Set in Western Australia, Drop Bear Bytes’ Broken Roads is a classic-inspired RPG that I’ve had my eye on for a while. Aiming to focus on a philosophical basis, you and the rag-tag group of cardboard cutouts explore the wasteland of OZ after the bombs fell. Mostly in search of either a humanistic, utilitarian, nihilistic, or machiavellian-led approach to peace as you do everyone’s odd jobs, often with a trusty gun and claw-hammer by your side. There are no long-winded cutscenes of tadpole insertion here, you are told the bombs fell and how Australia is a wasteland, kicked into the character creation, and told to take a punt at surviving.

Those who only know Australia through Paul Hogan films, Barry Humphries, and Foster’s adverts will be completely lost without the tooltips. The odd phrase here and there being characteristically Australian, with Punt, in particular, being a luck system of sorts, described as taking a chance on uncertain things is similar to the British use for it being a bet. Each skill you have in the RPG level-up system has ranks of Punt to increase your chances of doing something. Each skill is increased individually with points but also gets increased with your Attributes, such as charisma and intelligence.

Being an RPG and being released Wednesday, I think it is worth noting that there is voice acting similar to other titles in recent years. In the review build, that was few and far between. “All VO” was patched in on the 9th ahead of the full release, but generally speaking, Broken Roads goes for a more Disco Elysium (before The Final Cut) approach than a Baldur’s Gate 3. There are full paragraphs voiced, but knowing which will and won’t be voiced is something that’s found out mid-conversation. Of course, I cracked out my accent and was suddenly one blonde mullet away from being Australian like everyone’s hero, Valtteri Bottas.

Broken into four chapters, with a couple of origin stories for your character, all of which break up into three separate options. I assume the over-arching story is the same, but whether you are the hired gun, surveyor, or Jackaroo type, along with your world philosophy, will offer different dialog options. The most interesting part of Broken Road is that philosophy-focused dialog tree, not doing the Fallout 4/L,A Noire thing of four basic options, some of which are difficult based on your skills. Instead, the four world views are on the right in a moral compass, a quarter of which is highlighted, showing your worldview.

This means that despite maybe wanting to go for a nihilistic response to Mick’s accusations (there’s always a Mick) in Brookton, you might have to go for something a bit more utilitarian or humanistic. This also means you have a moral leaning, but so do all your friends that tag along on your adventures throughout the Outback. That makes the idea of being the Bethesda-like happy, cheery best friend of the wasteland practically impossible. That isn’t a slight showing allegiance one way or the other, it is just a fact of this cRPG influence that Drop Bear Bytes has taken with its studio personnel background.

Each moral direction has specific traits attached to it, and depending on how your morality leans, it will encompass some of these traits. These are simple additions to your normal skills and attributes, such as “Greater Good,” which allows you to do attacks that might harm your companions but only if those attacks deal greater damage to your attackers. Though of course things like “Critical Healer” seem self-explanatory by comparison; offering a chance to heal allies a little more.

Combat is turn-based, like many cRPGs that Broken Roads aims to ape, including those that creative lead Colin McComb worked on, such as Wasteland 3, Wasteland 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, and even Baldur’s Gate 3. Each person in the fight takes up one turn, and sometimes that means three of your people might take a turn in a row, sometimes you are screwed by the luck of the draw. As I’ve already mentioned you have two main attacks, and I started with a shotgun and a clawhammer, like a psychopath. You know how this works, you have X amount of action points and X amount of movement points.

Gameplay-wise it’s all there. A set of tools to fight and explore, with several quests to send you all over the maps, with an overview map opening up in the third chapter telling you to explore far and wide to help “your” people. In theory and somewhat in practice, it is all working the same way every other RPG does, even the ones I’ve found to enjoy greatly. So I’m left asking myself what exactly is it that isn’t clicking for me? The philosophy aspect certainly hasn’t been the issue. That’s what pulled me in in the first place.

I think it is the story and what it simply doesn’t do. I’ve mentioned Baldur’s Gate 3 a couple of times now, I even noted Wasteland 3 and Disco Elysium, and while I’m citing some of my favorite RPGs I might as well throw in something about The Witcher 3. What all four of those have that Broken Roads ultimately lacks, is the ability to immediately pull me in as a player. Specifically pulling me in not just to the characters or the world, but the game and gameplay too. Whether it is a tie hanging from a ceiling fan, a missing young woman, God-President Regan, or turning into a space Squid.

Broken Roads tells you it is philosophy-first but in action, it is hardly more than world-building first. The character creation offers some idle questions about an adventurer in the wasteland and what they may or may not do in response to someone Scabrous Scrotus-ing around the Mad Max-like Outback. From there you are kicked into the world, told to do a couple of things to get acclimatized to being three feet from the sun (which Australia factually is), and then go with this nice old man with a mustache, with promises of adventure and safety.

That sounds fine but there is no direct goal as a character. To use the four examples again: Get the tadpole out of your head, stop the political fighting between factions, figure out who you are, and find this young woman you also see as your step-daughter. I might not love New Vegas like everyone else on the internet, but even I would say being shot in the head by Chandler Bing would be more motivating than ambling about for a while. Eventually, the action happens, quite literally off the screen and to the left, as the township you’ve moved on to is razed to the ground.

Again, you’d think that’s where you’re supposed to get this get-up-and-go from the story, but as a character, I don’t feel like I have much reason to. It just so happens, as a result of your outspokenness/being controlled by a dimwit with extra thoughts, you effectively become the leader for a group of dullards and are sent out on adventures. Finally, the open outback with a faint hint of radiation in the air and falling airplanes. Despite eventually being given a hint of purpose, I think I finally see what people mean about a good and bad quest in an RPG.

My character, Keria, (from the Dharawal people, meaning black/dark-haired, as far as I understood) was finally given purpose, but what purpose was that? Fetch quests, with the odd bit of intrigue and morality. When it is at its best, Broken Roads launches you into conversations that are, at a glance, deep enough to make you believe the writers and narrative leads just left college with a degree in ethics. In action, there is a little more depth but the gameplay sometimes fails to fully capture that feeling of something dripping with morals from the first word to yours or its very last.

Depending on which backstory you pick, you start in different settlements. I picked Barter Crew, so I started in a small settlement called Kokeby Waystation. If you pick some other backstory you might start off in Bally Bally Hall, but ultimately, you’ll end up in a place called Brookton, and eventually in a township called Merredin. It’s here the moral studies of listening to (if you’ll excuse the wordplay) some Kant, you might find some bugs or otherwise really showing how broken a Broken Road can be. Maybe it is a prisoner or a slave— Sorry “indentured servitude” you can’t free, or maybe it is dialog appearing early.

I don’t think entire quests broke on me due to bugs, but I’ve seen what felt odd then I’ve seen where in the line of progression that should be placed. This brings me to the options, most are for accessibility (which we like to see) but very few are graphical. There are two graphical options: Windowed and resolutions. I believe that’s what we in the trade call “how you would have annoyed TotalBiscuit,” or you know, a general PC player. I didn’t see anything that dropped the frame rate below a capped 60, though I’m running a system that far exceeds the minimum requirements.

That said, with the art direction the way it is, it seems difficult to give many options without taking away from the beautiful world set out before you. This is one of the highlights of Broken Roads, in my opinion, such a well-realized world that feels distinct everywhere you explore. It feels almost a shame to press Tab to bring up interaction prompts over this world, but otherwise, I’d be playing a hidden object game of an RPG. Only with a little magic later on.

When Broken Roads focuses on that philosophical bent that it has going on, one that could be perceived as pretentious while Kant, Plato, and beyond are quoted in load screens, it offers something refreshing. Where I think it stumbles down this Boulevard of Broken cRPG Dreams is when it forces those exact elements in. The RPG only goes so far but never reaches the heights it aims for. From quests that feel sluggish, and as if they are padding because the writers got a little too excited one weekend, to how far those character elements go.

I’ve mentioned combat here or there and if it feels I’ve ignored it that’s because that’s how it felt in Broken Roads. The combat never feels consequential or rewarding enough from a gameplay or story standpoint, which left me backing out of everything I don’t have to do as required by the plot. A plot that, in theory, wants to ask you many questions about morality but once again in action forgets to say which was the right answer in the first place. Do I want to save everyone or do I want to save only a small group of people, or better yet, do I even have a reason to care?

Ultimately, Broken Roads had all the pedigree of the World Kangaroo Kickboxing Champion, however, someone decided to give it a pack of cigs and a bottle of paint-thinner mixed with cheap alcopops. There is something delightfully charming about Broken Roads. With its ambition reaching for the stars, entertaining dialog, and an alright philosophy system, but as you see that charm chip away like paint on cracked tarmac, it becomes as unpleasant as the Australian wildlife. Where RPGs will pose philosophically disguised trolly problems, Broken Roads forgets to throw the tarp over a couple of boxes to hide the bloated weight hanging off its leg like an RPG-based tumor from all the radiation.

A PC review copy of Broken Roads was provided by Versus Evil & tinyBuild for this review.

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Broken Roads

$34.99

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Great art direction and design of the world.
• The philosophy-first system is an interesting twist on dialog, even if fumbled.

Cons

• Forcing a cRPG to work together with everything else Broken Roads is.
• Where is the "get up and go?"
• Slow and dull combat.