Of Ash and Steel Review Summary

Enjoyable, Soulful, Great Value: The game receives overwhelmingly positive feedback, lauded for its soulful development, immersive atmosphere, and excellent value for money. Despite acknowledging some 'jank', players find it a refreshing and deeply enjoyable RPG that consistently creates positive impressions and long play sessions.

Authentic Gothic RPG Feel: Players consistently highlight the game's strong resemblance and spiritual succession to classic RPGs, particularly the Gothic series. It successfully captures the core mechanics, atmosphere, and challenging progression that fans of old-school role-playing games cherish, often evoking deep nostalgia.

Excellent Story, Voice Acting: The game's narrative elements, including well-written characters, engaging dialogues, and robust voice acting (especially praised for Russian talent), are consistently lauded. Players find characters memorable and lively, with witty, often humorous dialogues that are rich in choices, contributing significantly to immersion.

Challenging, Tactical Combat: The combat system is described as measured, tactical, and challenging, requiring players to learn mechanics like parries, dodges, and stances. While initially difficult, it becomes more enjoyable and reveals its depth as the character levels up and players adapt, offering a refreshing departure from mindless clicking.

Open, Rewarding Exploration: The game excels in world design and exploration, actively encouraging players to discover areas and quests without reliance on map markers or auto-pathing. The world is described as beautiful, detailed, and alive, making self-guided exploration feel incredibly organic and rewarding.

Unfinished, unpolished, low budget: Players widely report the game feels incomplete, unpolished, and suffers from a clear lack of budget, impacting graphics, animations, and overall technical state. Many feel it was released prematurely and is far from a finished product, requiring significant further development.

Outdated graphics, stiff animations: Players heavily criticize the game's outdated graphics, low-quality textures, and crude character models, particularly noting stiff, clunky, and often comical facial and movement animations that detract from immersion. The visuals are consistently described as cheap and unpolished, resembling older game generations.

Frequent crashes & critical bugs: The game is plagued by numerous critical and game-breaking bugs, including frequent crashes, freezing, and failure to launch, especially on Steam Deck. These issues severely hinder or outright prevent gameplay, making the game often unplayable.

Inconsistent audio, poor voice acting: There are widespread problems with the game's audio, including missing voice-overs in introductory cutscenes, fluctuating dialogue volumes, and a poor audio mix (quiet voices, loud effects). Lip-syncing is also frequently described as non-existent or terrible, and general voice acting is considered unprofessional.

Buggy, unguided quest system: The quest system is heavily criticized for numerous bugs, including disappearing NPCs and quest items, which often make quests unfinishable. Players also report a severe lack of quest guidance, vague objectives, and missing map markers, leading to frustration and wasted time.

Challenging Early Game Combat: Players begin as very weak characters with limited stamina, making early combat clunky and difficult. The game intentionally designs this 'zero to hero' progression, forcing players to learn combat mechanics like parrying and dodging while facing disproportionately strong enemies initially.

No Map or Quest Markers: The game intentionally omits a traditional map and quest markers, forcing players to navigate using environmental clues, journal entries, and NPC directions. While some find this challenging, others appreciate the immersive, old-school exploration it fosters.

Classic Gothic-Style RPG: Many players describe the game as a 3rd-person, old-school RPG, drawing strong comparisons and inspiration from the Gothic and Risen series. This includes its design philosophy and even specific elements like dialogue style.

Unforgiving World Exploration: The game presents a dangerous world where players must carefully explore, remember hazardous locations, and strategize encounters. Venturing into the wrong areas can lead to death, emphasizing the need to save often and revisit challenging zones later.

Minor Technical & UI Issues: Players reported issues with controller support, requiring manual setup, and observed problems with the first cutscene, including missing voice acting and overly fast subtitles. Additionally, the option to change difficulty mid-playthrough is unavailable.

Game suffers severe instability: Many players report frequent game freezes, crashes, and significant lag spikes, often during auto-saves or loading new areas. Some users couldn't even progress past the prologue, while others experienced multiple crashes within short playtimes, despite meeting or exceeding system requirements. Game launch failures and memory leaks also contribute to instability.

Stable performance on some systems: Despite widespread issues, a notable number of players, particularly those with high-end or well-configured systems, report excellent and stable performance with high frame rates and no crashes or critical glitches. This suggests the game can run well, but consistency across hardware is lacking.

Excessive RAM/VRAM usage: The game consumes unusually high amounts of RAM (up to 30GB) and VRAM (over 12GB), leading to performance issues like long loading times, lag, and crashes due to resource shortage, particularly at higher resolutions. This indicates a lack of proper optimization.

Limited display options: The game lacks support for certain high resolutions and ultra-widescreen aspect ratios. Players also noted the presence of forced TAA and visual glitches, specifically related to lighting and shadows during loading sequences.

Inconsistent audio and voice-over: Issues include missing or incorrect subtitles and voice-overs, particularly in introductory scenes. Some players also reported NPCs changing their voices inconsistently when interacting in spatial audio.

Critical Technical Issues Hinder Gameplay: Players report significant technical problems, including numerous bugs (e.g., disappearing quest items, crashes), poor optimization, and specific issues like forced TAA or lack of controller support. A strong consensus advises waiting for major patches before playing or buying to avoid a frustrating experience.

Niche Appeal to Classic RPG Fans: The game strongly resonates with players who enjoy classic, challenging RPGs reminiscent of Gothic, Risen, or Elex, favoring exploration without hand-holding over modern AAA design. It's frequently recommended as a must-buy for this specific niche, though it may deter those preferring polished, modern RPG experiences.

Mixed Value Perception & Refunds: The game's low price is often cited as a factor, making it a 'must-buy' for some niche fans despite its issues. Conversely, the game's unpolished state has led many other players to request refunds or strongly advise against purchase, indicating a low perceived value for them in its current form.

Hopeful Player Base Despite Flaws: Despite the current technical challenges, many players are committed to continuing the game, expressing hope for robust developer support and future content. Some even provide positive reviews 'in advance,' banking on forthcoming fixes and demonstrating a belief in the game's potential.

Tentative Reviews Awaiting Polish: Many players have only just begun their experience or are basing feedback on demos and playtests, planning to update their reviews later. This indicates a cautious optimism, with players waiting for patches and more content before forming a final opinion.

Strong Developer Support & Future Hopes: Players are highly supportive of the indie developers and express confidence that current issues will be addressed. There's a strong desire for ongoing fixes, future updates, and potential DLCs, indicating a long-term investment by the community.

Embrace of Indie Identity & Value: Reviewers clearly recognize the game as an indie project from a small studio with a tight budget, not an AAA title. This understanding, combined with the friendly, low launch price, often leads players to forgive certain rough edges and appreciate the game's inherent value.

Strong Appeal for 'Gothic-like' RPG Fans: The game deeply resonates with fans of classic 'Gothic-like' RPGs, drawing comparisons to beloved titles like Gothic 1 and 2. This niche appeal fosters a dedicated player base willing to overlook initial flaws for the nostalgic and immersive old-school experience.

Controller/Steam Deck Support Needed: Players specifically on Steam Deck or using gamepads report issues with controller support and express a strong desire for improved and full gamepad functionality. A workaround for a critical bug was even provided by one reviewer.