Towerborne Early Access Impressions

What happens when you take classic sidescrolling beat ‘em up games, sprinkle some Destiny gear and loot systems, online multiplayer co-op, and add a beautiful 2D/3D art style? Well, you get Towerborne, the latest game from Stoic Studio. Though the game is quite a departure from their previous title, The Banner Saga, it still retains that magical uniqueness that the studio is known for, albeit with clear testing ground ahead of its full release next year. 

Story

Humanity is on the brink. Monsters have destroyed a majority of cities and the last survivors have migrated to the Belfry, a massive spiral tower city capped with a windmill. As humanity’s last refuge, the Belfry is also home to the Aces, warriors with the ability to resurrect upon death to defend humanity’s last standing bastion. In Towerborne, you assume the role of an Ace and it’s your quest to deter any monster threat.

Now, if this sounds a lot like Destiny 2 you wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Guardians function similarly to Aces, while the Belfry is clearly inspired by D2’s Tower as well. Also throw in the fact that each Ace has its own Umbra spirit companion, in the same vein as every Guardian has its own ghost companions.

However, as of writing, the story aspect in Towerborne seems to be light. While this game is in early access, this might deter players who like deep lore, characters, and intertwining storylines in their live service games. But for me, a good story is a plus and not the reason why I game. What matters to me is undoubtedly, the gameplay.

Solid Gameplay Foundations in Towerborne

Towerborne has a simple, yet highly enjoyable gameplay loop. Players will head out of the Belfry, complete missions, and get rewarded with better loot. Rinse and repeat. Of course, it’s a lot deeper than that.

Four Classes to Rull Them All

In Towerborne, players can select between four classes:

• Sentinel – a sword and shield bearer
• Shadowstriker – dagger, fast DPS rogue class
• Pyroclast – a war hammer wielder with a built-in flamethrower (oh yeah!)
• Rockbreaker – a gauntlet-wearing class that dishes sweeping attacks

Towerborne makes it so seamless to switch between any of the classes. However, keep in mind you can’t switch during a mission. Each class handles uniquely, where each has its own distinctive abilities, speed, and playstyle. For instance, the Sentinel is a run-of-the-mill sword bearer that can block incoming attacks. While the Pyroclast can unleash a flamethrower mid-combos. Rockbreakers unleash large sweeping AOE attacks that are great for crowd control. Best of all, even equipping certain weapons can change abilities. For example, the Blast Off ability that some weapons include for the Pyroclast launches enemies in the air and burns them for 2 seconds. It is immensely deep with tons of options for expressive play. I personally loved playing as the Shadowstriker because of its fast dual dagger attacks and the ability to teleport to different enemies.

An Open World to Explore in Towerborne

The game’s world map is comprised of zones. In these zones, you can find chests, crafting materials, or you can complete missions and open up adjacent zones. However, there are also locked off areas that you can’t initially access. In order to enter these areas, you will need complete license trials -think of Mastery Levels from Warframe. Once you complete them it will increase the world map danger level and simultaneously, increases reward payouts as well. 

Tiered Loot Works Well

Any looter-based game needs rewarding loot and great itemization systems to support it. For the most part, Towerborne does a good job of creating a rewarding and dopamine-fused experience. Loot is rewarded at the end of every mission and you’ll get loot for all different classes, not just the ones you’re currently equipped. This does help incentivize you to experiment with other classes.

In addition to gear stats, there are also passive buffs that are provided with certain gear. This includes increasing critical chance, speeding up ally revival time, and passive healing. The latter buff though is so atrociously slow. Passively healing at a rate of 1 to 6 HP per second when early on in Towerborne your health is in the 100s of HP is just an incredible waste of time. Especially since missions are 10 minutes or less.

Players can upgrade weapons via the smithy at the Belfry. Players have to collect spirit dust to upgrade your weapon tiers. But you can do so only a certain amount of times. Spirit dust is also hard to come by so there is a strategic element when considering upgrading your gear.

Missions Lack Variety

When it comes to mission structure, Towerborne is a straightforward affair, perhaps a little too straightforward to a fault. Missions are comprised of just heading to the right. Literally, you progress to the right to progress in missions. At the end, you’re rewarded with a chest that provides loot. In some instances, you will be tasked with protecting carriages from enemies. Otherwise, it would have been nice to see more mission variety in the game to help spice things up a bit. But that’s one reason the game launched into early access, but I expect to see more mission types later on.

There is a job board at the Belfry that provides additional challenges. These challenges include defeating a certain number of enemies, completing missions within certain classes, region-specific missions, and more. Completing these challenges nets players currency for the game’s battle pass aka curios. The curios has pages of different cosmetics and emotes for players to unlock.

Graphics

Despite seeing multiple screenshots and videos of Towerborne beforehand, I was still shocked by its beautiful art style. No words can do it justice. The mixture of 3D cel-shaded characters on 2D backdrops is mesmerizing. Character models are buoyantly expressive and detailed and players have so many customization options to play with that could easily rival Baldur’s Gate 3 player creation. In a way, Towerborne characters have a slight anime look similar to the vein of the late Akira Toriyama.

Towerborne backdrops are quite vibrant and serene. In fact, they look like they were ripped straight from a hand-brushed painting that would make the legend Bob Ross proud. It’s great to see Stoic continue its strong pedigree in art style in Towerborne. 

Addressing the Early Access Kerfuffle

To the surprise of many, Stoic announced that the game would launch into Steam early access first, despite being published by Xbox Game Studios. This left many Xbox fans scratching their heads as to why an Xbox console exclusive is launching first on Steam. Well, it turns out that Steam has a well-established early access system.

Early Access on Steam includes systems that help developers. This includes getting feedback from players and implementing patches faster compared to the Xbox Game Preview platform. In addition, there are fewer certification hurdles to contend with when it comes to patches, for better or worse, that exist within Steam. Undoubtedly, the Steam Early Access period will ensure that Towerborne will launch in a great state on Xbox in 2025.

Final Thoughts on Towerborne

For an early access title, Towerborne does a lot of things right. The gameplay loop, while simple, is fun, addictive, and rewarding. Though it struggles a bit in terms of mission variety, there are still plenty of things to do and gear to hunt. The game is shaping up nicely ahead of its Xbox release in early 2025.

Towerborne is available now on Steam Early Access. Players have to purchase either the Silver or Gold Founders packs available now (retailing for $24.99 and $44.99 respectively) in order to access it now. Both founder packs comes with tons of goodies that will carry over once the game releases. Towerborne will adopt a free-to-play model once it is out of Early Access early next year.

Note – A Steam key was provided for the purpose of this early access impression.