After indulging in a couple of marathon sessions on the Diablo 4 Beta recently, I was pining for something along similar lines as June seems a little bit of a wait. Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem from WOLCEN Studio makes its mark with a console release after three years on Windows PC. If you’re craving that hack and slash dungeon crawling experience then this might be something you want to tide you over for the time being. I’ll push out the warning early on though, there are some glaring issues, bugs and poorly ported controls here and it needs a lot of work to be of the same calibre as something like Diablo III. That isn’t to say I haven’t enjoyed my time with the game though and it is reasonably priced for a content-rich adventure.

Introduction

Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem is the latest action RPG to arrive on Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S and follows the story of a former soldier known as Valeria. She has a lot of resentment and hate resting on her shoulders and is out to seek revenge for all the death surrounding her. The setting takes place in a world where magic and technology are hugely important. You’ll be traversing through a deep, dark and dangerous world full of monsters, weird creatures and mystery. Throughout the story, you’ll be tackling hordes of enemies using a variety of weaponry and abilities and levelling up along the way. I don’t want to spoil the story as it is ultimately what compliments the great gameplay loop and throughout the four chapters on offer, you’ll come across so many twists and turns and will need to learn who to trust.

Gameplay

As you may have guessed by now, Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem plays from a similar viewpoint as Diablo in a top-down view. You’ll start off by selecting from three main classes which are Solider, Sentinel or Mage. I went for Sentinel as they combined a mix of magical and melee abilities whereas Soldier purely focuses on melee and Mage is magic. There is no clear winner here in which is the strongest of the three since their personal attributes and abilities vary and it is extremely fun to play around and become more powerful as you plough through the skill tree and levelling up.

There is a lot of killing, a lot of looting and a lot of dipping into the inventory screen to manage which weaponry, armour and potions are best equipped. I found myself constantly dropping a lot of gear I was scooping up off the ground since it was weaker than what I was already using. After my grumbles with the horrid fiddly controls when navigating menus, they have actually done an alright job and getting the meat and potato of the game functioning well enough. Wandering around the world fighting enemies, using shops and conversing with NPCs and necking potions is all easily done with decent game mechanics and easy-to-learn controls. Sadly it’s everything outside of the hack-and-slash that puts a downer on an otherwise great time.

Graphics & Audio

The visuals are a definite strong point with fantastically detailed environments, backdrops and a good spread of enemy variance. The cinematics are incredible and are well presented on screen for the most part. I’d say it is probably one of the more memorable campaigns I have ever played in an ARPG game. I did notice some consistent frame dropping on Xbox Series X when things got a little bit busy but it was just about manageable. I adored the aesthetics with magical abilities cascading across the screen, big bright sparks and flashes of neon-lit up my 4K screen and it was a visual treat in that respect. Bosses appeared well-designed and it was genuinely interesting learning their patterns of attack and behaviour. Audio across the board is as you’d expect with no complaints.

In Conclusion

Unfortunately Wolcen: Lords Of Mayhem falls short of being a memorable time. The port from PC is unfortunately a bad one with infuriating controls, especially when tinkering with the menus. Trying to manage your inventory reminded me of trying to find a plug socket for your phone charger in the dark. It is unpredictable in this respect and whilst I was enjoying the core gameplay loop, I hated having to sort my inventory because of how fiddly it was. Another problem was several crashes with the game, either the game freezing or kicking me back to the dashboard completely, it made me want to stop playing altogether at certain points. The game will autosave but will result in you having to go over bits crossing your fingers it doesn’t happen again at the same part.

Despite The Issues, Don’t Overlook It

If you can brush aside the current issues with the game and focus on the gameplay then there is an above-average title here. Sadly in its current state, I would hold back on purchasing until this stuff is fixed. If the development team can get the kinks ironed out then there is easily a 25-40 hour experience that would scratch that “Diablo” style of play. I for one would love to come back and play through a second time if and when the bugs and UI problems are resolved and for hardcore fans of the genre, you shouldn’t overlook this at its fairly cheap price point.