Gangs of Sherwood
Review
An interesting premise ruined in part by poor execution...
by Dan Lenois
reviewed on PC
A cooperative third-person action game featuring said preexisting characters in a futuristic steampunk world filled with familiar but highly-altered antagonists? There's no doubt that many creative liberties were taken with the source material, and one does have to admire the ambition involved in committing to this particular vision. However, the execution of said direction does become questionable in several key areas.
A new but familiar world
Visually the game is quite charming. Its art direction and graphical fidelity work smoothly together to create a stunning, detailed world, one that performs smoothly even on maximum graphical settings. While the game does feature fairly long loading times, even when running off an SSD, there is little else to criticize on a performance level. Gameplay bugs are the only thing the player need fear.
There are many odd bugs one can easily uncover unintentionally throughout a normal playthrough. The player character can easily get stuck on or inside static objects or barriers like boxes or walls. Invisible walls are everywhere, and it's not difficult to glitch your way through them or, again, get stuck inside them.
Interacting with NPCs is almost impossible at times because the on-screen button prompt will not appear unless the player is standing exactly in the predetermined invisible spot. The combat rating system is wildly unpredictable in how it grades the player's combat skills. Sometimes you can unleash amazing combos and take little to no damage and yet still get an abysmal grade. Other times you can repeat the same two basic attacks over and over again and lose half your health yet still get an S-tier grade.
Earn, upgrade, evolve
Gangs of Sherwood incorporates many fundamental RPG-adjacent gameplay mechanics, including character levelling, skill trees, and looting. However, these are fairly minimalistic in terms of their impact on the core gameplay loop. While there are a number of opportunities in each level to unlock gold by discovering treasure chests and completing objectives, the grind to unlock new active and passive character skills is so excessive that you'll easily have finished most if not all of the campaign before combat actually begins to feel fun and varied. Until then, you'll be stuck spamming the same three or four moves ad nauseam every single time you fight an enemy.
It's also worth noting that, outside of combat, the world itself can often feel rather empty, and the narrative gives you very little reason to ever feel invested in either the characters or the world at large. While each mission contains a variety of short cutscenes, these almost exclusively only serve to introduce the next generic group of basic enemies or a new boss for you to fight. And since there can be fairly long sequences where you're just platforming or running from A to B, with nothing to look at or appreciate other than the world, that emptiness becomes startlingly evident.
Stepping into the arena
The boss fights are the game's biggest saving grace. Each boss you come across gets their own introductory cinematic cutscene, as well as their own distinctive fight choreography. While the difficulty of these boss fights do not come anywhere close to those in Souls-like games, they still represent a formidable and often highly-enjoyable challenge to the uninitiated.
That said, for a looting game, it is somewhat disappointing that these bosses, upon their defeat, do not offer any high-value loot. All the player will receive is currency for completing the mission in general, as well as anything else they may have looted from chests.
Overall
Gangs of Sherwood is a passable but thoroughly unremarkable cooperative action game, suffering from a tedious gameplay loop, alleviated only in part by its cinematic quality, boss fights, and visual artistic appeal. Unless you're a diehard Robin Hood folklore enthusiast, it's very difficult to recommend this as a must-buy at any price, let alone its current retail offering.
As always, follow Hooked Gamers on Instagram for news updates, reviews, competitions and more.
6.5
fun score
Pros
Intriguing character classes, few performance issues, striking visual aesthetic
Cons
Cluttered UI design, clunky combat system, boring looting system