Is DragonKin The Banished The New Diablo? | PlayStation 5 Review

DragonKin: The Banished is a gritty, top-down action RPG that plunges you into a dark fantasy world where humanity is on its last legs against draconic hordes. You step into the boots of a hero infused with dragon blood, tearing through elemental biomes to reclaim a corrupted land. It’s all about high-octane combat, endless loot, and slowly rebuilding a central hub city to grow your power.

Developer: Eko Software

Publisher: Nacon

Genre: Action RPG / Hack and Slash

Release Date: March 19, 2026

Website: Official Site

UK Store: PlayStation Store UK

Quick Nav: Specs & HUD |
Gameplay |
Performance |
Settings & Controls

DragonKin PlayStation 5 Review: Specs & HUD

• 29.95GB Download size.
• Platinum trophy available.
• The map fills in as you explore, and you have a big map and a smaller map that stays on the HUD.
• The exp bar shows at the bottom at all times.
• Map-wise, you can have a small mini map in the corner, you can bring it up bigger, then there’s an area map and the overall world map, which shows just how huge the world is.
• UI options – subtitles, subtitles size, text size, how long loot displays for, loot display (when spawned/always/never).
• You can filter what rarity level loot shows.
• Game view type – classic or action (action is closer than classic).
• The mini map can be set to solid or transparent, and you have sliders to customise it.
• More for the stat nerds out there, but you have a set of stats on the side of the screen that shows attack, fps, etc., and it is an interesting little tidbit.
• Any earned activities or requirements for the town will pop up as you earn them and bestiary entries.
• You earn exp for your city by playing the game and exploring the world, filling in the bestiary, etc, and any earned exp will pop up with the amount and description.
• Loot needs better drop sounds and colours; it’s plain at the moment and not very exciting.

Gameplay Review & Mechanics Breakdown

Think Diablo or Path of Exile, and that’s the type of game and gameplay loop you have here. ARPG gameplay where the Opening Prologue section introduces the world and story, and gives you a premade character to play just the Prologue. The Prologue lets you try out every character class powered up, and prologue-wise, you can choose to play it or skip it. When creating a character, you can select to do the story or skip straight to the endgame. You have four character classes – Barbarian, Oracle, a Knight, and the newly added Tracker class. The Knight is a bit of everything, the Oracle is a magic area of effect character, barbarian is you up in your face melee, and the Tracker is a ranged projectile class. This is totally a personal thing, but the game clicked with me a lot more with the Tracker class, but it’s purely because it’s more my jam than the other classes. The new Tracker class is a lot of fun! They play like the Demon Hunter or Rogue in Diablo, but to mix it up, they have what are considered level-up abilities in Diablo as starting abilities here, like Rain of Arrows. The tracker uses auto targeting, but changing targets is simply a case of moving the cursor; you stay still when shooting.

You have an opening tutorial area that’s basic, but tutorial pop-ups as you play, and going to the end game will bring up a list of activities now available to you. The game guide is your central menu system for all things tutorial and help with text and images. It’s a dangerously addictive gameplay loop. You see damage numbers and health bars going down, and it’s very satisfying to watch them go down. Every attack, every action, just looks awesome, from bright colours to destructive powers. Full loot list and all loot has rarity and can have different buffs attached to them. Full credit deserved for how quick and easy it is to show if a piece of gear is good or bad. High-end gear is divine and draconic tiers that have massive buffs and abilities attached to them. Divine is usually always good for you, whilst Draconic will have better bonuses but also have negatives attached. The game uses the full inventory drag and drop system, you can bulk mark items for junk, favourite items and gear. You have a central chest with tabs and additional slots. Wrymling are the pets that can fight alongside you. You get to pick your first one from four choices for their elemental attacks – ice, fire, toxic, and electric. They earn their own exp and level up. Your Wrymling is basically its own character, as you can level them up, watch them grow, craft and give items and gear to them.

Level up to get points to put into stats; the stats are done in a way where you see what you will be increasing. Massive hex skill tree where you can unlock and drag abilities around. You can unlock and select passive abilities. You can refund all the skill points at any time. It’s daunting, I’m not gonna lie, but the town building, customising it all and adding to it is absolutely fascinating and is a real cool over arching progress, and it’s one you can see. Your city building can be set to offline or online, and you choose after completing the tutorial. Upgrade the town for new buffs and services available to you. The massive unlock tree for upgrading and levelling up the city is awesome. You can unlock not only new vendors but also new buffs and abilities, you see your city growing and building, and it is a great addition. Fast travel in and around the city is instant. Find panoramic points to get a cool flyover of the land ahead. Unlock and use the easy-to-use fast travel system. The world map does let you fast travel to locations, and missions generally leave markers. Upon death, you can choose to respawn or return to the city. It’s a fast and brutal game, but it really gets its hooks in. 11 game difficulties, and you can change them in the town at any time. Difficulty affects the exp and loot earned. When using the board and events, you will be told what difficulties are available.

Activities in the end game include Dungeon purification – eliminate enemies to open the breach and enter the realm to close it. Test of Will – wave-based time attack game mode. Hunting board – it’s a huge board of events that are replayable and offer many different event types, and can add modifiers and difficulties. Chaos hunt – randomly generated hunt, and you can set the parameters of the fight. Augmentations – these are powerful bonuses, and you can have up to 2 equipped, and these last the rest of the hunt. The hub ting board is a fantastic idea for endgame activities and really mixes it all up. It also varies the action so it feels fresh and less monotonous. When choosing the endgame, you don’t start with a ton of skill points and gear, which is a bit disappointing. I had been playing the game for an hour or so, it crashed hard into the dashboard, then when I booted the game, it gave a pop-up saying save corrupted and deleted! That’s it all gone just like that, and that put a horrible taste in my mouth. I never felt like my save slots were safe, and at any point, I could be back to square one. Never feel confident when the game is last saved; you don’t have a manual save.

DragonKin PlayStation 5 Review: Performance & Fidelity

• Decent graphics.
• A glorious gothic dark 3D game world.
• The game world, the design, and the way they use the camera to show off so much of it, like having animated backdrops or zoomed-in city sections, is a real visual treat.
• The game does this awesome cutscene integration, where it moves the camera around, sets up these beautiful views, and really adds a lot of cinematic flair to proceedings.
• It is the lighting mixed with the level design that just excels in every way.
• The game does a good job of keeping your attention from the loot list to the story structure, and just jaw-dropping locations and vistas.
• I like the way you zoom in and see the vendor and character when in a shop, a small detail, but it just looks cool.
• Different weather types, day and night.
• Fully voiced characters, and you can click through them to speed it up, but it is well delivered.
• Full voice work and narrator.
• Graphics settings – gamma slider, sharpness, motion blur, HDR, and you can set the quality to performance or quality.
• Shaders initialising can take a while, and they are on a lot of screens.
• It’s a bit weird how civilians don’t always register as a thing you cannot pass through.
• There is no camera control at all.

Settings, Customisation & Control Details

• It feels really good to play, no matter if it’s the controller or the mouse and keyboard.
• Having a dodge roll on the right stick is an absolute godsend.
• Accessibility options – Colourblind mode, highlighting for allies, highlighting for the player character, and screen shake intensity.
• Interactive or destructive elements within the world get highlighted.
• The audio options are – mute, master volume, music, effects, bark, ambient, voice, UI, cinematic volume, and audio filters.
• You can pause the game in single player.
• You cannot remap the controls.
• Text size varies in its usefulness and can a lot of the time be too small.
• You have to click to pick up loot with no auto-pick-up option.

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