Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Cast your minds back, if you’re still able, to the year of our lord 2022 and the release of Moral Anxiety Studio’s tremendous Roadwarden. Yes, you know the one, that PC game you may not have played but certainly heard plenty about, as it garnered a whole bunch of Very Nice Reviews™.
And here, to be blunt, is another for the pile. What’s the point in mincing words? Who has time in this economy? Roadwarden is a special game, you see, one of those that stays with you long after the fact of having played it. It’s been compared, and rightly so, to the likes of the also-rather-good Disco Elysium, in how it creates an unflinching world that’s absolutely dripping in atmosphere and tiny details, a world that’s stuffed to the gills with meaningful encounters, fascinating conversations and choices that embed you in it all. Right up to your eyeballs, my friends.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
Telling the tale of a roadwarden — that’s the name given to hardy folk who establish new routes through dangerous territory — the game sets you the task of investigating the disappearance of your predecessor, whilst also engaging in quests and missions for local folk. You arrive at your destination as the game begins, and set out into an uncharted, and apparently quite monster-riddled, peninsula. And, before you can catch a breath, you’ll have overburdened yourself with favours for locals and errands you don’t have time for, if you’re anything like me.
It’s a narrative setup that hooks you immediately, partly because the setting and story are atmospheric and engaging to begin with, but chiefly because the writing here is top-drawer stuff. You begin to see how the comparisons to Disco Elysium are so easy to make; it has that level of quality in its conversations and the situations and predicaments in which it places you.
Now, just because I said ‘Disco Elysium’ a bunch of times, don’t go expecting some detective noir thing either. This is much more The Witcher in its setting and tone. Indeed, in my silly old brain, I am playing a sort of Witcher character in my runthrough. You know the type: gruff, quietly brave, intensely handsome…that sort of thing. Very tight pants.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
Of course, as an RPG of the text-based variety, Roadwarden is much more heavy on the old reading and not so much on the intense action, so it’s a good thing the writing is so strong across the board. In fact, the story here, with much less interactivity, would have suited me fine. However! Moral Anxiety Studio has gone much further. You’ve got big decisions to make and tight time restrictions. It’s stressful being a roadwarden.
On the default difficulty setting, you’ve got 40 days to solve the core mystery and…well…sort of organically be yourself and see what happens. Seriously. There’s no wrong way to do this one. Pick what’s important to you and work towards it. There’s also a casual mode that removes the day counter, as well as a harder mode for returning players.
There’s more interactivity than you may expect kicking things off in Roadwarden, too, with a choice of classes for your character, each one presenting you with different abilities and conversational choices, so there’s a ton of replayability built in for folk who gel with what’s here. I’ve gone with a mage for my review run, but there’s also a fighter and a scholar in there, so you can imagine on a basic level how each of these may differ.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
You also need to consider your health. You have little potions to top up alongside whatever rations you can buy or scavenge, and you’ll want to manage rest, maintain your appearance (or people will be rude), and make sure your armour and weaponry are good and ready for any dice-based scraps you encounter whilst picking your way through towns and villages, open countryside and dark forests that feel as alive and full of life as any great big AAA game you may have played this year.
I’m at great pains not to spoil anything of the narrative beyond the fact you are a roadwarden jettisoned into a very engaging adventure, you may be able to tell, and my gosh, it’s one that you could potentially play for a very long time. You could read guides and find out how to do everything the ‘proper’ way, or you could, as I recommend, just give yourself over to it. Don’t drop it down to casual, accept the challenge of the 40-day time limit, and watch how it just comes alive. And it comes alive because it allows you to properly inhabit your character, to do as you please and set your own agenda – to a point.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
You’ve got so much choice in the storylines that you will, by design, have to sacrifice aspects of the character you wish to role-play. The game doesn’t allow you, as so many others do, to paint any sort of complete picture on a singular run. With 40 days to achieve your goals, you need to prioritise the mapping out of this dangerous peninsula — that’s the reason you’re here after all — but there’s also your predecessor’s disappearance and, by the time you’ve visited the first town, a million other pressing issues besides.
‘Pressing’ in an engaging and intriguing way, mind. It’s not Ubisoft stress we’re talking about here; you’re not sweating a missing scroll or collectible, you’re sweating missing some entire other storyline, some other fascinating piece of lore, or a situation or encounter that changes things meaningfully.
You’ll navigate towards the things you naturally find most intriguing, and this is the real beauty of Roadwarden, and what makes it so special. You’ll want to play it. You want to return to it, to find out more, to reveal further. Battles, when they happen, bring your chosen class skills to the fore, and of course dice rolls come into play as well. It all makes for a narrative adventure that feels like a proper, full-blooded RPG adventure. I’m doing rather well at not spoiling anything here, I reckon. Heck, you even get to freely add text in some investigative instances – it really does let you muck about more than you expect, and the result feels gloriously malleable.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)
I also love the spartan aspect to the pixel illustrations illuminating us along the way. As you reach new locations, the game presents a visual of the room or road or wherever it is that you find yourself. However, these images only give you a glimpse, a guide, to how things are. They aren’t populated, there’s no real detail, and so you get a sort of atmospheric baseplate — a little nudge in the right direction tonally — upon which you can then paint freely.
With regards to negatives, I only have one bone to pick, and it’s that the UI on Switch is a little funky and slow to use. You need to have patience with it at first. As you play, you’ll need to choose responses, use your world map to travel to locations, as well as check your health, stats, use your inventory, and so on. Using the Joy-Con, it all feels a bit too unresponsive for me. Not broken or anything like that, just slow. There are touchscreen controls, mercifully, and these work better. However, they still feel a bit more sluggish than they should. It also takes quite a while for the game to load initially, so perhaps there’s a little struggling going on somewhere behind the scenes on Switch 1.
Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
Regardless of this issue, though, I feel like Roadwarden is still one of the easiest recommendations I’ve had to make in ages. It’s available for just slightly more than the cost of your lunch (if you eat the same sandwich meal deal as me), and it genuinely delivers in spades the sort of quality that will 100% keep you coming back to try new things, visit new places, and investigate different conversations more deeply.
If you’re in line for a deep and addictive text-based RPG adventure, one that’s full of great writing, lots of secrets, impactful choices, and fascinating scenarios, step right this way. Just watch out for bandits! And for goodness’ sake, wash your face and have a nap.