New Arc Line is almost the steampunk Baldur’s Gate 3 of my dreams

New Arc Line puts a great steampunk twist on Baldur’s Gate 3’s turn-based bones, but it’s lacking the DnD RPG’s polish and balance.

Perhaps it’s just me, but there’s something so fascinating about looking back at our predecessors’ visions of the future. Flying cars, robots; things that now seem almost quaint compared to our modern, neon-bathed, cybernetic dreams. Unlike the ever-popular cyberpunk worlds associated with capitalist dystopias or impending armageddon, New Arc Line‘s steampunk setting is infused with a feeling of hope. The titular city represents prosperity, the American dream – it’s like walking back in time to an era that, while ravaged by war, outwardly looks a little brighter.

My New Arc Line journey begins with the character creator that, while rudimentary, offers just enough customization to feel like you’ve created a unique persona. Of the two classes on offer, I select Voodoo Shaman, a mage who specializes in poison and curse-based damage over time. My character is immediately transformed, sporting a deep green dress straight out of one of New Orleans’ finest boutiques, with a swathe of golden jewelry to boot.

Akin to Baldur’s Gate 3 and other DnD-inspired RPGs, I’m then asked to allocate skill points across a variety of attributes and pick up some background-defining traits. I choose to be a rogue cultist, fleeing from my former masters. I’m gifted a huge bonus to my Voodoo Magic, and set off into the sunset, only to be thrust into all-out war.

The core of New Arc Line revolves around the conflict between magic and technology. Where mages once ruled, bending the world around them to their will, they’ve been cast out and replaced by hefty machinery in the name of progress. As I crash land in the middle of the chaos, hulking gears swirl through the air, fruitlessly powering the now-destroyed mechanisms around me. I’m asked to go and find my gear, but I run into several survivors along the way, giving me my first taste of the game’s skill-checks.

Much like Baldur’s Gate 3, you can be persuasive, intimidating, jocular, and more, but your success depends on your skill allocation. My character is an ex-cultist, so I leaned into the fantasy of having high magical prowess and zero social skills. My first few interactions, therefore, don’t exactly go my way, with the screen flashing angrily as I fail, the needle on the circular gauge that displays passes and fails consistently landing in the red.

As I ascend through the rubble towards the portal that seemingly whisks me away from this fiery, mechanical graveyard, I encounter a young couple, precariously perching themselves at the edge of a cliff face. “Three, two…” she counts down, and I’m quick to intervene. The odds are very much against me despite the bonus from the pair being afraid, but I successfully talk them out of jumping. There’s a surge of adrenaline; it feels like my choices have actually made a difference.

Choices are, after all, at the heart of videogames like this one, but given New Arc Line doesn’t have the scope or scale of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Dragon Age: The Veilguard, I was concerned that my choices wouldn’t really matter. Thankfully, as I get to New Arc’s dazzling fairground-inspired harbor, I’m proven wrong.

I’m tasked with finding my luggage after throwing some barbed jibes at the customs inspector, who initially threatens to kick me out of the city. After a little bit of sweetalking, I bypass him and make for a carousel surrounded by recklessly abandoned suitcases, excited to finally get my hands on my gear. Unfortunately, it’s out of order, and the dwarf in charge of fixing it sits in tears on a nearby chair. He informs me that he’s always wanted to become an actor, and that he was ignored by famous director Richard Maxwell Gracefield-Parisse III (with an e) as he collected his luggage. While I tell our drunken repairman I’ll find the director in order to get him to fix the carousel, I think nothing of it.

Later, however, to move deeper into the harbor, I’m informed I’ll be taking on the role of director’s assistant, as creatives are allowed to move more freely. I’m assisting, you guessed it, Richard Maxwell Gracefield-Parisse III, a gaudy, finely dressed elf who needs new actors for his play. I recommend the dwarf, and while I initially fail my roll, I can draw on a series of spell cards to help bring the number up to where it needs to be. I’ve collected a few of them during my adventure, but they’re offered at random, adding a slight roguelike feel to things.

I use Defense, a card emblazoned with a gorgeous illustration of a chess game, to secure the dwarf a spot in the play, but there’s another issue. The technology-focused governing body, the Syndicate, has censored Parisse’s work, removing the magic from it and replacing it with thinly veiled, technology-first propaganda. I’m given the job of reading the cast’s lines, and elect to stick to Parisse’s Romeo and Juliet-inspired story. He was a mage, she was a girl, can it get anymore obvious?

By rejecting the Syndicate’s alterations, I increase the balance of magic in the area which, in turn, provides my Voodoo Shaman benefits in combat. While I’ve already bested the harbor’s foes, this is a neat little interaction that, again, makes choices feel more than just skin-deep.

Sadly, the same depth doesn’t carry over to New Arc Line’s combat. It’s worth noting that I’m only level one, with no helpful gear or enchantments to enhance my spell-slinging abilities, but the game’s early combat feels like a chore.

After cruising across to the city’s slum district, I’m confronted with a group of ravenous zombies who have managed to break free of their electrical confinements by overloading their dwarven master. They make a beeline for a pair of policemen, prompting myself and my newfound boxer companion, Mitch, to intervene. The fight, however, feels like it drags on for an age, with my character only dealing a single damage point with her Poison Skull, and my AoE slow dealing four per turn. While this eats away at the enemy’s health bars, you need to get through a layer of shielding that appears to reset every turn. That pesky white bar often only cracks after a couple of hits from hard-man Mitch, but even then, he only manages a couple of points of damage before it resets. Pair that with both policemen being too frightened to fight and things quickly become laborious.

While the early levels in Baldur’s Gate 3 can also be a struggle, the variety of abilities on offer and the malleability of the environment makes each fight feel unique. Unfortunately, my Voodoo Shaman is restricted to one AoE, one DoT, and a futile punch. I expect the ability roster to open up as you progress, but at the moment, New Arc Line’s early stages are brutal. Dreamate has confirmed it’s working on difficulty levels which, in all honesty, is music to my ears.

I’d be remiss not to discuss the game’s environments. While I’ve only seen the city’s harbor area, the level of detail easily rivals Baldur’s Gate 3. There’s an excitement in the air and a palpable sense of wonder as merchants peddle their weird and wonderful wares. There’s the hustle and bustle of a dockside district, balanced by spellbound tourists and refugees desperate to start their new lives. The blend of fairground reds and white and the coppers and bronzes of machinery is a match made in heaven.

Some of the dialogue is a little corny and there’s some English localization problems for sure, but it all seems to work. Where Fable balances comedy with action, New Arc Line does the same, with an added splash of contemporary wonder. I’m intrigued to see how the Iron Plague has decimated other areas of the city, but right now, I’m infected by that childlike bedazzlement.

New Arc Line marries quirkiness and action in a similar way to Baldur’s Gate 3, but is certainly missing out on some polish. If the difficulty is adjusted a little and a few more spells are thrown into the mix early on, I really believe that it can be something special, but right now it’s a little too grindy to become a staple.