My gut tells me that Ravenbound has taken off a little too quickly, flapping furiously on its half-hearted wings as it plummets into mediocrity.Developed by Systemic Reaction, an offshoot of Avalanche Studios, Ravenbound has a gorgeous environment and the skeleton of a decent game, with fast-paced combat and a progression system that gives you enough forward momentum to stop you from throwing your monitor out the window and taking a flying lesson. But its gorgeous world is also somber and lackluster, making little effort to hide its role as a mere backdrop for the grueling work of gaining power.

Ravenbound's premise is explained in the game's introductory cutscene, and the mythical Scandinavian atmosphere is only slightly marred by distractingly cockney narration. The island of Avarto was watched over by six gods known as the Elli. But one of those gods, like a sack of potatoes left too long in a cupboard, basically went berserk and covered the land in a sticky black goo of hatred. In order to fight the Betrayer, the five remaining gods put all their energy into creating a magic raven, which did not seem the most realistic way for the five gods to defeat one other god. Fortunately, the magic raven escaped and has since been searching for a worthy warrior to fight alongside and take the fight to the traitor.

That warrior is you. At least, you will be once dozens of other Ravenbounds have had their skulls shattered by the fierce and hostile denizens of Avarto. Between you and the "traitors" are all sorts of deadly enemies: bandits, trolls, draugr, electrified mages, and strange goblin-like creatures. They all guard the treasure chest containing the treasures you need to knock the remaining five gods out of their prisons and will kill your Ravenbound within seconds if you are not completely focused on the task at hand.

Combat forms a large part of Ravenbound's play, and it can best be described in two words: Ravenbound's combat is highly kinetic. Enemy attacks are relentless, and you will rarely fight fewer than three at any given time, and you will continually avoid enemy blades by as little as a feather. After completing the tutorial section, the first Ravenbound died the moment he wandered into the first bandit camp.

To survive the battle, two abilities must be used wisely. The former is evasion by sliding, which, if timed perfectly, can give the character a frenzy and a small increase in damage. The latter protects the character with a large energy bubble, which can withstand several hits before breaking. Furthermore, if the block is activated at the right time, just before an enemy attack hits, it can be used to parry the enemy's attack.

Is the combat well designed? The game relies heavily on numerical disadvantage to maintain difficulty, and as a result, players spend a lot of time sliding on their knees like Sam Gideon in Vanquish. Fighting certain enemies, such as the trio of Draugr or the goblin-like Tahtir, requires a ridiculous amount of evasion. Bubble block also feels like a compromise coming from the budget. One of the basic classes carries a round shield, but never actually uses it to block. Nevertheless, there is a certain flair to it, and it always gets my blood boiling when I win a battle at Ravenbound.

There are two rewards for clearing a camp in Ravenbound. Collecting card fragments from fallen enemies and unlocking chests that the enemies were guarding. Both lead to the same reward. You get to choose one of three cards from the warrior's deck. These cards can enhance weapons and armor, give a 75% bonus to weapon damage, increase the resilience of guard bubbles, and give more specialized status effects.

Thus, each time you clear enemy territory, your character becomes stronger. However, two complications stand in the way of the power curve. First, cards require mana to use, and this mana appears semi-irregularly from chests. Second, each time a chest is opened and an upgrade is performed, the hatred level increases. Hatred increases the chance of drawing hatred cards along with rewards. These cards automatically boost the boss's HP and damage with each subsequent upgrade. In other words, the more upgrades you pursue, the harder the game becomes.

Thus, the first time you face one of the guards guarding the godforsaken prison, you will probably get beat up. But that's okay. As you explore, you can upgrade your character with existing cards, as well as unlock new cards by completing certain challenges. When you die, those new cards will be shuffled into your deck, increasing your chances of creating a more powerful build in the next Ravenbound.

Ravenbound works well enough as a rogue light, but there are a few problems with the system. The randomness of how mana appears, coupled with the fact that more powerful mana cards must be unlocked like any other upgrade, makes early play really suck as you struggle to save up enough mana to buy decent cards. More broadly, having to build Ravenbound gear completely from scratch every time is exhausting.

That's where open worlds come in, at least conceptually. As mentioned earlier, new cards are unlocked by completing various challenges, such as defeating a new type of enemy for the first time, defeating a certain number of enemies, or clearing multiple camps without taking damage. For this reason, it is not always wise to go straight to the first boss and look for challenges to complete in order to increase the number of cards on hand. Exploration can also increase the character's legacy. Heritage is a separate currency used to purchase new character types, such as werewolves and deer men, new weapons, such as longswords and great axes, and new status effects.

Thus, "Ravenbound" has an element of creating your own objectives, which I appreciate. And if the objective involves defeating a new type of enemy for the first time, it is quite fun. However, most new cards are unlocked through grinding, such as defeating 50-100 enemies of a certain type, defeating a certain number of enemies with a certain weapon type, or completing a certain number of tombs.

The grind is further enhanced by how arbitrary the open world feels: Àvalt is a vast space with multiple biomes: forest, autumn forest, snow forest, desert (which I call "not forest"). Thanks to the character's ability to transform into a crow and fly over the map, he can move virtually anywhere from the start.

However, nearly all of this vast land is occupied by enemy camps, and everything else exists purely as window dressing. The fascinating ruins that dot the map have neither treasures to plunder nor a narrative backdrop to enrich the world. The elaborate settlements you will visit during your adventures have only a handful of basic vendors and a single quest provider. The content of these quests is always, yes, to clean up the enemy camps. Only, you get a little more money in return. Occasionally, you will come across an inscription stone that offers a piece of the story, but that's it in terms of inviting you to explore.

The combination of the size of the world and its functional sparseness leads one to believe that Ravenbound may be flying from the roost prematurely. There are other indicators here as well. All the NPCs one encounters in the settlements stand in exactly the same default stance, and there is no attempt to make these areas livable. The game is also plagued by quite a few bugs, ranging from appearance issues, such as NPC models disappearing from settlements, to audio glitches, to more serious problems, such as enemies' strength bars not decreasing properly. None of these are ideal, but the latter two are a real pain to deal with during boss fights, especially when death results in a massive reset of progress.

These problems are a shame, as the potential is there. The core of the battle is interesting. Rogue Lite's system is intelligently put together, and unlocking new cards is always a delight. The open world is beautiful, though it may seem inorganic. I especially like the mountainous terrain, with snow falling from the sky in thick, heavy chunks, effectively conveying the coldness of this environment.

That said, I don't think I can recommend Ravenbound enough. While its attempts to mesh open-world gaming with roguelite structures are laudable, the emptiness of the former undermines the potential of the latter, resulting in a combat system spread too thin on an overly large canvas.