GRAVEN
A faithful priest of the Orthogonal order–exiled unto death for a crime in defense of another–you live again in a small boat, adrift in a swamp. A stranger ferries you to solid ground and bestows upon you a cryptic warning, along with a mysterious staff and book. Go forth, pious priest, alleviate suffering, uncover deceptions, and smash the eldritch perversions encroaching upon reality itself.
Perhaps you will even earn your peace.
A marriage between modern development tools and techniques with a stark late 90s aesthetic brings the first person action-adventure GRAVEN to life! Featuring character designs by Chuck Jones (Duke Nukem 3d, Half-Life) and the voice talent of Stephan Weyte (Blood, Fire Emblem, Dusk) in a dark yet distinct medieval fantasy experience.
- Solve puzzles and scour lore to uncover the motives of the foul heretical sects behind the plagues and seasons undermining the land.
- Spread fires, charge machinery, reveal hidden paths, and freeze rivers to walk across.
- Discover new weapons and upgrade them at blacksmiths and alchemists to customize your capability.
- Expand your horizons by returning to old stomping grounds with new abilities and seeing how far down the chasms go and what powers they hide.
- Slay over twenty distinct enemies and three bosses in an ever broadening world across multiple biomes.
- Band together with up to 7 friends in hectic cooperative play.
- Walk the parallel path, lest you stumble into the recesses of the world and reality becomes only a bitter plaything.
Steam User 47
I've been looking at Graven for a very long time, and last day I bought it.
Reading on Steam, my only source of information up until purchase,
alot of people gave the impression that development had stopped, that it was a mindless beat zombies with a stick game and lack of depth/content in general.
I have to say, they are all wrong.
Graven is, a couple hours in, the best fantasy FPS (early access) title i have played!
The atmosphere, graphic, sound's, weapons and enemies are all well done, and so far the map design and missions has been intuitive and easy to follow.
By the time you wish you could parry with your trusty stick, you'll find a sword with the ability to parry.
The magic i have found so far have a reason to be there other then tickle the enemies, and as far as i understood from Discord lurking, it will be even better in the full release
Exploring is a treat and i go out of my way to try and find it all. Every now and then, you even loop around that way, like the famous 3'rd person action-RPG that everyone like's..
From Discord i also learned that they are working hard (TM) on the final release, and i doubt we will see that many update's to the early access until then,
since they said there will be Alot of changes to core mechanics and .. well .. everything!
So when it launches, you'll have to start a new game. That is Perfectly fine with me, as i regard EA's as a long Demo.
If you are somewhat interested in this game, and similar game's, i would highly recomend it.
We need more game's like this imo, to stear away from the Doom Eternal'likes.
Steam User 49
EDIT: now that this is fully out i want to say that it's more like halfway between an immersive sim and a slower-paced 90s shooter like Hexen or whatever. it's a nice thing indeed and hopefully folks will take it for what it is, rather than what they think a 3D realms game has to be.
ORIGINAL REVIEW: literally do not understand the mixed reviews, all i can figure is certain people obsessed with a certain genre and publisher thought this game was a different genre than it is - it's much more of an atmospheric, moody immersive sim than just another 90s revival boomer shooter - and those people want to play the game they imagine this is, instead of the game it always has been. worst thing i can say is it's really slowly developed, but i'd rather have a game that takes its time coming out and is good than one that's rushed and bad
really like this and the only reason i don't have more time on it is i want to play the finished version relatively fresh
Steam User 82
If you are expecting a Hexen boomer shooter, this isn’t it. That aside this is a pretty cool game.
It’s a slower paced, more engaging game mentally, mix of FPS, RPG, and Metroidvania.
You will explore, find weapons and upgrade them, use spells to solve light puzzles and open paths in a pretty satisfying loop of gameplay.
Shooting is meaty, melee is fun, and the spells serve utility and function as opposed to being the center gameplay. Spells can be used in combat, but more like Bioshock where say a lightning spell will activate machinery as well as stun enemies or electrify water and environmentals to do damage thus rewarding clever use of your surroundings.
Big thumbs up! Grats on 1.0!
Steam User 23
PSA: You now drop some gold where you last died so it's harder to reach the health penalty and saving up for the shops.
Graven is a title barely anyone will get to experience, nevermind finish to completion on any difficulty, ignoring hotfixes. At the time of writing roughly less than 14% of players completed one of the earliest quests, which is to go in a sewer, blow up 2 piles of bodies, and enter a new part of town since the route is blocked. 0.5% roughly have killed the last boss if I'm not misreading (on any difficulty). Graven is heavily inspired by Metroidvanias and Hexen, with hub based levels that are interconnected by shortcuts and items that aid you in destroying and overcoming obstacles, these are to be achieved by exploration or puzzle solving with clues only appearing in your journal at vague intervals or other NPCs. You are invited to scour most nooks and crannies of each map, particularly in Act 1, which is boggy, visibility is at its lowest in the whole game (there are landmarks but boggy bog bottom can get samey), and you are also at your weakest, with low gold to replenish your ammo and boost your damage, as it is hard to go back into town frequently. I played Act 1 before any hotfixes, so there were a couple of times where I had to run past a mini Serious Sam horde while micromanaging my stamina hoping to reach the next hamfisted save/check point, since the game for some reason does not trust you to save yourself, with the possibility of making a horde of enemies spawn camp you, despite also it having quite large immersive sim roots (immersive sims are not just when you stack barrels and do perilous platforming you absolute buffoons, it's also when there are simulation systems at work like being able to freeze water or at your own leisure, choose your own path, to your detriment or otherwise, for completion). Act 2 and 3 by comparison to Act 1 are very streamlined, almost hard to get lost, and the player gets showered with resources, but again, this sentiment might have been felt due to a hotfix, but alas the hotfix was late, looking at the discussion threads on Steam, this was long overdue, and it makes no sense even on the hardest difficulty which I managed to complete the game on. The bosses are quite standard fps fair but also a mixed bag, but Bog Man (my moniker for Graven's dubbed Priest(?)) has a hard time traversing without a specific potion or stamina upgrade, so you will die to a boss multiple times with its hp bar being withered by you already.
Graven is at its best when the absolutely gorgeous art (please someone be inspired by the act 1 halloween-y bog please please please) is allowed to be taken in and the player is left to their own devices to figure out how to go forward, but the game adds respawning enemies so that the maps don't feel too l i m i n a l. It's a title I ultimately enjoy and could see it be so much better with the questionable design choices mentioned early and fixing out the obvious, like Unreal Engine 4 performance bugs, softlocks in corners, falling through the map, enemy physics, you know, the usual that some might be thrown/turned off by if they're not seasoned jank enjoyers. Graven is not for the faint of jank.
Speaking of jank, Graven is also a comedy game when it comes to its mostly (?) optional puzzles. Act 1 has a sliding puzzle, this is fine, I'll ignore the fact that finding clues for it is a bit annoying or needing to pull paint out for some theory crafting on a puzzle and interpreting it, no, what steals the show, adds the cherry on top if you will, is that it seems there's a common bug or at worst, INTENDED mechanic of a ghost hunting you down which doesn't stay dead (!) while you are trying to solve a riddle. The punchline is delivered when this same sliding puzzle is advertised on the Steam store page under the screenshot section. Players will go: "ah, an FPS game with puzzles, how nouveau! haven't played a thinking man's fps game in a long time", little do they know that they need to play ring around the Rosie while fiddling with a sliding puzzle and possibly needing to pull out a dictionary to figure out what a trowel is.
I rate Graven a "I'm glad to have experienced this" out of 10, because there will not be a title like this for a LONG time, it screams Metroid&Castlevania, Thief, Tomb Raider, Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, Hexen, BioShock, Deus Ex, System Shock, Prey 2017 and it comes so close most of the time, but it can definitely feel like you're being tested on your patience as opposed to skill and intelligence.
Steam User 16
At its core, Graven is a (flawed but fun) slow-paced exploration-focused shooter, and it’s important to keep that in mind while playing, because Graven also has a bunch of other design elements tacked onto it, which suggest it was meant to be anything from an immersive sim to a full-fledged action RPG at various stages of development. It is neither of these things, and if you go into Graven wanting it to be either, you’ll be sorely disappointed. But if you have a soft spot for hub-based exploration shooters with some quirky gimmicks, and you don’t mind some of its design ideas going nowhere, Graven is definitely worth a look.
I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed myself for the entire 31 hours I spent with Graven’s release version. But then again, I’m pretty much the exact target audience for these kinds of games, to the point where I’m readily willing to work around whatever flawed gameplay ideas they may include, as long as they scratch this specific itch that not a lot of games manage to scratch for me. That itch is exploring intricate and atmospheric hand-crafted first-person game worlds at my own pace. It’s that feeling you get from learning and internalising the complex layout of an area, finding hidden paths or secret stashes, and using just a little bit of your brains and your planning abilities every once in a while. It’s why I love games like Hedon, System Shock or, most recently, Fortune’s Run, and it’s why I loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R. right from the get-go, despite that game having been just as buggy as Graven on release. Keep all that in mind when I tell you that I enjoyed Graven despite its obvious flaws.
Graven isn’t as good as any of those games, to be sure, but it’s still worthwhile if you’ve already played the truly great examples of this type of game. It does falter a bit towards the end in terms of exploration, as the intricately intertwined areas of act 1 give way to levels that feel a bit more linear and feature fewer clever unlockable shortcuts and secret areas to explore. While the later acts still have their fair share of fun ideas, set pieces, puzzles and traps, the overall gameplay polish and level of detail in the presentation of the world does start to drop – not critically, but noticeably. That’s probably a result of the game being rushed out the door after being stuck in development hell for three years.
As I’ve mentioned, Graven also features the vestigial remains of half-abandoned design ideas, many of which go nowhere. But from my personal perspective, most of them don’t impact the experience too negatively. I don’t mind the fact that there’s no map, as most of the areas (except maybe for the city towards the end of the game) are uniquely designed and the level geometry is memorable enough to navigate them without a map. Melee weapons are vastly inferior to guns, but you can just ignore melee for most of the game. Yes, the inventory system is pointless, but it doesn’t get in the way either, as you can still put lots of weapons into your hotbar, even if you need to use the inventory screen to switch out your loadouts every now and then. The stamina system, while not implemented ideally, just means you don't get to sprint everywhere, and that effect is mitigated by using shrines to increase your stamina permanently. The only trouble here is that you sometimes get stuck somewhere with not enough stamina to jump out of your predicament, so you need to wait for a few seconds first. All of these are clear flaws, but (at least in my personal experience) none of them are bad enough to where you can’t easily work around them.
The only critical problem is probably the save system, and that’s just because as of right now, Graven is seriously buggy, so getting your one autosave soft locked is a distinct possibility. It hasn’t happened to me, but there are plenty of people in the forums that have experienced it. I was probably just lucky. If you’re worried, I suggest making copies of your save files from time to time, as a precaution against soft locks and inventory wipes. You’ve played PC games before, you know how this works…
If chaotic and sometimes pointless design in a game bothers you in general, feel free to give Graven a miss. If you don’t want to risk playing the game until it’s reasonably bug-free, give it a miss for now. All I ask is that if you like the type of exploration-focused shooter I described or if you enjoy the specific games I’ve mentioned, please don’t dismiss Graven outright just because its overall reception has been very mixed. It’s a flawed game that’s clearly been developed with not much of a plan in the first place, but if you can take it for what it actually is, instead of wanting it to be the game that Graven probably wanted to be at some point as well, then you can have a lot of fun exploring its atmospheric, beautiful and often intricate game world.
Steam User 35
An unpolished gem. Just needs the devs love regarding bug fixes and optimization. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
The Good:
-Illicits a feeling of wonder and awe through grand exploration, amazing level design, well hidden secrets, and heavy immersion. A feeling that is rare in today's FPS gaming world.
-Does NOT hold your hand.
-Fun melee combat that requires a good sense of timing at the higher difficulties.
-Spells that have environmental puzzle uses. They can be used in a pinch against enemies to gain a slight advantage though. Burning away a skeletons wooden shield for example.
-No map so only your memory and notes to serve you. Very old school.
-No save scumming and there is a gold loss penalty for death to keep you on your toes.
The feeling I have playing Graven is on par with what I first felt playing Hexen or System Shock years ago. It's truly special.
Steam User 13
+Beautiful graphics
+Amazing atmosphere
+Fun & rewarding exploration
-Odd/buggy gunplay
-Unnecessary inventory management
-Unnecessary stamina restrictions (barely affects combat, mostly slows down exploration
A solid mix of Dark Souls & Doom. The game is pretty amazing overall. Most issues come from game design choices, rather than the game itself. The devs seem to be working towards making it better tho, namely the stamina problems.