While you’re exploring the land of the Enclave and taking on gargantuan bosses in Eternal Strands, you’ll unlock more and more magical abilities to help you on your journey. But unlike many games where magic might let you toss a fireball or Force push an enemy off a cliff, Eternal Strands has a unique approach to the nine physics-altering abilities it puts in your toolbelt, all of which allow for an impressive level of freedom. Continuing our month-long exclusive coverage of the upcoming action-adventure game from a new team comprised of ex-BioWare and Ubisoft developers, today we’ll be taking a look at a few abilities at the heart of this battle-heavy odyssey and how they can be combined in surprising and creative ways.
In the same way that The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom gives you a set of powers that allows you to manipulate the physics of its world in order to solve puzzles and get across the map, Eternal Strands gives you a similarly playful toolset and asks you to bring them to bear in battle – including against the massive bosses that roam land of the Enclave. Instead of creating a makeshift boat with magnets and fans to sail across a river, you’re using telekinetic wormholes to launch yourself onto the back of a flying dragon or generating a block of ice to seal a giant’s leg in place before climbing up it to deal damage with your sword.
That alone can be a lot of fun, especially once you discover the interesting ways those powers have an impact on enemies and the surrounding environment. For example, when fighting a heavily armored boss who uses fire-based attacks, you might discover that prolonged exposure to ice attacks begins to make his armor brittle, which can then be cleaved off, exposing a new weak spot to lay into. Or maybe you’ll be hounded by a giant dragon who breathes fire down on you, and discover that with the right telekinetic ability, you can redirect those flames right back at him. It’s especially cool how the enemies themselves interact with you and the environment, doing things like picking up trees to lob at you or smashing through a structure that you’re in the middle of climbing.
But later on in the adventure, once you’ve slain a few bosses and have claimed a larger repertoire of powers from their corpses, you can start to combine these abilities in some surprising (and often hilarious) ways. In one instance, I used the Kinetic Stream ability, which allows you to create a tunnel of kinetic energy that throws anything that passes through it at high speeds, to create a makeshift cannon aimed at a flying boss. I then used another telekinetic ability called Launching Grasp, which lets you pick up and toss things, to snatch up every fiery minion enemy in the area and throw them into the Kinetic Stream, pelting the boss with his own deadly allies. In another encounter, while being overwhelmed by a bunch of heavily armored goons wielding swords, I used the Percussive Blast ability to create an orb of violent energy, then switched to a fire-based power to fill that orb with flames – when the hordes of enemies drew near, I detonated my orb like a mine, covering the battlefield with flames that broiled them alive in their fancy armor.
Being able to mix and match your powers to confound and destroy your enemies is one of Eternal Strands’ defining mechanics. But it’s not only useful for practical tasks: it’s also perfect for completely impractical things, whether you’re just trying to show off with a flashy move or see if some crazy new tactic might work. I spent about thirty minutes experimenting with a bow that created kinetic explosions to see if I could bounce myself into the air, then switch to a heavy melee weapon to do a downward strike on an enemy below. As it turns out, with enough practice, it’s not only possible, but quite effective – even if not particularly feasible in most cases.
Eternal Strands is all about being creative and doing unexpected or downright silly things as you fight and explore, and that absurdity and experimentation makes this action-adventure feel like a whole lot more than just another third-person hack-and-slash. After two days of hanging at developer Yellow Brick Games’ offices and goofing around with Eternal Strands’ magical repertoire, I feel as though I’ve only scratched the surface. I’m genuinely excited to see what streamers and show-offs alike are able to pull off when they get their hands on it next year.
For more, check out our impressions of the epic blacksmith boss fight from Eternal Strands, or hear from the developer about how it’s taking advantage of Unreal Engine 5’s new physics tech, and for everything else stick with IGN.
