2026
By: Alexander Holmes
Flintlock The Siege of Dawn was first described to me as Souls-lite by the game’s own marketing. This was a disservice.
The comparison to the soulslike genre, even caching it with a slant genre term which isn't in common usage, still heavily misrepresents the kind of game you're about to play.
Flintlock is an action adventure. Far more similar to God of War or The Witcher than of the Dark Souls games. I do understand the comparison. Level and encounter design revolve around carefully handling a handful of enemies between checkpoints. It also has a corpse-run system tied to an experience-point currency called Reputation. For many, these designs only exist in Souls games, but that is where the comparisons stop.
Players will be filling out 3 distinct upgrade trees tied to your 3 forms of attacks: Axe, Gun, and Magic. Searching the world as the story progresses will yield alternative weapons and armor that each have a unique ability for augmenting your approach to fights.
Combat is far more about counter-play. Dodging, multiple forms of parries, and limited resources for different tools dictate the flow of a fight. No stamina bars in sight.
High-level play will become a feast of dynamic camera angles following our protagonist as she deftly takes apart an enemy monster.
Early gameplay will be a panicky flailing of different options being used at exactly the wrong time, leading to anticlimactic deaths. That is, for the player too impatient to learn a new system.
Beyond the encounters, for me, the world of Flintlock is the main appeal. A low fantasy setting that mixes European medieval heraldry with 18th century firearms doesn't sound like it should work, but it does. Self described as a Flintlock Fantasy, a fantasy novel subgenre specializing in colonial era tech set against high fantasy magic. The context allows the world to become a melange of all kinds of cultural influences, both ancient and contemporary. A world invaded by an army of the dead, coming straight from the underworld, under the command of evil gods.
You play as Nor Vanek, a soldier in the Coalition Army, belonging to a company called Sappers. A sort of ranger specializing in utility, explosives, and firearms. You are joined by Enki, a minor god who seeks to set the world right by helping Nor close the gate to the underworld… after she inadvertently helped to blast it wide open.
I believe Enki takes his namesake from Enkidu, a mythological figure in the Mesopotamian epic. Friend and confidant to king Gilgamesh. Enki grants Nor his magic. Like a grim deconstruction of the magical girl protagonist, Nor may now wield black powder to dynamically dodge and jump through the air, fuel her firearms, and craft new abilities to resist the hoard of the dead.
Beyond Enki, there are many other supernatural beings that casually exist in the world. Every town, for example, has a coffee shop, run by a creature made entirely of arms and hands. She holds a mask to give patrons a friendly face, and each one shares a love of telling stories or sharing gossip. Though I'm unable to place the inspiration behind the creature, I can do you one better. The coffee.
The Host is making coffee using a cezve [djehz-veh] heated over sand and open fire. This method, known as either Turkish Coffee, Armenian Coffee, or Arabic Coffee in English, popularized in the 16th century Ottoman Empire. Becoming the main way coffee was prepared in coffee houses around the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Connecting myriad cultures and vast distances to the shared history of the coffee house.
Everything in Flintlock feels equally inspired by the cultures surrounding the reach of the Ottoman Empire. The main antagonist, Uru being an Assyrian Lammassu design adorned with the Sun Disk of the Egyptian pantheon being just one more allusion I was able to spot.
In an interview with Derek Bradley, CEO of the game developer A44 Games, he had this to say when asked about the choice to have a black woman as their lead protagonist:
“By being more inclusive with our cast, if you will, we have a range of things that we've done across the board… There's such a kaleidoscope of ways that you can tackle representation. For our gender neutral characters, we don't particularly point at either or do anything hugely political on purpose, because… it's completely normalised for them.” - Derek Bradley, via Stacey Henley at The Gamer
This statement, I think, captures the developer's ethos regarding cultural inspiration and inclusivity. The inspirations are specific and identifiable from our world, yet subtle and fully integrated into the fantasy setting of the world of Kian.
Different players will be able to pick up on specific allusions they are aware of, but aesthetically the distinct representations are coherent.
Take, for example, the character Baz. An older Sapper, acting as mentor and guide to Nor's adventure. Through talking to him at campfires it becomes apparent that Baz is something of an adoptive father to Nor. From his appearance and the cultural contexts presented elsewhere, one could easily read Baz as representing Turkish heritage.
There is never a need to question how. The setting of the world ties everyone together seamlessly.
While I was already loving the gameplay and having a lot of fun as I slowly realized the full scope of the combat, it was one moment that made me appreciate this game more than anything.
They referred to the enemy monsters as Revenants.
Now that may not stand out to you, but it does to me. Reason being that I realized the mass of generic, humanoid enemies from the underworld, despite their behavior and appearance, were never referred to as “zombies.” They were referred to as “the dead” many times. Despite the script's desire to avoid repetitiousness with its language, it never took that option in particular.
If you are familiar with my writing elsewhere, you know I take issue with the popular use of the Hollywood movie monster being referred to as a Zombie. Between the American occupation of Haiti, the appropriation of the Zombie into an animated corpse for cinema, the history of depicting voodoo as unholy magic or devil worship in pop media. Modern depictions of the Hollywood monster always inadvertently perpetuate hurtful stereotypes of Haiti and of Voodoo, and worse yet are so much the norm that the cultural origins of Haiti are entirely lost beneath it.
I have, in no uncertain words, directly asked that writers stop using the word zombie, and return to similar words from their own cultural heritage. I have fantasized that a writer would choose to use the word revenant rather than Zombie.
And here it is.
That shows true commitment to getting the details right. To highlight cultural inspirations without relying on familiar shorthands.
Beyond my personal grudges against Hollywood zombies, another minor interaction in the game may be taking from African religious traditions. The ancestor and Inaya shrines. In Haitian voodoo, the idea of God is very far off and uninvolved in human affairs. Bondye, or Olorun from the Yoruba heritage, is the supreme creator deity. But they are very much inaccessible to humanity. Rather, praise and adoration are directed to the Loa, ancestor spirits. Some mythological, others historical people turned Loa, people often refer to them as gods or as a Pantheon. Yet it is an important cultural distinction that these deities, complete with domains of influence and associated myths, are not gods. They are remembered as progenitors of the culture, and therefore are specific to their cultures.
Ancestor worship is an important distinction that, from my perspective, allows for religious expression to be more grounded in the present and the people around us.
Throughout the world of Kian, Nor will come across Ancestor Statues. Corpses adorned in finery that sit, as in meditation, on roadways. Their gameplay function is to provide a buff to the amount of Reputation you may earn in combat. Their cultural inspiration seems to be a cross between Buddhist mummification, Sokushinbutsu, and an expression of ancestor worship.
Nor is, by this world’s measure, an atheist. The gods are real, and present, and in front of her. Yet she is neither fearful nor respectful to them. Adopting early on the motto of “Kill all gods,” before being forced to accept Enki’s help. These ancestor statues, like the army of the dead Nor fights against, escaped the underworld. Only to then provide benevolence rather than antagonism. When nor speaks to the statues, she does so as one would a neighborhood auntie or uncle. Graciously accepting their gifts, while insisting, “ancestor, that’s too much.” Or offering spiritual connotated farewells like, “Peace be with you, Elder.”
When approaching an Inaya statue, a collectible whose gameplay boon is to increase your maximum health, Nor will still offer thanks to Inaya. When Enki confronts her about this, she readily admits that she knows the god can't hear her. But retorts that she does it anyway because it feels right to do. After I completed the game, I also learned of the Mesopotamian Goddess Inanna. A goddess of war, love, and sex. Which is likely Inaya’s inspiration.
Nor's character is one who is deeply spiritual despite the raw hand the world has dealt her. She is a person who finds strength in the people around her, and we meet her after nearly losing all of them.
The characters and inspiration on display elevates a game that I merely had a lot of fun with, to a game I absolutely love.
Thank you for reading,
Take care of each other,
And stay true