Flintlock The Siege of Dawn review – an enjoyable, if inessential, Souls-like with a well-executed twist

Staccato stutters every five seconds, a brass-quashing scripted early death, and Souls-like mechanical rigging that feels as trend-chasing as it does moth-eaten – Flintlock The Siege of Dawn starts like a chore. A janky chore that we’ve seen before, maybe not in this exact permutation and with a brighter colour palette, but close enough – Steelrising, Code Vein, Mortal Shell, Lords of the Fallen, and many more. But first impressions can be deceptive. Once it gets going and reveals its true colours, Flintlock is thoroughly enjoyable despite never quite extracting itself from the busy flock of middling Souls-likes.

You play as Nor, a flintlock-totting sapper running the trenches below the besieged citadel of Dawn. One thing leads to another, and Nor and her mates are roughed up by a mask-wearing dragon-eagle quadruped deity thing. You’re soon off to hunt down a shortlist of gods to save the world of Kian. Off you pop, mowing down mobs and bosses, gathering upgrade materials, and liberating hamlets from snarling bandits, accompanied by a feathered blue fox called Enki, part guide, part side-kick.

While the setup might not be all that inspiring, the world certainly is, mashing together Napoleonic era nods with all the explosive charm of flintlock fantasy with a Maghreb flair. Solid voice acting makes you actually want to listen to NPCs, and a decent narrative tent pole with a sprinkling of deception and cut-price sentimentality pushes things along nicely. It welcomingly eschews the darker tint of Souls-like convention for something a lot brighter and colourful. It’s not perpetually nighttime, for one thing. That’s not to say Nor’s quest isn’t serious business, but there’s a visual levity that’s illustrative of Flintlock being a far more approachable Souls-like.

The world is split into large semi-open-world regions that push you along a more-or-less linear path. But plenty of tangential offshoots lead to optional bosses, fresh gear, and fun, relatively testing platforming sections. You’re never in doubt about where to go next, but the world promotes pausing the god-killing and sauntering off to investigate and explore. As you do so, you’ll encounter the most Souls-sy of staples, Lodestones, Flintlock’s equivalent of bonfires, where you can unlock skills, fast travel, and rest, which resets the world, respawning enemies. Every so often, you’ll hit camps and hamlets, hubs to upgrade weapons and armour, and where Kian’s down and out will lob side quests at you. Once you’ve visited one, you’ve seen them all, though, which is symptomatic of a larger formulaic rut the game squats in, supplying very little novelty beyond the first region. It’s a shame that it lacks any sort of meaty soul.

Nevertheless, the simple act of exploring is one of Flintlock’s best bits. Nor fires her trusty sidearm to perform acrobatic dashes and double jumps to make dicey leaps, scale peaks, and surf down ramps, adding a fresh dimension to the often chronically horizontal movement of the genre. And Flintlock leans heavily into that verticality, both with the world’s topography and unlockable rift shortcuts to lance forward and upward hundreds of yards at a time. Nor feels exceptionally mobile. Think hints of Forspoken, 3D platformers, and, oddly enough, AC Origins.

A gimmick done right

Even better is Nor’s ability to weave this agility into combat. This is a Souls-like, so, of course, you can dodge roll to avoid attacks, but also leap into the air and dash forward to land behind an enemy or quickly nest on a ledge to bolt some lead into an enemy’s cranium, triggering a wacky slow-mo with the most unconvincing strings of blood busying up the screen. Ally that to a primary gun that plays a bit like Bloodborne’s Blunderbuss in that it works to damage but also parry, and combat is a multi-dimensional joy.

Enki can also unleash player-prompted curses to build up an enemy’s Prime metre (i.e. stagger) that freezes them in place when full, letting you swoop in for skull-cracking critical damage. As you go, you can tune these curses with different status effects for even more variety. All these abilities, along with a selection of grenades and secondary firearms (sniping musket, flamethrower, etc.), ability-tweaking armour, and a beefy skill tree, equips the player with inventive combat strings and builds to tug on. They make Flintlock’s combat not just fun but subtly singular in its handling and feel. It wants you to rely less on axe-to-noggin savagery and more on using Nor’s toolkit creatively. Don’t pass Flintlock off as simply a Souls-like with a gun gimmick. Guns are Flintlock’s big, crowd-pulling gimmick but are a fine example of a potentially flimsy differentiator transformed into a weighty, well-executed feature.

Another rewarding little twist is the reputation system, which is basically Flintlock’s upgrade currency and take on FromSoft’s souls and runes. Kill an enemy, get Reputation. Simple. Well, no, you also get a multiplier that persists as long as you don’t get hit, augmented by little shrines dotted around Kian. Play it right, and you’ll be netting big ol’ hauls from even throwaway mobs. It adds further motivation to avoid damage, rewarding attentive play and culling the tediousness of grinding for upgrades and skills. There’s almost an arcade element to it that just works.

It’s disappointing that enemy variety is, well, not all that varied. Repetitive and limited move sets don’t help. Besides bosses, there’s no genuine evolution once you’ve hit the five-hour mark. Some of the combat’s appeal does wane as a consequence. At the same time, coming off the numbing intricacy of Shadow of the Erdtree, simplicity has its draws. I like that most boss encounters are three-attempt jobs: one to check your hubris, one to learn the moveset, and one to beat the thing. You’ll rarely find a boss with more than five or six attacks. It all feels manageable and digestible, with enough of a challenge to be rewarding but never frustrating. And, if that’s not the case, adjustable difficulty means you can dial it to your liking.

I also like how short Flintlock is comparative to the monstrous length of AAAs. Play for a few hours every evening for a week and bob’s your uncle, you’re done. The credits roll in under 15 hours if you stick to the story. 100% is within reach in under 20-25 hours. It’s respectful of your time, tight and concise. More of that, please.

Flintlock The Siege of Dawn epitomises the 7/10. Sporadic performance snags aside, it’s the ideal summer game – approachable and fun. It’s the sort of thing you’ll play once. Inessential but still worth your time.

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the sponsorship.