Last year Path of Exile 2 shook the ARPG meta when it burst into early access and gave established powerhouse Diablo 4 a run for its money. Early in the year, we’d already had the 1.0 release of the excellent Last Epoch, and of course the Vessel of Hatred expansion for the Diablo 4 itself. With Titan Quest 2 also due for release some time this year, the loot and slash dungeon crawler is having a renaissance. Not that it ever needed one, really. But either way, it marks this as the perfect time for Dragonkin: The Banished to hit the market.
Heading for early access very soon, Dragonkin is a pretty straightforward ARPG except for one major element: the Ancestral Grid. This is a board that feels tangentially similar to Diablo 4’s Paragon Boards, hex-based boards into which you can slot dozens of connected nodes that alter the core skills of the three playable characters.
Each of the heroes, the standard Knight, Oracle (Mage), and Barbarian, come with their own unique suite of skills and abilities, but because they are the titular “Dragonkin”, they also each have a pet Wyrmling, a draconic companion who can be levelled up and customised alongside the hero. Between the Wyrmling and the Ancestral Grid, there are some insanely detailed build-options, and min-maxers will have an absolute blast with Dragonkin: The Banished.
The preview had plenty of options, but it’s still limited just because it’s a preview build, so while I was able to tinker with the Grid and swap out skills, adding and adjusting special affects on each of my skills or spells, I couldn’t get a real feel for growing my own Grid, unlocking the nodes and filling it out organically. What I saw was impressive though, offering something that feels as sprawling as the skill trees in other ARPGS but with an incredible amount of potential nuance.
Combat is pretty standard though, and there’s no real way to dress it up. In the prologue you play as three heroes that are so overpowered it’s a cake-walk, but the action is at odds with the narration that plays constantly throughout. It’s a shame, too, as I’m sure the voice actor is the same woman who narrated the Dark Souls intro, and she’s fantastic. I could be wrong there, though, so don’t quote me.
Once the prologue was done introducing each of the three classes (there will be a fourth released during the early access period), I was able to create a new character. Well, select, actually, as each character is already pre-made and named. This is a shame in itself, as part of the fun for me is making a new character and making them my own. Still, you pick from one of three and launch into the game, and are immediately brought to your hub city.
I say “your” because it is. Yours, I mean. You get to build and develop the city, moving in vendors and services, and shaping it how you like. You can then invite other players to visit, allowing them to shop at your stalls and explore your streets. It’s where you go between quests, and is a very cool idea that adds a great level of customisation and personalisation to proceedings.
From here I was able to access “endgame” dungeons and try out each character’s build. The dungeons were randomly generated and genuinely creative. One was underwater (although the enemies were mostly standard and I was running around as if on dry land), while another took place in an overgrown fortress.
I found the difficulty to be incredibly uneven though, with some enemies taking huge chunks of my health away. It’s also not easy to stay out of danger, so I was constantly taking damage. There’s a dodge on cooldown but it’s not the best. There’s also no way of drinking mana potions, so I was always waiting for it to refill while backtracking and spamming health potions. The enemy design is decent though, and the combat feels quite satisfying at higher levels.
Overall, Dragonkin: The Banished is looking very intriguing. It’s not the most beautiful game, and I found some of the textures and environments to be a little bland coming off the back of Path of Exile 2, but it’s serviceable. The big draw will be the Ancestral Grid itself, though, and all the build diversity it will offer. There’s massive potential for Dragonkin to be a truly addictive ARPG – it has all the right ingredients to rival any of its biggest competitors if developer Nacon can stick the landing when early access comes to a close.
Dragonkin: The Banished is developed by Nacon and published by Eko Software. It’s heading to Steam early access on March 6 2025.
