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At first glance, Drakensang: The Dark Eye looks like The Witcher, or perhaps Neverwinter Nights 2. It draws its complex plot, art design and deep rule system from a Witch­er-y European RPG playbook. You create a character from the ground up, gathering 4-character party to level as you please (along with a slightly clunky interface for controlling said party) as in NWN 2. While both of these comparisons are valid, Drakensang sets its own standard, moving in a different direction from its predecessors—but it’s not exactly cutting edge either.

Drakensang is the CRPG version of The Dark Eye pen and paper roll playing game, and it’s apparent from the minute you being creating your character that the game’s designers did their best to translate that experience and those rules into a computer game. Classes are mostly race-specific, with only a few bridging the gap between human, dwarf and elf. Likewise, the game’s character creation section is satisfyingly detailed and verges on the obtuse. When you can alter the rate at which each type of weapon you specialize in blocks and attacks, you’re in hardcore RPG territory.

This, along with the game’s art and design aesthetic, are what will draw you to Drakensang. What will keep you there is the deep leveling options, party combat, and incredibly realized world. This is a game that makes most other RPGs look childish, when it comes to the depth of their fictional world. Again, only The Witcher comes close to matching the attention to established cannon that this fantasy game possesses.

The game is immediately more relatable than other fantasy worlds because it is comfortable in its own skin. It doesn’t feel the need to introduce you to every single aspect of its rules, myths, people, and lands. While this is at first a bit confusing, if you’re patient, there’s years of back-story and carefully honed roleplaying behind Drakensang, and it shows. This isn’t an action adventure game in Tolkienesque clothing, but it doesn’t shove this fact in your face. Rather, it is uncompromising in its devotion to roleplaying, party-based CRPGs, and (one presumes) The Dark Eye universe. Your hand will never be held, for good or ill.

Drakensang is a mostly conventional game, however, despite its strong design aesthetic and deep fiction and it suffers from the limitations of its conventions. Your control over your four heroes is a fumbling, clunky affair, and your interactions with the world around you are even less intuitive. Characters move slowly, while party control is inaccurate and often leads to characters getting left behind. Unpleasantly, Drakensang also reminds me of old RPGs by showcasing pathfinding that is pretty idiotic.

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