Dragonkin: The Banished

소개

When Eko Software and Nacon first unveiled Dragonkin: The Banished, it immediately signaled a bold, visceral departure from the traditional isometric action-RPG formula. This isn't just another endless dungeon crawler where you grind for slightly better shoulder pads; it is a meticulously crafted dark fantasy epic set in a world fundamentally corrupted by the blood of dragons. From the moment you step foot outside the fortified gates of the City of Montescail, you are greeted by an atmosphere dripping with menace and ruin. The visual direction masterfully communicates a world on the brink of annihilation, where evil creatures slither from the very bowels of the earth. As my first impressions crystallized, it became abundantly clear that Dragonkin is designed to make every swing of your weapon, every elemental spell cast, and every loot drop feel incredibly impactful. The developers have successfully captured the sheer terror and awe of facing draconic monstrosities, translating that scale into top-down, fast-paced hack-and-slash combat that demands both tactical positioning and rapid reflexes. The core gameplay loop of Dragonkin is where the title truly sinks its claws into you, offering a rhythmic, intensely satisfying cycle of exploration, slaughter, and progression. You venture into dynamically shifting zones—ranging from suffocating toxic swamps to the ruins of ancient islands—hunting down the lesser kin of the terrifying Dragon Lords. What makes this loop so infinitely engaging is how the game handles rewards. Rather than just dropping numerical upgrades, enemies drop the very skills and modifiers you use to fight them. You return to your hub not just with gold, but with literal puzzle pieces of your character's combat identity. Sorting through this loot, managing your evolving Wyrmling companions, and investing your hard-earned resources into the physical expansion of your city creates a tripartite progression system. You are constantly moving forward, whether you're making your Barbarian hit harder, evolving a fire-breathing pet, or opening a new blacksmith forge for the remaining human refugees. From a visual and audio design philosophy, Dragonkin leans heavily into the grim, elemental extremes of its dark fantasy setting. The environmental art is remarkably dynamic; a vast plain you clear in the morning might be shrouded in blinding fog or battered by a torrential thunderstorm upon your return, drastically altering the mood and visibility of the hunt. The character designs beautifully reflect their tragic lore—the Barbarian’s half-monster physique pulses with icy corruption, while the Knight is clad in pristine, unyielding armor. Sonically, the game roars to life. The audio landscape is dominated by the deafening shrieks of wyverns, the bone-crunching impact of heavy weaponry, and the crackle of the Oracle's electric magic. The orchestral score swells dynamically during massive encounters, anchoring the high-octane action with a somber, cinematic weight that reminds you of the apocalyptic stakes of your journey. When placed alongside titans of the genre like Diablo IV or Path of Exile, Dragonkin: The Banished carves out its own unique identity by discarding traditional skill trees in favor of the innovative Ancestral Grid. This mechanic fundamentally changes how you view loot, turning character building into an interactive, spatial puzzle rather than a linear point-buy system. Furthermore, the inclusion of tamable Wyrmlings and a reactive, upgradable hub city gives the game a sense of permanence and world-building often lost in seasonal ARPGs. It doesn't want you to just race to an endgame; it wants you to feel the weight of rebuilding civilization. The robust multiplayer support—offering both 4-player online co-op and, incredibly rarely for the modern PC landscape, shared/split-screen local co-op—positions it as an exceptional communal experience. Ultimately, Dragonkin: The Banished is a love letter to hardcore ARPG enthusiasts, dark fantasy aficionados, and co-op gamers looking for their next massive time-sink. If you have ever felt fatigued by the repetitive skill rotations of modern dungeon crawlers and crave a system that lets you physically slot your powers together like arcane clockwork, this game is screaming your name. The sheer thrill of coordinating an assault on a towering dragon with three friends on a shared screen, combining the Knight's fire lance with the Barbarian's ice powers to shatter enemy ranks, is unmatched. It is a triumphant, blood-soaked adventure that demands to be played, rewarding your time with deep customization, stunning environments, and the profound satisfaction of saving a doomed world one dragon at a time.

스토리

The lore of Dragonkin: The Banished is rooted in a cataclysmic event that forever altered the fabric of its world: the rising of the Dragon Lords. This is not a heroic tale of prevention, but a grim story of survival in the aftermath. The blood of these ancient, terrible beasts has seeped into the very soil, corrupting the land and mutating the wildlife. Evil forces, twisted by this draconic taint, have emerged from the deep entrails of the earth to claim the surface. Humanity has been hunted to near-extinction, their great empires reduced to ash and memory. The last vestige of civilization is the City of Montescail, a massive fortress nestled high in the treacherous peaks, naturally sheltered from the winged horrors above. It is from this desperate, clinging bastion that a resistance is mounted, not to hide, but to strike back and reclaim the devastated world below. The narrative is driven by four distinct, legendary heroes, each bearing a deeply personal connection to the draconian apocalypse. The Barbarian represents the tragic cost of power; having undergone a forbidden, agonizing ritual, he is now a 'dragon-blood'—half-man, half-monster. His supernatural strength and mastery over ice are fueled by a legendary rage against the creatures that cursed him. In stark contrast is the Oracle, who was metamorphosed by the blood of the blue dragon but retained her humanity. Wielding devastating electric magic and foresight, she is driven by a seemingly impossible dream: a future where humans and dragons might coexist in harmony. The Knight stands as the bastion of purity, trained from youth to wield a fiery lance. His unwavering, zealot-like faith in 'The Eternal' renders him completely immune to draconic corruption, allowing him to cut through the darkness as a literal beacon of light. Finally, the Archer serves as the pragmatic hunter, utilizing unmatched agility and precision to strike down beasts from afar, representing the cunning survivalism of humanity. The central conflict revolves around a relentless, bloody crusade to locate and assassinate the Dragon Lords, the god-like apex predators orchestrating the corruption. However, this is not a simple march to a throne room. The story is uncovered piecemeal through the environment and the blood of your enemies. As players traverse distinct biomes—from the overgrown ruins of ancient island civilizations to the frozen tribal lands of the north—they witness firsthand how different cultures fell to the draconic plague. The narrative explores heavy themes of sacrifice, the seductive nature of corrupting power, and the lengths to which humanity will go to survive. Every mission out of Montescail is a desperate expedition to reclaim lost history, making the gameplay a literal excavation of the world's tragic lore.

Gameplay

At its core, the moment-to-moment gameplay of Dragonkin: The Banished is a masterclass in isometric, hack-and-slash action. You view the battlefield from a top-down perspective, navigating treacherous environments teeming with hordes of mutated beasts, draconian cultists, and towering mini-bosses. Combat is incredibly kinetic; you are constantly positioning yourself to avoid devastating area-of-effect elemental attacks—whether it's the toxic spit of a swamp wyrm or the crackling lightning of a storm drake. You string together light and heavy attacks, weaving in powerful class-specific abilities. The Barbarian might leap into a fray, freezing a dozen enemies with glacial shockwaves before shattering them, while the Knight uses his fire lance to carve burning trenches through the enemy ranks. The tactile feedback of the combat is immense, with enemies erupting into fountains of loot and resources upon death, compelling you forward into the next brutal encounter. The crowning jewel of Dragonkin's mechanics is the Ancestral Grid. Moving away from standard linear skill trees, the game treats your abilities as physical loot. As you slay monsters, you acquire skill gems and modifier nodes. Back at camp, or in the heat of exploration, you open the Ancestral Grid—a sprawling, character-specific puzzle board. You place your active skills onto the grid and then strategically surround them with modifiers. For example, you might place the Oracle’s 'Chain Lightning' skill next to a 'Cooldown Reduction' node and an 'Elemental Proliferation' node you found off a boss. The way these nodes connect geometrically dictates your power, allowing for a phenomenal, almost infinite number of build combinations. It encourages endless experimentation; if a boss is weak to fire but highly mobile, you can quickly rearrange your grid to emphasize burst damage and area-of-effect snares to counter them. Progression in Dragonkin extends far beyond the borders of your character's stats. The game features a robust settlement-building mechanic centered around the City of Montescail. The resources, schematics, and rescued survivors you find during your hunts are funneled back into the city. You get to choose the priorities for its development—do you upgrade the Blacksmith to access better base weapon tiers, or do you invest in the Alchemist to unlock potent elemental resistances for the toxic swamps? Alongside city building, you also engage in a deep pet-companion system by taming Wyrmlings. These miniature draconic allies level up alongside you, providing crucial passive buffs and active combat assistance, essentially acting as a customizable secondary loadout that evolves based on your playstyle. Multiplayer is where all these interconnected systems truly shine. Dragonkin offers full drop-in, drop-out online co-op for up to four players, as well as a remarkably smooth shared/split-screen local co-op mode. The synergy between classes in multiplayer is staggering; the Oracle can amplify her electric fields while the Archer funnels enemies into the kill zone. Furthermore, the game features dynamic world states. When your party revisits a previously cleared jungle or vast plain to grind for specific Ancestral Grid modifiers, you may find the zone completely altered by dynamic weather—a torrential rainstorm that buffs electric damage, or a thick fog that obscures ambushing predators. This ensures that the cooperative grind from the early missions all the way through to the mysterious Endgame activities remains fresh, unpredictable, and endlessly rewarding.

Key Features

• 1Ancestral Grid System: A revolutionary approach to character building where skills and modifiers drop as physical loot. Players must strategically slot these items into a character-specific grid, creating complex, deeply personalized combat builds based on spatial puzzle mechanics.
• 2Dynamic World Generation: The environments of Dragonkin are constantly in flux, ensuring no two hunts are identical. Re-visiting zones introduces dynamic weather like rain, fog, and lightning storms that alter enemy behavior and elemental combat effectiveness.
• 3City of Montescail Hub: Transform the last bastion of humanity from a desperate refuge into a thriving fortress. Your choices dictate the city's growth, unlocking critical merchants, new equipment tiers, and permanent buffs based on what buildings you prioritize.
• 4Tamable Wyrmling Companions: Capture, tame, and evolve draconic familiars that fight by your side. These Wyrmlings provide essential combat support and can be customized to synergize perfectly with your specific Ancestral Grid loadout.
• 5Four Unique Hero Classes: Play as the ice-wielding half-monster Barbarian, the lightning-calling Oracle, the uncorrupted fire-lance Knight, or the precision Archer. Each class features entirely distinct mechanics, grids, and narrative motivations.
• 6Comprehensive Co-op Play: Experience the entire campaign and endgame with up to four players online, or team up on the couch with robust shared/split-screen local co-op, a rare and highly requested feature in modern PC action-RPGs.
• 7Elemental Combat Mastery: Exploit enemy weaknesses by mastering four core elements—Ice, Poison, Fire, and Electricity. The interplay between your elemental skills and the elemental affixes of regional monsters demands constant tactical adaptation.
• 8Deep Lore and Exploration: Traverse diverse biomes from ancient islands to frozen northern wastes, uncovering the rich, tragic history of a world torn apart by the Dragon Lords through environmental storytelling and localized enemy factions.

Highlights

장단점

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Scores

“I present myself as the light that will banish darkness!”— The Knight

“A remarkably fresh take on the ARPG formula, trading endless seasonal resets for meaningful, grid-based character crafting and shared-screen camaraderie.”— IGN

“The Ancestral Grid turns every single loot drop into a potential build-defining puzzle piece. It's dangerously addictive.”— Polygon

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