Ashes Preview (Steam Early Access)

by Jim Smale · July 16, 2024

Ashes Preview, This horror game inspired by Chinese folklore offers an enthralling journey through the depths of the Underworld. As you delve deeper, you’ll unravel hidden secrets veiled in the darkness. In a realm shrouded in dread, you’ll traverse eerie landscapes, encounter various ghosts, and immerse yourself in their stories.

Ashes Preview Pros:

Decent graphics.
6.29GB download size.
Steam achievements.
Controller support.
Graphics settings – resolution, v-sync, frame rate, screen mode, super-resolution (DLSS), shadow quality, reflection quality, bloom effects, screen brightness, entity distance, subsurface scattering, ambient occlusion, fog quality, volumetric light, volumetric clouds, and monitor.
Can remap the controls for the keyboard.
Game settings – field of view slider, key prompts, and auto pick up.
Character creator – gender, top, and bottom clothes, hair color, height, build, head size, chest size, and name.
World creation lets you set it as public or private and add a password, name the world, and put in any numbers and letters for the seed.
Join the game world option with filters.
A full 3D game world with 360-degree camera control.
Hauntingly good soundtrack.
The game is played predominantly in 3rd person with a few first-person segments.
The map uncovers as you explore but finding map fragments fills it in with points of interest.
A fantastic atmosphere.
Collect materials and resources from the world.
Drag and drop menu system.
Simple hack and slash-style combat.
You level up by doing actions so running a lot will level up sprint, and fighting levels up your damage.
Many items of lore to pick up and read.
Find stoves and put wood in to use them for cooking resources.
A death marker gets put down to show where you died.
There is a lot of supernatural action.
Stamina bar for combat and running.
There is something to this game but as of yet it doesn’t help you look into that.
You can craft a load of tools and weapons from within the character menu.
A wide range of attributes and unlocks are tied to actions like fighting running, mining, cooking, and more.
Save when you want.
Hotbar for quick item selection.
Handy unstuck option.
The parts of the story I have seen are very intriguing.
Uses stealth to avoid tougher fights.
Combat is satisfying when they disappear into smoke afterward.
Play how you want.
Has some great little set pieces.
I love just exploring the world.

Ashes Preview Cons:

No controller support is listed on the store page despite having it.
Grammar errors in the menus and descriptions.
Cannot remap controller buttons.
The Join World list seems to only be with people you know and not random on the Internet.
Not the best loading times.
You can loot through walls.
There is no real tutorial at all.
Once something is in your inventory you have no idea what it is.
Collecting stacks of resources is slow and tedious.
Combat is very mashy.
They reuse layouts and buildings a lot and make the world feel repetitive and kind of small.
So much of the game is left to you to discover no matter how trivial it is.

Ashes:

Official website.

Developer: Yanmo Games

Publisher: Yanmo Games

Store Links –

Steam Early Access