The thought of building a settlement in the medieval countryside while simultaneously being oppressed by the local lords fills me with anxiety, but that’s the world Bellwright launches you into.
Developer Donkey Crew describes Bellwright‘s world as an idyllic medieval world, one imagined by a child with open fields, forests, wild animals, and a shining sun beating down on you. It’s very beautiful and makes every NPC and building pop when you get up close to them. But there’s a darker side to this world, and it isn’t just the murky swamps. At first, you’re building a settlement, but your overarching goal is to do much more: To rebel against the powers ruling over this land.
Survive, thrive, conquer
I was invited to a preview event for Bellwright, in which Donkey Crew showed off roughly 45 minutes of gameplay and talked me through the majority of the game’s systems, at least those available when it launches in early access on April 23, 2024. After that, I and a few other journalists were able to ask some questions about what we’d seen, and I have to say, I came away pleasantly surprised.
The session started with a broad look at the game’s world. It’s a 25 kilometers-squared map pocketed with a variety of biomes. One of the game’s key inspirations, according to Donkey Crew, Subnautica, can be seen here in that you begin your story in the peaceful grasslands biome and entire into more dangerous territory as the narrative progresses.
I use the term narrative loosely because while there is a story, you don’t necessarily need to engage with it much. The goal of the game is to move about the map, freeing people from the tyranny of the occupying ruling force village by village until you’ve eradicated them. That sounds simple in principle, but it’s much more complex when you dive into the details.
First, you’ve got to recruit people for your settlement. To do this, you’ll need to visit nearby villages and gain the trust of key individuals before building a bell tower. This structure is a sign of rebellion and will trigger a fight you must win to gain the respect and loyalty of the village, which now serves you.
Priorities are the name of the game
With followers under your belt, it’s time to build your settlement, which I think will be the part of the game most survival fans care about. It’s a lot like Rimworld in that you set priorities for your followers, and they’ll perform tasks in that order. If you’d rather they build instead of farm, they’ll do that if you tweak the priorities list. Otherwise, Donkey Crew explained that they’ll get on with things as they see fit.
Building isn’t fast, with most structures taking multiple in-game days to be completed. This makes Bellwright a slow burner, but it’s designed to make you carefully consider everything you have built. If a structure isn’t essential, you’ll need to leave it until later or push your progress back.
For example, you might want to build a blacksmith to start making weapons and armor, but if your people need a warehouse to store more food to survive the winter, you know what your priority is. Seasons impact the world around you, so you’ll rely on stores in the winter, while building up a new one in the following spring and summer.
As your settlements grow, and you will have more than one as you play, you’ll become the target of raids. Your followers will automatically defend what is theirs, but can also be taken into battle. Much in the same way as Mount & Blade 2: Bannerlord, you’ll be directing soldiers to move or attack instead of controlling them while they fight. In fact, Donkey Crew told us that you could go through the whole game without swinging a sword at all if you want.
Combat is a natural part of progression in Bellwright because areas such as bandit camps and enemy-packed biomes hold resources essential for unlocking new structures and technology. Even raiding large towns is part of progression because huge benefits such as a wheat field for a much more reliable supply of food are locked behind your enemy’s tremendous defenses.
Of course, none of this would be as satisfying without survival elements, and there are plenty to be considered in Bellwright. While your character and followers don’t die if they fall in combat, you do lose some of your items when you respawn. Your followers will become injured if they drop in battle, and if you force them back out without healing, they’ll disappear for good.
You’ll also need to remember to bring food on a raid with you. Soldiers get hungry in a battle, and they don’t recover quickly if you’ve got no supplies to feed them. It slows the pace of progress to the point where it almost feels historically accurate, pulling you into the world because you know you can’t forget a single thing if you want to win.
What I’ve seen of Bellwright looks great so far, and Donkey Crew has plans for so much more. At early access launch, the game will have fast travel points you can build in settlements to set up your own network, but eventually, ridable horses are planned. Depending on what the community response to the game is, there could also be a peaceful and endless mode.
Regardless of what eventually is or isn’t in the game, Donkey Crew has put a lot of work into getting it to run on widescreen monitors and as many PC builds as possible. It told us that good rigs should easily hit 60 FPS, while lower-spec PCs should still run the game with performance-based settings.
The one caveat to the mostly pleasant preview is the use of AI voiceover in the early access version of Bellwright. Donkey Crew gave this information up freely because it wants to be clear that its intention is to use paid human voice actors in the final version. However, AI voiceover is helpful during development because you don’t need to rely on a voice actor’s schedule of availability or have the increased cost of redoing so many lines repeatedly.
I see the developer’s point here and appreciate it being so upfront with the information. However, there’s no end date for the early access, and I can’t help but think, especially in the current climate, that this one aspect might overshadow what are otherwise seemingly enjoyable gameplay systems.
Bellwright goes into early access for PC on April 23.
