Of Ash and Steel Review - Ambitious Low-Fantasy RPG Undone by Game-Breaking Crashes

Before discussing what Of Ash & Steel does right, let's address the key problems I've encountered while playing: this game will likely corrupt your save files.

Across two separate playthroughs, my progress was completely wiped by save corruption bugs. The first occurred after approximately 8-10 hours when I reached the main city. Every save made in that location refused to load. The second happened after 5-6 hours when the game crashed to the desktop and subsequently refused to load any save file, regardless of location.

This isn't a minor inconvenience. This is a fundamental failure that made the game unreviewable for me. Everything that follows describes a game with genuine potential, but until Fire & Frost Studios resolves these critical bugs, Of Ash & Steel cannot be recommended at any price.

Of Ash and Steel

When It Works, It Shines

Of Ash and Steel is a fantasy open-world RPG through and through, built by a small indie studio, Fire & Frost Studios, who have managed to create a game that rewards curiosity and exploration. The studio claims to value "the essence of classic old-school RPGs and modern designs," and you can feel that philosophy baked into its system. It’s ambitious and rewarding when it works.

When it works. After two complete collapses, I couldn't justify another attempt. For a delayed release, this stings harder than usual. Still, this game proves it has heart. Of Ash and Steel wants to be special, and in moments, it is.

Of Ash and Steel

The game opens with your cartographer protagonist, Tristan, shipwrecked on Grayshaft, a harsh, isolated island in the fragmenting Kingdom of the Seven. After a serviceable cutscene establishing the political unrest threatening this once-unified realm, you wash ashore and meet Nerest, a likeable veteran with a drinking problem who becomes your guide to survival. It does appear that drinking issues are a big part of the game, as it seems every other character is a drunk. But then again, in the merciless world of Grayshaft, how else would you ease the pain?

From the moment you step outside Nerest's cottage, Of Ash & Steel delivers that "leaving Vault 101" feeling. It's that intoxicating sense of possibility when an entire world unfurls before you. The map starts completely greyed out, forcing you to explore and memorise landmarks organically. I haven't felt this genuinely lost in a game since Elden Ring, and it's exhilarating.

Of Ash and Steel

Rewarding exploration

Being a wood elf main in most of the Elder Scrolls games, I was mostly rewarded for my monkey business - jumping from rocks to watchtowers and optimising jumps for ruins and waterfalls.

The game rewards curiosity relentlessly. During my first few hours of wandering, I accidentally fell into two separate holes while fleeing monsters, discovering a puzzle dungeon and an undead church. Later, I stumbled upon a full ship embedded in a mountainside. These aren't marked points of interest; they're organic discoveries that make exploration feel meaningful.

Of Ash and Steel

I found this approach to be refreshing, and weirdly, I did remember most of the instructions, locations and characters. The compass on the top right will soon become your best friend, and you will start recognising the outdoors and using landmarks for orientation. This feeling of being lost and finding your way back is one I rarely feel in games anymore, so I knew there was something magical here.

Along the way, there was some sort of fight club going on, so naturally, I went there. This fight club is a separate minigame called Ranta, and it basically functions as a point-and-click, turn-based 1v1 fighting game. It might be fun, but this remained largely unexplored, as there is a hefty cost, and I was dirt poor at the time. 

Of Ash and Steel

An effective tactic is to just sprint everywhere, spam E to loot and hope you don't get collision’d in a narrow pathway. This was fun for a while, but I soon figured I was not making any real progress, and the jank started losing its charm, but not before I was already loaded with loot. 

Atmosphere That Grips

Upon arriving in the city, I was amazed by how good it looked and how much love had been put into it. You can feel the handcrafting in the air, especially when it comes to structures and streets. Everything falls into place, and the city is clearly sectioned off - the harbour, the slums, the market, etc. Quite a few buildings can be lockpicked, along with the treasure chests inside.

Of Ash and Steel

People will react to your appearance and behaviour promptly, and seemingly no one will miss the chance to comment on your teeth being too clean. This really reminds you that you are sticking out like a sore thumb and that people have definitely noticed a posh Astartian in their savage midst.

The world does feel lived in, most of the time. However, you might find it uncanny hearing the same line of dialogue or seeing the same NPC after a while. I do acknowledge the obvious small studio moment here, but I would like to see gradual improvements in this part. Not that it takes away from your interactions with named NPCs. It does seem like they can just die to random wildlife, so you might want to be careful and maybe do certain quests later.

Of Ash and Steel

Taking a second journey towards the city, the road pushed me to naturally meet more characters and do their quests. Although most of the early quests consist of you finding certain items and scamming people, the characters are still interesting and have their own little quirks and sometimes provide lore tidbits and exposition. Make sure you read any notes or books you find along the way, as they will give you XP, lead you to more loot, or are just fun in general. There are no quest markers, so read your journal carefully, too!

Among others, there is an obligatory rat-in-the-basement quest, as well as some detective work and scavenging an old lighthouse. All of them bring something to the table, be it exploring more places, finding loot underground, or just simply feeling good about feeding an old man. Although it does seem you have choices on what to say or how to complete certain quests, this did not feel quite impactful. This might be because I never really progressed in the game and was dealing with simple tasks most of the time (more on technical issues below).

Of Ash and Steel

Core Mechanics

There are three main skill trees: Survival, War and Craftsmanship. On levelling up, you will upgrade stats such as Strength, Dexterity and Insight, which are required (along with a skill point and gold) to unlock skills in the respective skill trees.

Survival is mostly Dex- and Insight-focused. It will allow you to lockpick, bleed your opponents, make advanced camping gear and more. Some skill points will give you passive crit as well.

War is mostly Strength- and fortitude-focused. This is the standard combat tree with skills like perfect parries and basic combat training, along with passive melee damage. I did not quite level this early on, but I can only assume some crazy skills can be unlocked.

Of Ash and Steel

Craftsmanship needs a bit of everything and does exactly what it says. Putting points in this tree will allow for crafting, reinforcing, and mining. I also did not get to unlock a lot out of this tree, but it seems lucrative, to say the least.

You are kind of forced to be a jack of all trades early, which I do not necessarily like. You basically must spend at least 3 skill points to unlock the beginning skill of each branch. I found this to be a waste from a gameplay POV. I understand that Tristan is a noob, but there is no way I have to pay someone to teach me how to swing a pickaxe. Unless there are some secret mining techniques, it should at least be available without needing a skill point. That aside, I found the pacing to be pretty good, and I did not feel like a complete waste of life once I got some skills in.

Of Ash and Steel

Combat

As of now, the weapons that I came across were swords, axes, maces, hammers, rapiers, and bows.

The early game consists mostly of dodging and spacing. I usually used a Rapier, which has a Dex requirement and longer range than you’d think, which is very good for this kind of gameplay. Dodging is responsive and goes in rhythm with slightly dashing while still keeping your distance. Don't even try to parry early; you will run out of breath before your opponent. 

Of Ash and Steel

Bows are said to scale with Dex, but even with 20 Dex, they do not seem to be doing any meaningful damage, and I mostly used them for pulling mobs. They feel weird to use but in a good way, and I truly hope they will not stay irrelevant. I do have a sneaky suspicion that I will be able to make some kind of poison or fire arrows later on. It seems like there is also no bonus damage for headshots, but let’s hope this gets unlocked along with the arrows.

The lock-on system is decent, albeit I would prefer the angle to be a little bit on the higher side, since the character can block the view of smaller enemies. Even if you don't lock on, the camera movement does feel on point. While manipulating enemy AI is highly effective (for example, getting a big enemy stuck between trees), it does ruin it a little bit - but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Of Ash and Steel

Fighting is not really an option against anything higher than level 5. You just run out of stamina in 2-3 swings, and you really have to pace yourself, which is fair and realistic. Once you get some fights in, passive perks and better weapons, you start noticing the difference. Until then, you might find better success by pulling monsters into bandits, having them hash it out, and scooting away with their loot. If you get the last hit, you will also get full experience for the kill.

For now, the most common monsters - the maulers, might get stuck in a weird way, which takes a bit away from the immersion. If the maulers and other finicky creatures have their animations and pathing polished, I would hardly have any gripe. Humanoid fights certainly feel better due to clearer movement and animations.

Of Ash and Steel

Audio & Visuals

Honestly, being a game from a Russian studio, I expected some Runglish in the voice acting. Not that it’s inherently bad; on the contrary, I love hearing some good Runglish, but this game does not have any, at least for right now. The voice acting is on point for an indie studio, and there is not too much to ask for there. 

The way the characters move their hands in tandem with talking is very gamey, but it doesn't take away from the experience. In general, you just feel like you are playing an older, more defined and constricted game. While it might not necessarily be what they were going for, the devs claim they take inspiration from and are enthusiastic about old-school RPGs, so this feeling is very much leaning on the positive side.

Of Ash and Steel

Sometimes you might hear an NPC's idle line overlapping with their greeting once you select to talk to them, but this issue is negligible. The sound design in general is decent; the clashing of swords and slicing opponents does sound good, as well as the sound of grabbing loot. One thing I have to mention which I was grateful for was that the audio settings were set to 50% by default. I cannot overstate how much I appreciate not having my ears abused on the startup screen.

Once I was in the game, a small audio issue I experienced was that no matter what combination of sound settings I tried, some of the sound effects were still a bit too loud compared to others, but I'm willing to let that slide as well.

The visuals really are just the sweet spot for these types of games. UE4 has all the vibrance and colour grading needed to make this game shine. Sure, it's not Cyberpunk, but my point is that it does not need to be. We don't really need billions of polygons in all games, as long as the gameplay and story can carry it. 

Of Ash and Steel

Performance & Technical Issues

I am running this game on a beefy setup (Ryzen 5 7600X, RTX 4070, 32 GB of RAM) with everything cranked up, and I never experienced performance issues, except when getting into town on my first playthrough. On my second playthrough, there were no stutters at all, which was a very welcome sight.

Unfortunately, I never got to experience the full game, as once I reached the city in my first run, the game just stopped loading any save files that were made there. Nothing helped, and I had to say goodbye to my rich Tristan and start up another run.

After another 5-6 hours the game randomly CTD'd (not that common usually). No big deal, I’ll just restart. But it refused to load any of my save files, anywhere on the map, and my progress was once again gone forever. It's safe to say this discouraged me from playing anymore, as I let out one last sigh before the inevitable patch.

AltChar's Final Thoughts

Potential - this is the word to describe Of Ash and Steel. The story itself - which I sadly only briefly experienced - is interesting for the most part, but the gameplay is good enough and is carried by the cohesion of atmosphere, wonder, exploration and characters.

The game certainly does require polish here and there if the devs are planning to go major league. I can see myself wasting away with this game and would give it a solid 80 out of 100 - if I could actually play it without any issues. As of right now, my advice is to hold on and wait for additional updates.