments featuring lively settlements and pretty wilderness
- new enemy types that aren't fun to fight
- simplistic story with terrible presentation as usual
- unbearably tedious dungeons (making me quit near the end)
+ sizable environments featuring lively settlements and pretty wilderness
- new enemy types that aren't fun to fight
- simplistic story with terrible presentation as usual
- unbearably tedious dungeons (making me quit near the end)