Chris InglisEmbers Adrift is a new low fantasy group based PvE MMORPG by Stormhaven Studios and the game reached its version 1.0 release milestone on October 15, 2022. It’s a buy-to-play MMORPG which also has a monthly subscription, but there is no in-game cash shop of any sort. While the purchase price and subscription may be an instant turn off for some, I think it’s a great move as it will attract players that want to invest in similar ideals that the developers have for the game. Having now put several hours into the game, it’s quite a niche experience that doesn’t hold your hand, but it suits me perfectly and I want to play it more often.
Stormhaven is a small group of developers who came together in 2014 to work on a passion project where the founders decided that MMORPGs had a lot more to offer the world than what was currently on the market. Looking back, 2014 is also the year where I saw the MMORPG market stall with what I feel as the last decent entries into the genre being Elder Scrolls Online and Wildstar. New World has been the biggest recent release since then but that has issues of its own. Once I started to run around in Newhaven Valley, Embers Adrift started to tick many of my MMORPG boxes and while it was an adjustment and is very niche, I am very happy with what I have seen so far.
Embers Adrift is a much slower pace, is more difficult to play solo and encourages grouping with other players both for levelling as well as crafting. For probably the last 5-8 years, I have been one to play MMORPGs solo or with a close group of family/friends, as public groups for dungeon runs were just horrible experiences – too many elitists. I liked playing at my own pace while still seeing other players running around and talking amongst themselves in general chat. However, I miss the days of Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies and those older MMORPGs having such a great community feel with player driven economies, and good, reliable crafters were a sought-after commodity. This game already has that sense of connected and helpful community in-game which is a pleasing sight.
Character creation is ample with body and muscle tone sliders, hair is broken into three sections which is not common but decent enough, and a few options for face complexion, eyebrows, facial hair and paint. We also must choose from one of three roles – striker, supporter or defender. Once you reach adventuring level 6, you will be able to choose from one of three classes within the role you picked. For me, I always play a Paladin style character, so I chose supporter with the plan to go Sentinel. Once in-game we find ourselves in Newhaven Valley and I was pleased to see how clean the UI was. The combat information window had been separated from general chat which is one of the first things I do in a MMORPG. There are two skillbars at the bottom, the primary bar had four skills already placed, two of which I was not high level enough yet, and the second bar had some salts (used to pick up players from knocked down states), heal pots and food that regenerates health. Tooltips helped gain an initial understanding of the UI and gameplay. There was no minimap or compass, and opening the main map showed only my immediate area.
The lack of minimap and compass was initially off putting. There is a large blue planet in the sky, and eventually I worked out that this points north. NPC’s also don’t have quest exclamation marks, and when you do pick up a quest, they tell you to find an npc or visit a location, and this is not marked on the main map. You do have a quest journal that summarises the quest, but to find the NPC or location, you need to run there to discover it for yourself. Quests don’t give you XP as a reward, just items that will help your character. There were things I could see in the distance like smuggler camps, towers, and ember rings (glowing orange fires), and these were added as icons to the map.
Tab puts you into combat mode and you can activate an auto attack or use class skills that you have unlocked via levelling. Combat is slow, but I prefer this slow pace to current games where you’re firing off a heap of skills with flashy effects. You have a primary weapon set and a ranged weapon set. For my supporter character, I had a sword and tabard, and a crossbow with bolts. Mobs have designated chevrons to show their difficulty compared to your level. Single chevron mobs can be soloed, two chevrons take 2-3 players, and 3 chevrons is for groups of 4-6 (6 is the maximum group size). The colour of the chevrons compares to your level, so blue is less than you, white is even, yellow is a level above and red is going to be too difficult. I could sometimes take out a single yellow, but often needed to burn a heal pot or I would die.
Death runs are back in Embers Adrift. You will respawn at a resurrection stone and your bag will be dropped with everything you were carrying at your death location. You will also have a resurrection penalty to health which you restore by sitting at an ember ring. The difference with Embers Adrift is that you can still use your equipment while you run back to your bag, or you can forfeit it if you were deep behind enemies and don’t forsee you getting it back. If you do want to go retrieve it, there’s a small arrow on your nameplate showing the direction it is, and as you get closer the bag will have a blue glowing effect. I appreciate this resurrection method as it means the further you explore beyond the safety of towns/villages, the higher the risk in staying out longer and possibly losing what you were carrying.
Mob tagging is back, meaning if someone hits the mob first and you help kill it, you don’t get any credit for the kill. So far this hasn’t been an issue. Health does not regen fast unless you sit down or eat food. You can use health potions or a healing spell if your class has one, but for my support character, this didn’t unlock until level 3 which took an hour or so as I was resource gathering at the same time. You can collect salves which will enhance your healing spell, but they are not necessary to cast heals.
Crafting is another thing that starts off as a solo effort and then requires others, or an alt, to obtain certain ingredients. I started off with prospecting and it was initially difficult to find copper ore nodes. It wasn’t until a bit of running around that I noticed the rock sizes change. You usually only get 1-2 ores from it and occasionally some malachite. Running back to town to use the crafting station, you also gain crafting xp by refining the ore to ingots. You can fail, which produces scraps that can be sold to vendors. Once you get your first craft to level 6, you can then purchase a second craft.
I went for weaponsmithing, but it was here that I found that I could craft some things, but I wanted to craft a sword and for that you need leather to make the grips. I can learn a third crafting skill, but only when the first two skills are at level 12 which is a massive grind ahead of me. I didn’t realise this until I went through the process, and being a new game there isn’t much information on the website so you learn by doing. What’s great though is to see the trade chat channel filled with people looking for items. I will definitely be rolling crafting alts but you can only make a maximum of three characters per account.
Embers Adrift is highly focused on grouping and community engagement and if you are a strictly solo player, this is likely going to be difficult to recommend. You can play solo, but it would be very slow going for you, especially when you start to upgrade your gear that requires you to interact with people via the trade channel and trading in person. I am fully supportive of this group-based approach, even knowing I mostly only play in duos and occasionally in threes. Other seasoned MMORPG players are likely to disagree and say that most of what I have described above is obsolete mechanisms in a genre that is 25 years old, and we have gained new, more efficient methods of gameplay in MMORPGs, so why is this game going backwards? For me, it’s a slower pace, a more mature pace that requires teamwork, and the game has bought back that sense of in-game community. Reaching out to other players and asking for help is a good thing to bring people together and so far, the chat is filled with helpful and supportive responses. Everyone is trying to help everyone and it’s great.
I am going to keep playing the game for the next 30-days. Will I renew my subscription? I can’t answer that yet as I have a lot of things to do for my character. So far though, I am enjoying my time in the game even though it is much slower paced compared to other games like ESO, LOTRO and SWTOR that I play regularly. Time will tell as to whether the firm stance that Stormhaven have taken with Embers Adrift will gel with the player base or not. I hope it does but my only worry is for a few months down the track – will new players then have enough low-level characters to be able to group with and complete the few quests that are in the game? I think the genre needs a shake up and Embers Adrift is a game that can help forge a path back to making MMORPGs great again.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
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