Darkfall Online is one of the “special” games III

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This may be attributed to the lack of rhyme or reason to the world, which verges on random placement of flora with little in the way of lore to tie it together. It may also be tied to the fact that there’s very little to see. On many occasions we’d turn and wander in a particular direction, leaving the auto-run key on and navigating past things in the hope that we’d run into a town, or a dungeon, or possibly an angry pack of lions to save me from the torment.

On one such jaunt, walked for around six minutes through green pastures, found a dock, and began swimming, only to reach a gigantic ice cap – a dissonant, frigid mess in the middle of a bloody field. Exploring further, was promptly murdered by hobgoblins and sent back to bind point.

Sadly, this is only the tip of the iceberg of Darkfall’s problems. The developers have taken the classic stance when faced with the echoing cries of “you barely have any content”, and claim that the “core” of Darkfall is clan warfare. Players can build “camps” and “towns”, and fight each other in “epic” wars. This is, as you can probably imagine from the screenshots, rather more underwhelming and frustrating than the hyperbole would have you believe.

You see, anyone can kill anyone. For the most part, your first ten or so hours in Darkfall are spent dying, repeatedly, at the hands of either the AI or a cyber-bully in a wolf-suit. In fact, past that mark, it feels impossible to avoid the clammy hands and bloodied sword of somebody who has specially allocated part of their day to griefing.