Underworld Ascendant is a first person action role playing game, developed by Otherside Entertainment. You might know the developers from the predecessors Ultima Underworld I & II. You might also know them as Looking Glass from other titles such as System Shock and Thief; games that even today are being held in high regard by many old-school gamers.
I personally fell in love with Thief Deadly Shadows. In fact, I love it so much that since then every custom character I create I name him after the game’s main protagonist, Garrett. Suffice to say that I had high hopes for this game, however it appears that all hope is lost. The game is a mess and I am really bummed because I doubt any amount of patches will ever fix this mess. Actually, this feels like an Early Access game, which is not unfortunately; and I will never buy an EA game ever again, screw that noise.
Since I haven’t played the previous games I am not familiar with the story and lore and honestly I could not care less. The story is basic, the presentation awful and the writing is mediocre at best. The game does not have a proper save system and it only saves the item progress, not the actual gameplay progress. Therefore if you quit the game or die you will start from the beginning of the level and the game will reset everything like traps, puzzles and enemies; basically the save system is a complete joke.
Graphics are OK. They are nothing special and most people will probably find them outdated. Given its average-ish visuals, the game should run without performance issues, right? Well, it doesn’t. Try lighting something on fire and you will see your fps drop like a rock in the water. The graphic settings are extremely limited, there is mouse acceleration – and probably smoothing – by default and you cannot disable them (at least from the in-game settings).
Music and environmental sounds are fine, though again there is nothing extraordinary here, though I did like the main theme. Voice acting is OK ( it’s really not) I guess but only if you exclude the voice of the main villain who shouts in your ears like a drill sergeant through a voice changer.
The gameplay appears to be very similar to Dark Messiah and Thief but it doesn’t play the same; far from it. There is no character creation and there are no pre-made classes. Instead, there is a huge skill tree divided into three classic classes; warrior, mage and thief. There are no restrictions thus allowing you to invest points anywhere you like. I do not know if you can max out all the skill trees or if the number of experience points is predefined, but it is usually best to focus on a specific tree in order to maximize effectiveness with your weapon of choice.
I usually go for thief classes since I love sneaking around in the shadows backstabbing unaware enemies. I honestly though do not think that any of the classes really works as intended. First of all, the lighting is not ideal for this game. Even if you put out every single light source in a room it will still look bright thus destroying any kind of immersion while lurking in the dark.
If you are into the warrior class and prefer a more a straight forward approach unfortunately you will too be disappointed as the combat system sucks hairy and sweaty ass.
Animations are a joke and melee combat feels floaty, laggish, sluggish and lacking weight and impact; so basically crappy… hell, even the hit reactions are terrible. That is without taking into consideration that most enemies need like ten or more hits to go down. The enemy A.I. is terrible as well. Basically, you hit an enemy, back-step and hit him again until the chore named combat is done. The enemies are predictable as hell, making combat boring and tiresome.
The game has physics based puzzles but the physics are completely fucked. Walking past objects can send them flying like they are made of thin air. The water physics are also messed up making it sometimes almost impossible to traverse through it. I am not talking about lakes of water but puddles that are merely two inches deep.
I am extremely disappointed, sad and pissed at the same time. I honestly cannot apprehend how on earth they released this game in its current state. If you check the version/build number on the main menu you will see it is 0.3 something instead of 1.0. I mean, seriously?
The game is months or even years far from ready and it really makes me sad to see such great developers fall into the same trap in which many studios fell before (and most certainly others will again in the future). Usually, it’s the publisher who pushes to release a game at an exact date and I believe the very same thing happened here.
Actually, some buyers could see this as a scam and to be honest they could be right. Whatever the case might be my recommendation is to stay far away from it, at least for now.
This could have been an awesome game and I did try to like it but unfortunately in its current state it’s impossible to enjoy it… even if its core idea is great. Hopefully, Otherside will work on it and it will release an enhanced/definitive edition in the future. Till then save your money for something else. On an unrelated note, and since this will be my last review for this year, I wish you all Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My best wishes to you, to your families and to your friends. Enjoy the holidays.
- Art Style
- Freedom
- A. I.
- Bugs
- Story
- Physics
- Combat
- Saving System
Playtime: 9+ hours total
Computer Specs: Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos S CPU: i5 4440 GPU: MSI 960GTX 4GB Mobo: MSI B85-G41 RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB HDD: Crucial 275GB MX300 PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W OS: Win7 Monitor: LG 23″ 1080p
PS: The latest patch did fix some minor things and the studio released a video saying that they are working on the issues. Time will tell. You can find the video on their official YouTube channel.
Chris was born in the early 80’s along with the very birth of home gaming. After spending many maaany drachmas on arcades, his father decided to buy him a PC instead of going bankrupt. He lived through the advancing and development of the gaming industry, having played TONS of games on all platforms. He is always honest and will never hesitate to give his true opinion on a game no matter what. Loves stealth games and dislikes microtsansactions, DLC and pre-ordering…who doesn’t after all?!
Contact: Email
I despise social justice but how on earth could people think that was the reason for bad ratings (as in: “this game doesn’t cave in to SJW, that’s why it isn’t critically acclaimed)?
And by the way, System Shock 3 is screwed now.
Wait what? People say that? Where? 😀 It’s simply bad game at first glance.
And yeah I’m extremely worried about System Shock 3. I used to wonder if maybe Prey gonna end up as better System Shock game than actual new System Shock…after this I’m sure it will be.
System Shock 3 isn’t being developed by the Underworld Ascendant team, they in fact have absolutely nothing to do with it and aren’t even touching the game.
Warren Specter’s team =/= Joe Fielder team. Warren Specter’s team is more closely related to the System Shock 1 reboot team which has already proven themselves to be 100000x a competent as these jackas*es ever were.
This game is just a bad game, it had a $1M budget and they wasted almost all of it on borderline useless features with a terrible game to boot, had no idea if they wanted to make a Thief hybrid or an actual Ultima game, and managed to somehow screw the whole entire thing up by not just sticking to one design philosophy over all.
What? But that System Shock remake is done by Night Dive Studios no? How are they related?
How are they more related to them then they are to OtherSide Entertainment? Which is same studio? 😀
But yeah I had no idea there are 2 teams in that studio. I’m still extremely worried thou.
I feel like Underworld Ascendant can’t really be fixed. It feels like first version of early access that is years away from proper release. They would need to work on it for years for it become good.
I bet they gonna fix bugs but imho game is fundamentally wrong. Everything feels off, like a prototype.
Ye it have good ideas, it could be good game. If they started all over. You really seem to have bigger hope in it then I do my man.
I still planning on playing it once they release all patches but I don’t expect much. Not that there is any better alternative thou. Last dungeon crawler/immersive sim like this was frigin Arx Fatalis. So it’s better then nothing.
Autocorrect changed the sentence for some reason and I posted it without reading it, meant that System Shock Remake is more closely related to the reboot of System Shock 3 in terms of games being rebooted from classic game titles.
The team who worked on UWA is not the same team that is working on SS3 which is a different studio under the same company? Sort of like how DICE LA is not the same studio as DICE Sweden. They’re under the same company but are not the same teams.
Yeah I get that now but I’m still worried.
There were still industry veterans working on it and it still turned out like this. It feels like they haven’t worked on anything since 90s and just lost the touch.
Different set of industry veterans are working on System Shock 3 and I’m worried they gonna screw up as well.
That how much I’m shaken by this Underworld Ascendant man 😀 .
Highly sceptical about that new game from John Romero because of it as well.
“Any perceived social justice nonsense is just some fa**ot injecting their own politics into, yet again,”
At this point i would like to inform you that the sjws are going around reporting anyone who uses “offensive” slurs even from many years ago. Multiple people on twitter have to apologize for jokes about fa gggggs and many people are getting their patreons shut down, including studio f0w which did 3d pr0n and some guy lost his advertisers because his father said the n word before he was even born. Not to mention someone hired the fired gog twitter/community manager for a site about games and NO POLITICS and the sjws wrote articles against him calling him Gamergator and called his father and screamed “bigot” at him while shouting everywhere that he is a liar and he is lying because he is not a sjw but a normie centrist.
But hey sjws are not real nor are they harming any industry nope, none of that, nothing.
Remember that SoyNutz is a SJW himself.
who you talking about? Never heard anyone say this.
Game is a buggy unfinished unoptimized mes who doesnt have anywhere near as big and complex environments as ultima or npcs.
It is implied when some games get better treatment for being SJW even tough it sucks
which is bullshit, it’s just the ‘anti-sjw’ crowd overdoing it when they say things like that.
Maybe, but preferential treatment for some big publishers is real
Ok what it is with this specs especially with PSU.
“Minimum:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel CPU Core i5-6600 @ 3.3GHz / Ryzen 3 1300X
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 960 (3GB)/ AMD R9 280 (3GB)
DirectX: Version 11
Storage: 25 GB available space
Recommended:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel CPU Core i7-6700/ AMD Ryzen 5 1500x
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB)/ Radeon RX 480 (8GB)
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 25 GB available space
Recommended:
Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
OS: 64-bit Windows 7, 64-bit Windows 8 (8.1) or 64-bit Windows 10
Processor: Intel CPU Core i7-6700/ AMD Ryzen 5 1500x
Memory: 12 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1060 (6GB)/ Radeon RX 480 (8GB)
DirectX: Version 12
Storage: 25 GB available space”
I have never seen a spec that includes a psu for simple reasons.
nothing much.
@CHRIS, the reviewer has told this before that he got that power supply under a very good deal/price, so that’s why he bought a 1200 watt supply, which obviously we all know is way too much for his PC (overkill).
lol
that power supply must cost him his electricity bill half his wage.
I saw wanderbots playing it…at very low fps, game looks last gen and simplistic and minimalistic, like ashen but runs like…any unity game, like utter trash. I have not played ultima underworld i played a bit of arx fatalis and plenty of dark messiah, fans say that the game isnt as large and complex as ultima underworld and doesnt have npcs and quests. I wouldnt know, but seems like the bioshock infinite of ultima underworld games. Apart form the bugs it seems to be in a early access state, needs balancing too. It has some cool features though, traps that you have to jump over, you can physically destroy lock doors if you beat them enough, you can use the environment and objects to fight enemies.
Just like insomnia…wait till its fixed.
You’re misusing the term “prequel” when you mean “predecessor”. A prequel is a sequel that tells a back story. Peter Jackson’s Tolkien adaptations work to illustrate the point: “The Hobbit” movies are prequels because Jackson shot “LOTR” first. The original “Hobbit” book is not a prequel, Tolkien wrote it first. The LOTR movies are the predecessors of The Hobbit trilogy. The Hobbit book is the predecessor of LOTR in book form.
You are very right, I got confused by the wiki’s description saying “It is the sequel to Ultima Underworld”. Fixed, thank you very much.
The game has huge design flaws. Unfortunatelly no patch will ever save it.
Game can definitely be saved, though it needs a heavy dose of patching for at least another year.
LOL, how someone build a PC where PSU costs like rest of the parts combined?
Computer Specs: Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos S CPU: i5
4440 GPU: MSI 960GTX 4GB Mobo: MSI B85-G41 RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB
HDD: Crucial 275GB MX300 PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W OS: Win7
Monitor: LG 23? 1080p
Yea, I backed this game because it was being made by the same guys who made both previous games. Loved those back in the day. But this game is just infuriating, I cant believe how bad it is and how its turned out. Very disappointing, I was really hoping for a true sequel to the games I loved, but got this instead, I feel like the Grinch came in and stole the game that’s supposed to be here.
“and I will never buy an EA game ever again”
I see what you did there. ?
Please tell us that after playing Thief: Stabbity Shadows you subsequently went back and played the good Thief games.