Cornerstone: Song of Tyrim Preview

I recently had the opportunity to play the upcoming game Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim. This game is a third person action adventure game, but doesn’t quite make you feel like Lara Croft or Nathan Drake. Instead you play as Tyrim, a young boy living on a colorful viking island. Off the bat you can tell the world is very blocky, but the art style and setting kind of make it work. You start off the game by doing a lot of jumping, but quickly you discover how to craft, and start using a multitude of materials to craft useful items to progress to your goals. Crafting materials are everywhere, and it will behoove you to search them out. I filled up my inventory pretty early, but the more complicated items take quite a bit to build. You might think 30 wood is a lot, but when you are building up explosive barrels and needing a shield to battle wizards, all the wood in the world won’t be enough.

The downside I found to Cornerstone was the lack of tightness of the controls. The game is not AAA so I don’t expect Halo, but still Minecraft had good feeling controls years before it really picked up steam. To be a really stand out indie darling the game needs to feel like it controls well, and although the combat is fun, and the exploring is interesting, not having it feel right takes away a bit from all those aspects and keeps the game right in the ‘OK’ range of games.

One thing the game does have going for it is charm. This is not a crucial step, but one that makes Cornerstone stand out a little bit more. The art style and and theme as well as character design and environment all gel really well together. And even the environmental design of the first town you visit is fun to explore, with many twisting paths that take you back, forward, and up around this fun place.

What I played of Cornerstone was only a demo of the first two hours, but from what I can tell the rest of the game is a fun sprawling adventure, full of crafting exploring, and battles. I would anticipate that adventure to be full of interesting design, unique places and environments, but due to mediocre controls it might make this adventure somewhat less than optimal. We will find out what else Cornerstone: The Song of Tyrim has to offer when it comes out on April 26th on PC, Mac, and Linux.