Ashwalkers test: A Survival Journey, the adventure had started so well...

Ashwalkers is the first title of Nameless XIII, a young Toulouse studio headed by Hervé Bonin, who went through DONTNOD at the time of Life is Strange. This management-oriented narrative survival game, in a post-apocalyptic world invaded by ashes, found in the Spanish publisher Dear Villagers providential support to help it carry out this project, as fascinating as it could be improved, until its completion. . No matter the destination, what matters is the journey...

Ashwalkers test: A Survival Journey, the adventure had started so well... Read the conclusionAshwalkers: A Survival Journey

An exciting first run
Excellent atmosphere
Fascinating universe
Moral choices and alignments

Some long following runs
Limited exploration, sometimes confusing navigation
We don't really get attached to the characters.
Overall not very punitive

The Horde of the Countercend

Sheltered in a makeshift dome that will not be able to accommodate them decently for long, the 200 souls of the Bastion instruct four intrepid emissaries, the Section, to set off as scouts to find an environment more conducive to their survival. Problem, this expedition is already the third, the two previous ones having stopped broadcasting a long time ago. The path to the mythical Dome of Domes - or any other structure able to accommodate everyone - will probably not be easy.

Between the Horde of Contrevent and Nier: Automata, Ashwalkers' post-apo epic benefits from effective writing that manages, with a marked aesthetic and few words, to capture the player in its fascinating web of coherence, of which each piece gradually reveals itself as we explore the different environments. Never stuck by its references, Nameless XIII skilfully distils the keys to its universe in snippets that we peck at, between the different gameplay phases that punctuate the game: exploration, encounters and moral choices.

Assault section ?

In exploration, the team progresses and picks up what it finds, the player organizing the rest times around the fire as he pleases according to his resources: wood, food and medicine are the only foodstuffs that will fill the limited backpacks. of each scout. They guarantee the survival of the quartet, prey to capricious climatic conditions that exhaust them, starve them, chill them or depress them, or even all four at the same time. The very controlled randomness of the roguelite dimension of the game will not really be a problem for those who have already dragged their gaiters in Oregon Trail or Gods Will Be Watching, whose obvious affiliation of the management part does not take up the sometimes extreme difficulty. A good point for the nerves, a less good for the attachment to its group and the tension which is established when the resources run out.

The walking phases are interspersed with more or less happy (often less) encounters that will force you to make choices. Between Petra's pragmatism, Nadir's discretion, Kali's diplomacy and Sinh's violence, it's up to you to choose the approach that seems best suited to the problem (roleplay enthusiasts welcome). If the situations are not always overflowing with originality - an aggressive stray animal, a curious spy, a troop of looters prowling, a camp of survivors to cross - the different paths offered always lead to a coherent outcome that captivates the attention. of the player, and gives a little more credibility to the Ashwalkers universe.

Losing a member of your team means doing without your vision of things and therefore a potentially life-saving choice, even if the relative general ease of the game will never have allowed us to test this feature without really wanting to.

Ashwalkers assumes its contemplative and narrative approach, but suddenly struggles to impose really engaging mechanics past the first part, where we don't yet know on which foot to dance. It's a bit of the other side of the accessibility coin chosen by the studio, which struggles to fully invest the player in his mission after the first two hours of play.

Precarious balance

We then realize that some possibilities are secondary, such as the search for food at the campfire, or even completely useless, such as the possibility of chatting around the brazier. Too bad, because this last option offers short and beautiful suspended sequences that allow you to learn more about the universe and the characters: the need to succeed in your mission takes precedence over curiosity, and deprives us of details that would undoubtedly have deserved more space, in addition to fostering our attachment to the characters.

Ashwalkers makes up for it with its twilight atmosphere, with a particularly successful aesthetic in shades of gray. Without being technically dazzling, the game conveys as much meaning and emotion through its game situations as through its framing and camera movements, which are often slow and of low amplitude.

Its discreet musical layers, which transform into sweet and bitter folk melodies during key moments, are certainly few in number, but they also play a major role in the flawless immersion that picks us up from the very first steps of our adventurers.

The total destitution of the characters, lost in a hopeless quest, is felt even in the sets, laden with emptiness and sometimes impressive in their arrangement or their staging. The exteriors as far as the eye can see follow the suffocating interiors to create a contrast and establish unease, just like the foreign presences materialized by almost shapeless black shadows. The discovery of each new environment and each new encounter disturbs the feelings, between curiosity and fear.

A real sacrifice?

Too bad we don't have the time to really explore them at all, this desperate headlong rush being quite rightly staged as an inevitable advance towards the horizon, in a relatively narrow corridor which nevertheless seems immense. After the first part, quite sublime in intensity and doubt, the desire to discover the many branches and the different endings (34 in number!!) comes up against the obvious slowness of the game.

JVFR

The characters walk slowly, the menus are displayed without rushing; only the resource management is done quickly and ergonomically (drag and drop), and the impossibility of accelerating the display of texts or the animation of its protected is sorely felt during the following parts. Nameless XIII has fortunately thought of allowing players to start their next runs in the level of their choice.

It's commendable, even if a more straightforward system a la Virtue's Last Reward (a visual novel whose navigation in the event tree is certainly an integral part of the scenario) would have made it possible to explore the universe with more efficiency. It is possible that the studio will allow the characters to race once the game has been completed for the first time, as can be seen in the few trailers for the game: this seems relevant to us, even if as it stands the frustration is mainly feel when we link the parts. More spaced out, the gaming sessions are undoubtedly less tense in this respect.

Ashwalkers, l'avis de Clubic

Between pure narrative adventure, roguelite and systems management game, Ashwalkers has not managed to decide. Not as radical as Gods Will Be Watching, detailed and engaging as The Banner Saga or even touching as Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Nameless XIII's game relies on its controlled universe, impeccable writing, coherent visuals and music that ring true to impose its slightly pessimistic vision and convince lovers of adventure and science fiction, especially given its modest price. A deeply pleasant game despite its shortcomings, not conducive to long sessions, but which we will like to come out regularly to make a new run, which will unfortunately remain less powerful and engaging than the first.

Ashwalkers : A Survival Journey

If its attractive initial proposal does not stand the test of time as well as we would have liked, Ashwalkers has many arguments to convince, starting with its exciting universe and its desperate atmosphere.