Colonial fantasy RPG GreedFall will launch an expansion
Set sail for another expedition
Fantasy colonial RPG GreedFall launched back in September 2019 with a modest splash. I thought perhaps we'd heard the end of the latest game made by Spiders but the developers have now announced that they're actually planning new content and an expansion. It comes alongside the announcement that Spiders will be releasing GreedFall for the new PlayStations and Xbox boxes.
The announcement really gives no details on what the expansion might be about, but does seem to differentiate between "new content" and the expansion. Focus Home Interactive say they'll be publishing both, having reached an agreement with Nacon, who acquired Spiders a few months before GreedFall's release.
I was a bit hard on GreedFall when it launched last year, seeing it as a middling applicant to the pool of party-based and story-focused RPGs. It has a fantasy story with swords and magic. There are party members with their own side quests and romances. There are factions to be swayed and quested for by the protagonist who's stumbled into the center of a political struggle. The BioWare comparison was inevitable.
I remember the first 15 hours or so being quite a slog, and yet the second half of the game improves to such a degree that I genuinely wasn't sure if I'd imagined its beginnings. Astrid Johnson's GreedFall review says something similar. "In GreedFall, the first three hours make you want to astrally project out of your body and float away to do or see literally anything else, and then you reach the island of Teer Fradee and you’re like, 'Oh! This is actually mediocre!'"
It is indeed mediocre, though it's a better mediocre than the mediocrity of Spiders' past games. It's even quite pretty, honestly. With that trajectory, I don't suppose I'll mind heading back to the island of Teer Fradee for an expansion.
GreedFall will apparently be launching new content, an expansion, and releases on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, though Focus Home haven't given a date for any of these developments just yet.
By the by, GreedFall is currently 60% off on Steam for the Autumn Sale. You can pick it up for £17.59/€19.99/$19.99 until tomorrow, December 1st.