About twelve hours into Ashen Meridian, I finished my first complete chart of the Gloaming Marches and watched the map I had been sketching for an entire evening snap into a usable item. A waystone moved. A collapsed bridge on the far side of the region became a shortcut. The boss I had been dreading lost one of its two support summoners. It was the moment the game clicked, and it never really unclicked. Lanternfall Studios’ first open-world RPG is built around that idea: you are not a chosen hero, you are a royal cartographer press-ganged into service as a warden, and the act of mapping the Verge is how you get stronger. The continent is split by a sun that stopped moving three centuries ago, leaving one half in permanent dusk and the other in scorched noon, and the line between them is where the ruins have started to wake up.
Ledger and compass
Combat is slow, heavy, and stamina-bound in a way that will feel familiar to anyone who has spent time with the genre, but the stance system gives it a personality of its own. The guarded “ledger” stance trades damage for a generous parry window, while the aggressive “compass” stance extends combos and adds poise damage. You can swap mid-string, and the best fights in the game reward weaving between the two: absorb a flurry in ledger, flip to compass on the recovery, and punish. Bosses are the highlight. The Tollkeeper of Saltbridge, a towering figure who rewrites the arena’s geometry every time it drops below a health threshold, is one of the most inventive fights I have played this year. Not every encounter is that sharp, and a handful of late-game mini-bosses are reskins, but the main roster is excellent.
Draw what you see, warden. Not what you were told was there.
In-game dialogue, Surveyor Hale
A slow start, then a long reach
The opening region is the weakest part of the game. The first five hours drip-feed mechanics, gate fast travel behind a tutorial quest chain, and keep you on a fairly narrow path. Once the Marches open up, the pacing improves dramatically, though the final two regions lean on recycled ruin layouts more than I would like. By the end, I was skimming optional dungeons I would have savored earlier.
Performance and accessibility
I played on PlayStation 5 in performance mode, which targets 60fps and mostly holds it outside of the densest noon-side towns, where I saw dips into the low 50s. Quality mode locks to 30fps with noticeably sharper foliage; I would not recommend it for combat. The game ships with a good spread of accessibility options, including adjustable parry timing, a high-contrast enemy outline, full subtitle customization, and a toggle that removes the stamina cost from sprinting outside combat.
Update, October 7: Patch 1.03 fixed a quest-blocking bug in the Saltbridge questline that I hit during review and improved frame pacing in noon-side settlements. The score is unchanged.
If you have the patience for a slow first act and enjoy games that trust you to find your own way, Ashen Meridian is one of the year’s most rewarding RPGs. If you want constant momentum, you may bounce off before it gets good, and that would be a shame.
