A gentle and unusual building game that’s memorable but missing some purpose.
Bulwark is a city-building game that works differently to any city-building game I’ve ever played.
In a sense, I did - I knew I needed to build all over it.
But how I’d end up doing that would be in a way completely of the game’s own.
Bulwark is its own thing, for better and for worse.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles
I expected that, to a degree.
It was an aerial combat game.
And so we circle back around again to the ins and outs of how Bulwark works.
It’s awkward and obscured by design.
It doesn’t control like other city-builders, and it doesn’t unfold like other city-builders.
Honestly, I was confused the moment I picked up the controller the game recommended I play with.
Even many hours later, I still contend with it.
And ironically, none of this confusion comes from the game being complicated, but from the opposite.
It comes from it being incredibly simplistic.
In Bulwark, you could only do a few things.
They appear by themselves, dynamically, over time.
You build walls and towers and provide the right conditions for them, and then they grow.
So what’s so awkward about that?
Part of it is in the controls.
it’s possible for you to’t move the camera as freely as you want.
Instead, it sticks to buildings and you have to move to and from, one by one.
It isn’t intuitive.
The other part of the awkwardness comes from how things work.
Click to upgrade: got it.
But how do I harvest more resource?
There’s no discernible goal and I’m on no discernible path to it.
I’m somewhat aimless.
It’s the same for so many things in the game.
What’s important is the journey.
That’s why so much is intentionally obscured.
You’ll come to understand harbours and how settlements work together, and think about trade and maybe war.
This isn’t an experience about holding a dense strategy in your mind, though.
I don’t think Bulwark wants your head clogged while you’re exploring it.
And that’s a very pleasant thing to do; Bulwark is a very pleasant place to be.
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles accessibility options
Controller and mouse and keyboard options.
Full button remapping and right stick/left stick control options.
No option to change hold-to interact button presses, though they are brief.
To compare Bulwark with other city building experiences, then, misses what makes Bulwark uniquely itself.
To try and hurry that up or want too much structure from it is to want something else.
It can also be quite elbowy in how it presents itself and controls.
But if it were anything else, it wouldn’t be this, and I appreciate that more.
Bulwark, like The Falconeer before it, is singular, and that counts for a lot.
A copy ofBulwark: Falconeer Chroniclesfor review was provided by Wired Productions.
