Citadel: Forged With Fire
Blue Isle Studios / Blue Isle Publishing
When it comes to fantasy sandbox RPGs where you can craft items and build bases, there aren’t many choices to choose from out there. The only one I can actually think of, at least of any import, is the excellent Conan: Exiles. I find that rather bizarre since there are plenty of post-apocalyptic survival games available, such as DayZ, Rust, and their little red-headed step-child, Miscreated.
Fortunately, we now have the 1.0 release of Citadel: Forged With Fire, which marks its exit from Early Access. It’s a massive online sandbox RPG with a strong emphasis on magic (and lots of spell casting!) and has a good amount of crafting and building as well.
You start off as a newly minted apprentice of the magical arts who has set off to explore the deadly high fantasy world of Ignus. Your goal is to accrue as much power as you can—enough so that you can challenge the land’s ruling power structures.
Players have a lot of freedom as far as how they want to go about achieving their ends. As they traverse the gigantic world of Ignus, which spans an entire 36 square kilometer of rolling hills, craggy mountains, immense bodies of water, and deep forests, they’ll meet all manner of challenges. How they face them is up to them—either through guile and political intrigue, bounty hunting other players, taming great beasts, or killing dangerous monsters and taking their treasures. Simply put, there’s a lot to do in Citadel: Forged With Fire.
Eventually, players will want to find a place to call home. With or without allies, they may clear, and then claim whole swaths of land for settlement purposes. Once this occurs, they can construct anything from small dwellings to mighty castles, and everything in-between.
Anyone who is into magic will probably be in heaven with Citadel: Forged With Fire. There are a veritable plethora of powerful spells to both acquire and then master. Hoist large structures into the air with spells like Telekinesis; rain meteors down onto the heads of your enemies with Conflagration; there are many, many spells to choose from. You can also imbue your favorite weapons with magical properties; whether they be swords and axes or wands and staves.
Ally with other wizards and conjurers to form your own powerful clans and become famously (or nefariously) known amongst your peers. Go to war with other players in massive conflicts that will alter the land’s boundaries.
As you use your Pacify spells to tame Ignus’s deadly denizens, you can build up a mighty force of ferocious minions with which to wage war upon your enemies. Ride on the backs of Direwolves and run down your foes, or siege an enemy settlement with an entire brigade of barbaric Orcs. You can even attack adversaries by flying your dragon down from skies and scorching them with flames.
Citadel: Forged With Fire’s construction system will please all of the master builders out there. There is a vast array of building pieces to choose from and the game features a handy snap-to system that makes building a breeze. There’s also a dynamic destruction engine in place that makes bringing down your foe’s settlements wickedly fun.
Citadel: Forged With Fire sports a fairly deep customization system that allows you to build up your character to fit your idea of what a real wizard should look like—want to look more like Gandalf and be wizened and wise? Go for it. Or, do you fancy strutting around like a young upstart, engaging all with a perpetual sense of braggadocio and arrogance? Can do.
In the end, Citadel: Forged With Fire is a game about choices. It offers brilliant crafting and building mechanics, an engaging magic and combat system, and offers lots of adventuring to be had by foolhardy explorers. It’s a highly recommended sandbox RPG that will only get better with age.
SCORE: 86%
Citadel: Forged With Fire has some pretty nice looking graphics that make its fantasy-based gameplay truly shine. However, you want to have a pretty beefy gaming PC or gaming laptop in order to play it at a decent framerate. So, you may just want to invest in a decent gaming rig:
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