The shortest form of thisBroken Roadsreviewwould be: it’s AustralianFallout, a spiritual successor to the first twoFalloutgames, and fits in with othergreat RPGs. It’s the feel I had from theBroken Roadsdemo that I played in the past, and it’s a feeling that still captures the essence of the experience, but let’s dive in deeper here.
Broken Roads’ Storytelling
A big key to capturing that experience isBroken Roads’ greatest strengths: storytelling, world-building and writing. InBroken Roads, you find yourself tossed into the fire early on as you must navigate a variety of factions and characters with different priorities and approaches to the world. Some of them may be allies, some may be enemies, and many of them could be either, depending on the choices you make.
Like many of the best RPGs,Broken Roadsboth respects player and world agency. As the player, you may create a lot of change in the world, as your choices and actions reverberate around the world, with a variety of consequences.Broken Roads, though, rarely ignores its characters as everyone has their own priorities. Sometimes, events happen in reaction to you. Other times, it’s something that was on a timeline. The date of that election isn’t changing, and if you don’t take action, you may find the person you didn’t want in the mayoral seat.
The setting is a distinct one for gaming: a post-apocalyptic Australia. Instead of the typical America that we see in other post-apocalyptic RPGs (see:FalloutandWasteland), Australia gives a different vibe and feel to many of the elements. It’s no surprise that some of the folks who worked on this game also worked onFallout 2, as the setup of factions and communities gives a feel similar to that seminal ’90s RPG in some ways, even as it trades Americanisms for Australianisms, and goes a different route with super science stuff.
Fallout London Release Date Set for April 24th, 2024
The Fallout: London mod introduces players to a host of new factions, each vying for survival and dominance in the post-apocalyptic landscape
Broken Roadscharacters are generally a strength, though some leave you wanting more. There are many strong NPCs with nuanced depictions that you’re able to interact with, which is a real draw to the game. Where it falls short at times is some of your party members, who are disappointingly quiet at times, even when it feels like there should be something they might say. Not always, and not all of them, but there were several times I expected them to interject and they didn’t. Some of them also feel shallower and closer to single-note characters, serving almost more as mechanical pieces after the opening part of the game.
The Broken Roads Moral Compass
One element of Broken Roads that stands out in comparison to even many wordy RPGs is that it’s not just about what you do, but why you do it. The moral compass splits different approaches down into four distinct philosophical areas: Utilitarian (the needs of the group, outweigh the needs of the few or the one), Humanist (the purpose of life is the maximum respect and dignity for each human being), Nihilism (it’s all about me) and Machiavellian (the ends justify the means for my group). Characters, including your companions, note what sort of approaches you take to problems, and what answers you make throughout the game, with options appearing or disappearing depending on what you’ve done.
This gives a strong role-playing and philosophic underpinning toBroken Roads: how you approach a problem and why is just as important as how you solve it. It calls back toPlanescape Torment, where dialogue options give a maximum amount of space to express your character.Broken Roadsalso trusts you enough to allow you to see the hidden options if you so choose, or to turn off viewing the moral compass impacts of your choices altogether. From a role-playing perspective, this is the best one, as it means you aren’t seeing options that are highlighted as ‘humanist’ or other, and instead picking what you feel best fits. It creates a strong and immersive roleplaying experience where you can express any of a number of views that fit what you think.
There are also abilities tied to each of the moral compass positions, which while useful, aren’t character-defining. They tend to reflect the philosophical view in the approach of combat. For example, a humanist won’t be able to shoot near allies, but will be better at healing.
Broken Roads Combat and Mechanics
Broken Roads uses a turn-based combat system, with separate action and movement points. You control your character, and your group’s actions during combat, and the system is reasonable overall, if not spectacular. Generally, there are several skills and attributes that impact whatever action you’re taking, whether that’s shooting, hitting or using another ability. The battlefields tend to be relatively small and you don’t generally end up with hordes of enemies, keeping things manageable.
There aren’t any sort of survival mechanics here, nor even some stuff like bullet tracking. You can shoot away to your heart’s content without worrying about how many bullets you have, while food and drink serve more as healing and buffing options.Broken Roadsopts against having a wide range of weapons in many ways, instead going for several levels (depicted as +1/+2/+3) of improvement to the weapon in question that increases its damage.
One issue with the systems for handling combat is that you can’t arrange your party to position certain characters for battle. If your main character is a talky, scientific type, they’ll still be at the front, instead of the melee-wielding character you might prefer up there. That brings us to one of the major flaws ofBroken Roads.
Broken Roads Flawed UI and Bugs
It might seem silly to harp on UI as a major flaw, butBroken Roadsis sadly strained at times by decisions made regarding how the player interacts with it. One example is that when in the town where your group is camped, you’re able to’t look at everyone’s gear or character sheet to see what might be useful or move things around. While you can (and need to) choose their equipment when you are in other areas, it isn’t possible to do where your group resides for most of the game.
This isn’t the only UI issue to pop up, either. In combat, abilities require you to open a menu and then select them from a wheel, or go to a second wheel to pick them. This might be done to make the game function better on consoles or with a controller, but with a mouse and keyboard it’s undeniably clunky to have to hit, skills and abilities, then go past the first menu, and then click finally on the ability you wanted to use there.
There are other minor irritants and examples that could be brought up for user experience, but another issueBroken Roadshad was bugs. While every game has them, and a meaty RPG like Broken Roads will have more, there was a collision of UI and bugginess at times that managed to sour some of the experience.
A major bug I ran into ended up stopping me from being able to do anything if I entered a region with the in-game date past February 2. While I was able to complete one of several ways to finish the game, it did cause a problem in that I felt I had to go a certain way to avoid the timing issue once I figured out what it was. I also ran into issues with it and pursuing certain quest options because time travel overland ate up more of that valuable time.
Other UX/Bug areas that I ran into involved things like quests not being clear if there’s another step in them or not. For the main quests there were several that were in a position of being open, but not saying if there was anything else going on, and no showing objectives. Then there were several side quests that I was unable to complete due to bugs.
I don’t want to give the impression thatBroken Roadsis a lemon or that it’s fatally buggy in the vein of say,Cyberpunk 2077,on console at launch, but there are notable issues here that hampered the experience. If bugs getting in your way are a hang-up for you, it may be best to wait a bit as the developers are working on fixing more of the bugs.
Closing Comments:
Broken Roads is a cult classic in the making. It hearkens to the best parts of games likeFallout 2, and many other CRPGs of the ’90s, and it fits right in alongside classicFalloutand theWastelandgames. It’s flawed in some areas, with bugs in spots, but it offers tremendous role-playing and storytelling that make it more than worth your time to spend upwards of thirty or more hours in post-apocalyptic Australia.
