The Relic: First Guardian — story-driven soulslike with boss-heavy combat

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The world lies in ruins. The Great Relic has been destroyed, plunging the land of Arsilutus into the Void. Men and monsters alike roam, butchering and cursing the survivors. As the First Guardian, you must put the pieces back together, reform the Great Relic, and pull the world back from the brink. No pressure.

It's a somewhat familiar setup, but The Relic: First Guardian is honest about its inspiration, and clear about where it seeks to carve an identity of its own. I had a chance to see this for myself in our recent hands-on demo. After several hours exploring Arsilutus, I’ve plundered ruins, slain monsters, and grown my power. It’s a dark and dangerous world, with many stories to tell, starting with fire…and screams.

Dead Men do Tell Tales

After a brief tutorial march through a cave, my adventure begins outside of a burning house. A woman’s cries emanate from the engulfed thatched-roof stone cottage. I crash through crates blocking the door, though when I reach her, it’s already too late, and she succumbs to her injuries. Glitterly lights around draw my attention to various notes and relics. Each tells a fragment of the story, and I’m able to slowly piece together the story of a family that was attacked, and, when they denied the attackers entry, saw their home set ablaze.

There’s a lot of storytelling in The Relic: First Guardian. Not in a cutscene-heavy sort of way, or with a heavy focus on the central narrative, necessarily. Instead, all over Arsilutus, stories have played out. Every area I encountered had a story to tell, whether it was the burning house, a town annihilated by a vengeful father, or a group that put off fleeing encroaching danger time and again until it was too late. These scraps of story are fully voiced, lending an almost playable audiobook feel at times. These aren’t longwinded, exposition heavy, audiolog dumps, though. Instead, they’re more like quick snapshots of moments, pieces of small narrative mosaics, waiting to be assembled. Many of the stories are said to be inspired by Asian Folklore, and, as the kind of guy that’s watched way too many hours of VaatiVidya or My Name is Byf lore videos, I’m certainly intrigued. Yes, I do want to know about the guy that was trapped in the collapsed ruins by his friends that, though dead, still came back for them.

There’s a lot of storytelling in The Relic: First Guardian. Not in a cutscene-heavy sort of way, or with a heavy focus on the central narrative, necessarily.

The map is a semi-open world. That means that, while it is freely explorable, areas are a bit tighter and more confined. The edges are boxed in by high cliffs, with a more linear sense of forwards or backwards that branches off periodically. No obvious breadcrumb trail leads towards an objective, so I find myself following a faint road to see where it leads. Glowing yellow stones, etched with runes, offer Tibelle’s Blessing. Think of this blessing as bonfires or sites of grace, as it restores health and refills the Breath of Esser, a healing item. They also function as your respawns when you die (which I put to work quite a few times), and some act as fast-travel anchors.

Sword and Spell

While you explore the open world, enemies from simple bandits to strange, twisted monsters called Brutals will stand in your way. As a veteran of pretty much every Souls-inspired game of the last few decades, I found it very familiar, but with a few interesting twists. For the demo I was equipped with a sword and shield, and could do your classic attack, block, parry, or dodge moves to beat up my enemies and avoid damage coming in. There’s no heavy attack, however. Instead, that’s tied to magic attacks – in my case a powerful ball of flame that did solid damage, especially when my opponents caught fire. There’s no magic meter, instead it’s on a cooldown, which meant I could use my ability freely without fear of running out of power before an important fight. There is a stamina meter, but it doesn’t drain when you attack. That sounds like a small thing, but it changes the rules of fighting meaningfully when you don’t need to keep some energy in that tank while aggressively hammering an opening.

This is a Soulslike, yes, but in a more fundamental sense than that may suggest. The way combat operates is a throwback that traces all the way to Dark Souls or even Demon’s Souls. Fast twitch and chaining perfect dodges aren’t what carries the day here. Instead, it’s all about timing. Swings take time, as does dodging and blocking. Mess up that timing, and the animation that plays out takes control for just long enough that you will likely miss your chance to attack, or take a hit that you should have avoided. Whether that’s something to be excited about, or watch out for, is really a matter of taste, though it does skew a bit on the clunky side. Still, I can appreciate what it is going for, being good at combat isn’t about how quickly you can mash various attacks and react to dodge or parry windows, it’s about recognizing and using the right tool for the job.

This is especially true when fighting the bosses. All told there are more than 70 of them to fight, and each presents as a combat puzzle waiting to be solved. I met Branko, the Bloodstained Shield – a massive warrior with a towering axe and shield – inside a burning chapel. His ferocious onslaught tore through me if I blocked, leaving me vulnerable, and he was so quick that there was hardly room for a single counterattack after his combos. It was quite a few deaths before I recognized that this was a test of patience, parrying his attacks saved my stamina and drained his. Once he was out of energy and his stance broke, I could punish him, and my eventual victory came from staying patient and true to this approach. Contrast this with Entom the Starved, who I met a short while later: a monster gorging on a pile of human flesh, whose most effective offense was unblockable charges and leaping crashes from above. That became a contest of dodging, quickly chipping away with a combo, then avoiding his conventional assault while I looked for the next dodge window. A different solution for a different puzzle.

The bosses really seem to be the star of the show in The Relic: First Guardian. The designs I saw had great variety, from Branko’s intimidating frame, to the blood-drenched gluttony of Entom, to the polished swordplay of the knight Mog. And each had a story, told through the relics leading up to them. Mog was a knight meant to fight back against the Brutal, but he fled, abandoning his allies in his cowardice. The path to him is guarded by specters representing his remorse and pride. I found Entom’s story particularly affecting; as a young man he was stricken with a sickness, but the cure offered by an old man turned him into that gluttonous monster, unable to sate his hunger, as he consumed the villagers around him, including the parents who tried to hide his altered nature.

The bosses really seem to be the star of the show in The Relic: First Guardian.

Gameplay systems-wise, there’s no simple level-up or attribute-upgrade system, nor are there souls to collect every time you die. Instead, progress is primarily governed by what you equip. Defeating bosses can earn you Relics, and you can only activate a few at first, but over time you’ll gain access to equip several of them at once. These offer bonuses like large stat boosts, and in the case of the Memory of the Meal Left Behind I pulled from Entom’s body, give me a healthy bit of healing anytime I defeat enemies. Armor governs defense, and the Shroud of Cowardly Survival I earned from Mog comes with nice boosts to stamina and cooldown speed.

The exception is your weapons. While I’m focusing on the trust sword and shield, there are options for Two-Handed Weapon, Battle Staff, Dagger, and Long Sword. Those, along with your magic, have weapon-specific upgrade trees powered by Ancient Relic Energy, found while exploring. These unlock character buffs and new attacks, like the Focus strike, which send you leaping into the air with an uppercut slash, followed by a diving cleave, similar to something Ryu Hyabusa would use. The weapons themselves are all one-of-a-kind, and can be upgraded at a blacksmith in exchange for coins and materials to enhance their potential.

Several hours in, I’m feeling pretty good. The Relics I have equipped expanded my health bar considerably, and my parry-timing has me mowing down enemies as I explore new caves, enemy camps, and settlements. The scattered lore is filling the narrative space with a solid anthology of stories, and I’m eager to find the next boss to solve. You can find this out for yourself when The Relic: First Guardian releases on July 31 for PC and PS5.