Relentless Frontier Early Access Review Build Playthrough
2NOTE: This is a full playthrough of the REVIEW BUILD, which went out a few weeks ahead of the early access launch. This playthrough was intended to help inform improvements and fixes that will be present in the EA version. Thanks to Major Arlene (with Hellforge Studios, RF's publisher) for inviting me to play this build, and Korzodin (RF's lead dev) for repeatedly appreciating my feedback... and including a personal easter egg. π
I have played 3 versions of Relentless Frontier's demo, which accounts for roughly half of the first full episode that releases into early access on July 24, 2024. It's time to see how much more that first half has evolved, and experience the rest of the episode for the first time!
Since I've likely commented enough on the first half of the episode in previous videos, I'll focus on the second half and overall impressions here.
The never-seen-before second half doesn't feature the same extent of optional backtracking seen in the first half, but it still possesses some "hub" properties, and throws in several interesting curveballs. The most interesting and surprising one was also probably the least enjoyable to me, which is partly due to my own personal preferences. I still respect what the segment was going for, and it certainly made for a couple of amusing moments. However, it felt like a jarring break from the pacing of the rest of the episode. (IIUC, work is being done both before and after EA launch to make that section a slightly smoother experience.)
The climactic final map to the episode does not disappoint. Relentless Frontier starts building expectations for fighting hordes of creatures early on, and it delivers that in spades at the end, which can prove to be a challenge even on easy difficulty.
Speaking of which: while it's not included in this video, I did also try playing through on easy - initially intending to figure out what a speedrun might look like, but ultimately also to see how the final few maps felt compared to medium. Easy difficulty is definitely quite a bit more forgiving, so if anything seems too unreasonable to you in this medium playthrough, keep that in mind.
Approaching this game from a speedrunning perspective really shows off just how flexible the front half of the episode is, with its optional metroidvania elements: a casual playthrough can easily spend multiple hours in those levels, meanwhile a speedrun can tear through them in under 5 minutes. It's also an interesting indicator of just how differently the second half of the episode flows: I find it likely that each level in the back half of the episode will take at least as long as the entirety of the first half.
Relentless Frontier will have something for everyone. I'm really curious to see how the subsequent episodes will build on what's here so far.
Wishlist it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/16...
(Also note that the demo for the game will be receiving an update soon after EA launch, to bring it up to date with improvements in the EA build.)
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