It was a surprise, on booting up Griftlands – the latest from Don’t Starve developer Klei Entertainment, now available in a PC early access version from the Epic store – to discover that it was a card battler. (Though I suppose you shouldn’t be surprised that any game is a card battler in 2019.) From early trailers I had expected something closer to a tactical role-playing game exploring this ramshackle, piratical offworld of bounty hunters, fish people and black markets. What I found was a beautifully illustrated tale of bitter rivalries, tough friendships and hard calls – like a scruffy science-fantasy Banner Saga – blended with a randomised deck-building roguelite, clearly inspired by the excellent Slay the Spire.
Not that Klei doesn’t have form for taking inspiration. The genre-hopping Vancouver studio knows not only how to skip up onto a bandwagon with style, but how to bring something of value aboard with it. Its releases have followed many an indie trend: stealth in Mark of the Ninja, crafting and survival in Don’t Starve, team tactics in Invisible, Inc., colony simulation in Oxygen Not Included. But they have all distinguished themselves by bringing original ideas and cleanly designed, hard-edged systems to the mix. These games have real bite. Invisible, Inc., in particular, is a near masterpiece.
Griftlands, while a sharp piece of work even at this early stage, is different. It feels like the card system has been parachuted onto the game rather than laying the foundations of it.
Griftlands E3 2019 Announcement Trailer Watch on YouTube
The alpha presents you with one (not quite finished) storyline of an eventual three to play. This is the tale of Sal, an impetuous bounty hunter out for revenge against the crime boss who sold her into indentured toil on the oil platforms. Rather like an Invisible, Inc. campaign, the story is dictated partly by script and partly by chance, with your picks from the semi-randomised missions on offer determining the direction of your build as well as the shape of the plot, and offering chances to take on extra risk for extra reward. Plus there’s permadeath, so if Sal buys it, you need to start again. It feels too crafted, meandering and long-form to be called a true roguelike, but it does have a lot in common with those games.