Bleak Faith: Forsaken Review: More Faith Than Bleak (PS5)

After previewing Bleak Faith: Forsaken recently, I’ve returned to the bleak world ready to continue my adventure. That being the latest Souls-like from an indie studio of three inspired by the works of FromSoftware. Developed by Archangel Studios, Bleak Faith was originally released in early access for PC and released back in March 2023. The developers have been hard at work updating the game to what they intended it to be. They now have brought it out for consoles to experience this bleak world full of danger and adventure. 

One look at the gameplay and you may think it’s your typical Souls-like in the cesspool of inspired studios, however, this is not the case. Bleak Faith provides a refreshing take on the genre and may be able to stand out enough to be a contender. From its addictive gameplay, sense of direction towards exploration, and amount of different playstyles you can use, Bleak Faith is quite impressive.  Well sit back and relax and I’ll show you why Bleak Faith: Forsaken should be on any Soulsborne fan’s radar. 

Bleak Faith: Forsaken is available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. 

Story – The Mysteries of the Omnistructure

As anyone whose played a Soulsborne game, you’ll know that the game’s story isn’t told traditionally. Bleak Faith is of course no different with the story being very vague from the get-go. The game opens with a cutscene showing the world alongside the inhabitants. It doesn’t give you much and once it’s time to take the reins, you feel confused about how you got there. From then on the general premise is to explore the world and survive everything you meet. You’ll discover the last remnants of a civilization lost in the large Omnistructure as a withered body with no name. 

Moving on from the preview, I spent about over 25 hours playing through Bleak Faith and still had no idea what was going on. I managed to meet more NPCs that sounded like typical FromSoftware characters. There was a group of knights led by Captain Yulia who talked about hunting a traitor. I later met Archbishop Belisarius who seemed like he’d be against the previous faction and honestly, I don’t blame them since he was very rude. Other than them I never met any other random characters and would only gain knowledge of the world through notes I found. They range from diary entries split into parts and one-off notes. I never really got into these stories due to their vagueness and would just make my own up as I continued with my adventure. 

Gameplay – An Interesting Take on the Successful Formula 

The winning formula that FromSoftware created is prominent within Bleak Faith. It shares many controls and gameplay mechanics from the Soulsborne games. You have the stamina and health systems, perfect blocks, bonfires, non-linear exploration and much more. There are of course many differences that Bleak Faith brings that are seen in other game genres. The first is how you level up your character. Instead of collecting “souls” you just gain XP for killing enemies, finding collectables or finding new areas while exploring. Another difference is that because you don’t collect souls, once you die there’s nothing lost, allowing less stress on the next life. There’s also the addition of perks that are permanently equipped once chosen, you can acquire more from defeating bosses. 

Other changes in Bleak Faith can be seen with the “bonfires” which are called homunculus. You can rest at them to respawn enemies and refill health and flux (magic). Another usage is for fast travel which you will be doing a lot like in most games in this genre. Now, you can’t use them to level up since you can freely do this at any time by going into your character menu. However, they are incredibly rare to find with usually only 1 or 2 being present in each map. To counteract this, the devs created mirages that you can create almost anywhere that act as respawn points. These were lifesavers in some areas where there were long runbacks from bosses. 

Going back to how healing is done, unlike most games in the genre, Bleak Faith chooses not to use “flasks” for healing. Instead, they went the way of Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne with health items. You can collect them from enemies and craft them from the required materials. Eventually, you learn more recipes to create better potions that provide more health, flux, buffs, and more. However, unlike those games, you still can only use a specific amount during combat but outside you can use as many as you want. I wasn’t a fan of how health recovery is handled since I preferred the “flasks” system. I didn’t like having to go back to previous areas to farm for materials to craft more after using them all in a boss fight. 

Combat – The Classic Formula Plus More

The main aspect of any Souls-like is the combat, most stick with the basics with some adding in new features. Bleak Faith is no exception to this rule, providing the classic Soulsborne formula of intense combat alongside exploration. One in particular I’d like to highlight is when you take on the larger-scaled enemies. Like Shadow of Colossus, you can climb onto larger enemies and attack weak points to defeat them. You’ll avoid the enemy trying to knock you off their back, especially in the Aberrant Knight boss who can kill you instantly. I would love for this mechanic to be explored in more Souls-like games since climbing onto big enemies and taking them down is fun. 

Whilst exploring the Omnistructure you’ll find numerous weapons and armour with different stats. Unlike FromSoftware’s games, you won’t need to have certain stats to use gear, you can freely pick and choose whatever sets of weapons and armour to match your preferred playstyle. I ended up going with a mix of stamina and flux-based gear alongside dual katanas. Speaking of flux, many abilities come with weapons that consume flux. This alongside the obtainable character-specific skills creates interesting ways to battle enemies. I ended up using Fire Breath and Power Armour which gave me a good mix of offence and defence abilities. 

Enemies – Small 1v1’s to Colossal Brawls

Regarding enemies, most of them aren’t challenging. Usually, the enemies leading up to bosses in Soulsborne games can be quite difficult. However, Bleak Faith’s enemies range from easy brawls to long fights against beefy foes. Most enemies are easy to read and perfect blocks were quite easy to perform. Luckily the difficulty did increase a tad as I explored more, meeting larger enemies that required more strategy. However, the beefier enemies tended to take too long to defeat, making them not fun to fight. It didn’t help either that some enemies would bug out, most notably the Ronin enemies whose models would freeze but they’re still moving around. This would create difficulties in reading what their next move was alongside damage to them not being applied. The range of different enemies per map is something I do love bringing harsher experiences the more I progress. 

Regarding boss fights in Bleak Faith, I came across four more after my time with the preview. Most were optional bosses but considering which ones were picked as main line bosses, I’d say they should be a priority. Each optional boss felt unique and matched the theme of the map they were in. They all had spectacular attacks to avoid, especially most of their AOE moves. I managed to defeat each one after a few tries learning their moves and fixing any mistakes in my current loadout. Now the mainline boss that is suggested to be the second boss in the game, shouldn’t be. At the level you’ll be if you went straight to him from defeating the first boss, will drive you insane from how quickly he can kill you. He has several different moves with his sword and he’s probably the hardest enemy to read. 

Exploration – Journey Into The Omnistructure 

In each area of Bleak Faith, there are incredibly well-crafted and detailed environments that make you want to explore everywhere, which you almost can. Unlike most Soulsborne games, you can freely jump around without any cost to your stamina. This allowed for great parkour opportunities that mostly led to nowhere but sometimes items would be hidden away. I loved the range of different environments that varied from forests, deserts, and destroyed cities. Since there isn’t much handholding with navigating the world, you can explore at your own pace, looking through every part of a level. Granted Bleak Faith has an item that reveals where to go but it’s still pretty vague. Word to the wise though, you’ll be finding yourself going in circles most of the time and you usually have to travel through multiple different levels to get to the game’s main objectives. 

This was generally my favourite part of Bleak Faith since for 90% of the game I had no idea where I was going. It took me too long to realize the main objectives wouldn’t be located within one level. Though with that it allowed me to explore a lot of optional areas that I really liked. These ranged from a city with constant rain, to a spooky graveyard, and a dark asylum. It was great to see enemies be themed off most of the areas with only a small amount repeating. I’m looking forward to getting back into the game to discover what other areas I’ve missed. 

Graphics & Audio – An Atmosphere That Embodies a Bleak Future

After exploring more, the world of Bleak Faith is a mix of depressing landscapes that continue to descend into darkness. A lot of the levels don’t change their colour scheme too much from dark and grey but on occasion, some do get a tad more colourful. The level Uranopolis Tower Complex was breathtaking at times, being a level in the sky exploring ruins. There would be long bridges connecting one area to another that looked gorgeous. Another high note with this level is the larger-than-life creature that’s flying about the towers. Surprisingly this is only a set piece and not an enemy like the creatures in the underwater city of Deluge. Speaking of the Deluge, the underwater city was a breathtaking area that mixed destructive wonder and absolute fear. It was great to navigate through and I somehow only died twice during the trip to the main objective. 

The audio for Bleak Faith remained mostly the same from my time playing the preview. I managed to hear other pieces of music from fighting the various bosses. One theme in particular I enjoyed was Nurgei the Blademaster’s battle theme which sounded like something from The Hu. It made the battle more intense and honestly just felt right, especially when Nurgei would start floating in the air to perform his AOE attack. The general music for exploring though sadly sticks to the same theme throughout. It’s not a bad piece but it doesn’t fit with every part of the game. 

Bleak Faith: Forsaken was reviewed on the PS5 via a code from Perp Games.