Eternal Strands Is Fixing Flaws And Adding New Reasons To Play In A Free DLC
A second chance for a promising RPG.
Depending on who you ask, Eternal Strands is either one of the year’s most underrated games, or a laudable experiment that doesn’t quite work out. Either way, you won’t find much disagreement that the game is at least interesting. And whichever camp you fall in, the first free DLC for Eternal Strands could be a good reason to head back for another round with developer Yellow Brick Games’ intriguing first release.
Titled Stargazer, the free DLC adds a heap of entirely new activities to the RPG, plus improvements to some of the issues it had at launch. The big addition is a whole new map to explore, complete with its own boss. The spooky purple-hued Starlight Cape opens a new area for protagonist Bryn to clamber around, with some eye-catching features like the ruins of an observatory on top of a rocky cliff. The new map should test Brynn’s climbing skills, as Yellow Brick Games says it focuses on “vertical challenges.”
Stargazer could be just the second act that Eternal Strands needs.
The Starlight Cape also features its own wandering boss (an Epic Creature in the game’s parlance). Called the Astrologer, the new creature fights with all three of the game’s magic types: fire, ice, and telekinetic powers. As a flying monster, it could prove to be a hell of a challenge, and players can expect to use their own telekinesis to take it down.
More than its potential difficulty, though, it’s the Astrologer’s look that makes it so compelling. A massive raven outfitted with body armor, mechanical wings, and a clockwork helm, it’s one of the most striking designs in all of Eternal Strands. The Astrologer also comes from an impressive pedigree. For Stargazer, Yellow Brick Games worked with Square Enix veteran Yusuke Mogi to design the Astroger. Mogi is best known as a lead artist on the Final Fantasy XIV expansions Shadowbringers and Endwalker, and his work is seen in concept art used throughout the game.
Players also get access to a new power inspired by the mechanical Astrologer — a drone that can launch attacks of its own to aid in combat. Brynn also gets a new costume including a jaunty hat, and the ability to dye armor is being added. Currently, the color of armor you craft in the game is tied to which materials you use, meaning if you want an armor set with multiple resistances you may end up looking a bit like you got dressed in the dark. That makes the ability to dye clothes a welcome addition to more fashion-inclined players.
Stargazer adds new weapons to Eternal Strands along with a way to dye armor.
That’s all great for players who already vibe with Eternal Strands. When I played it earlier this year, it fell firmly in “close but not quite there” territory, mostly thanks to awkward combat controls. Scaling gigantic enemies is a huge part of the game’s appeal, but its movement controls often aren’t up to the task of actually interpreting your inputs during climbing sections, and sluggish aiming makes their weak points hard to hit at range as well.
Stargazer could be a good time to return to the game even if you had the same issues I did. Yellow Brick Games promises both bug fixes and quality of life improvements, including improved combat and movement controls. Earlier this year, Yellow Brick Games responded to criticism of the game’s imprecise controls by saying essentially that it was an inherent problem due to Brynn using physics-based animations. It seems that hasn’t stopped the developer from taking a pass at improving things anyway, so there’s hope that Brynn will feel a bit less like she’s constantly slipping on a wet kitchen floor after this update.
Stargazer could help Eternal Strands live up to its colossal potential.
Eternal Strands also has another DLC in the works already, this time in collaboration with No More Heroes developer Grasshopper Manufacture. There’s no word on what that will entail, but the idea of teaming up with other developers for each DLC is at least a compelling one, and it seems to have paid off this time.
Jumping back into Eternal Strands may not be every player’s first priority, especially with the final Baldur’s Gate 3 update also launching the same day, but Stargazer seems to be full of reasons to give the game a second shot. With shades of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and a compellingly chaotic magic system under the hood, Eternal Strands is an interesting project that feels tantalizingly close to being a great one, and Stargazer may just bring it one step closer.
