Developer: Tomas Sala
Publisher: Wired Productions
Platform: PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
Tested on: PC
Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles – Review
Back in 2021, we reviewed Tomas Sala’s The Falconeer, an open world adventure title with a heavy focus on aerial combat. While we could have guessed that we’d be returning to the world of the Great Ursee at some point, we never would have predicted that The Falconeer would switch to a completely different genre for its sequel. Enter Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles, a city-building sim in the same universe. And this isn’t the end yet either. Sala is currently working on the closing part of what will become a Falconeer trilogy: Project Ancient Waves. While we don’t know what to expect from that third game just yet, we can at least tell you what Bulwark has in store.
Story
Although Bulwark is supposed to be the second part of a trilogy of games, it feels more like an exercise in literal world-building instead of the continuation of the narrative that The Falconeer sets up. You don’t need to have played the first game to be able to understand what is going on here. A short prologue sets things up nicely, showcasing the Ursee, a vast ocean littered with small rocky outcrops. It’s a harsh place, yet somehow people are trying to survive and settle here. You’re in charge of such a settlement, and you craft your own story here as you expand it and interact with other communities. Bulwark doesn’t have a set ending and in theory, it allows you to keep working on your city fortress indefinitely.
Graphics
Sticking to the same aesthetics of the first Falconeer game definitely was the right choice for Bulwark. The low poly, minimalistic visuals haven’t lost any of their dramatic lustre and they help create visual consistency. This may not be the most detailed game when you zoom in, but the gritty style helps with conveying the harsh living conditions. Admittedly, there is some clipping going on, and the game’s framerate started to drop once our city got sufficiently big, but those are only minor issues overall.
Sound
Ambient sound effects take center stage here, with particular attention to those related to the in-game weather. The distant rumbling of thunder and the clattering of heavy rain underscore Bulwark’s clash between humanity and the elements of nature. The game’s OST deliberately takes a backseat, offering minimalist, tranquil tunes. It’s a soundscape that is constantly present, but that never overpowers.
Gameplay
City-building sims are a dime a dozen these days, and if you’re going to compete with the likes of Highrise City or Lords and Villeins you need a unique hook to set yourself apart. With its dramatic setting, Bulwark certainly delivers on that front. Rather than creating a suburban utopia, you’ll be constructing and defending a mighty city fortress. That means there are combat mechanics present, although Bulwark’s main focus is on building. That is something that the game gets absolutely right: while your city may look like it’s precariously balancing on a handful of rocks jutting out of the Ursee, Bulwark’s gameplay foundation itself is rock solid. It’s inherently more accessible than other titles in the genre too. A short tutorial campaign brings players up to speed with the basics through three scenarios, but the real meat of Bulwark is in its free build mode. Admittedly, it’s absolutely essential to play the scenarios first, just to find your footing, and even then, you’ll still find that these don’t cover everything. Bulwark strikes a good balance between hand-holding and letting you figure out things for yourself. That approach is going to sit well with city-building aficionados of course, as having the game play itself for you isn’t very fun.
Then again, you don’t need to constantly babysit your city either. Although the military aspect is something to keep in mind, your city isn’t constantly teetering on the brink of collapse. It’s perhaps surprising how laid-back a game Bulwark is, given the narrative angle. Resources are infinite once you’ve established a way to gather them, for example, and you’re free to take off in your airship to explore your surroundings, safe in the knowledge that your city will be as safe and sound as you left it when you return. In fact, exploring your surroundings is an important aspect of Bulwark, as you’ll find outposts, trading ships, and new buildings. Exploration is the quickest way to city expansion. The caveat here though is that while your resources are unlimited, they have a range within which you can use them, so you’ll end up setting up multiple resource generators as you expand your city fortress anyway.
Combat is on the simplistic side. There are enemy fortresses all over the Ursee, and these will send fighter ships to disrupt your peaceful city-building efforts. You’ll need to fend these off using a mixture of defensive structures like towers and your own fleet of airships. You’ll assign commanders to your defenses but there isn’t a whole lot of depth or involvement to Bulwark’s combat otherwise. It’s all handled automatically. You can eventually assign your fleet to try and take over enemy strongholds, after which these are assimilated into your ever-expanding realm, but that’s about it as far as combat is concerned.
This actually highlights Bulwark’s biggest gameplay issue: it’s wide, but not very deep. There are a ton of features here, but they all feel like they are only scratching the surface of their individual potential. We wouldn’t go as far as to call this feature bloat, but we feel like a tighter focus could have helped here. Likewise, the freedom that comes with the free build mode could have been supplemented with a narrative campaign that expands beyond the three tutorial scenarios. Once you get past the incredibly solid foundation, the gameplay sort of fizzles out. It’s as if Bulwark is constantly on the cusp of taking the next step and expanding its mechanics, but it ultimately doesn’t deliver on this. The buildings you discover later in the game are a good example. Yes, they look impressive when added to your city, but they have no functionality.
This by no means diminishes how impressive it is that Bulwark is the work of a solo indie developer. Quite the opposite in fact: that it left us wanting more is a testament to the potential we saw in the game and in this world. Bulwark may end up feeling like it doesn’t quite live up to its potential, but the few hours that you do get out of it are well worth the €20 price of entry. Hopefully, Tomas Sala has a couple of content updates up his sleeve to really bring Bulwark home. Either that or perhaps the closing chapter of the Falconeer trilogy can make everything feel complete.
Conclusion
Context is key when looking at Bulwark. While the game may not tick every box when it comes to being an outstanding city-building sim, it’s still impressive for what it sets out to be. Both as an expansion of the world of The Falconeer and as a showcase of what Tomas Sala can do as a solo developer, Bulwark delivers. We would have loved to have seen an expanded narrative campaign here that leads into the third and final chapter of Sala’s Falconeer trilogy, and some of the gameplay elements could have been fleshed out more. Ultimately though, there are a lot worse options for city-builders out there, especially in this price range.
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