The Relic: First Guardian Combat Deep-Dive & Mechanics Review

Evaluating the current action RPG meta reveals a massive divide between mechanically tight heavy-hitters and ambitious, yet flawed, indie titles. The Relic: First Guardian attempts to plant its flag in the highly competitive dark fantasy space, dodging the traditional Soulslike label to push a fast-paced, free-flowing combat system.

As hardcore theorycrafters and frame-data analysts, we took this game apart to see how its mechanics actually hold up against modern industry standards.

What we found is a semi-open-world experience characterized by wild ambition, disjointed execution, and a heavy reliance on equipment-based scaling.

Story, Setting & World-Building: The Tragic Folklore of Arsiltus

Project Cloud Games intentionally bypassed the standard heroic fantasy narrative. Arsiltus is an apocalyptic wasteland swallowed by the Void after the shattering of the Great Relic. You play as the First (or Last) Guardian, piecing the world back together.

The narrative structure leans heavily into anthology-style environmental storytelling, taking heavy inspiration from Korean folklore and twisting it into grotesque, melancholic vignettes.

Instead of heavy exposition dumps, the world feeds you “Field Pages”, fragmented records of ordinary people ruined by starvation, regret, and broken vows.

We encountered bosses born not from cosmic evil, but from desperate fathers transforming into monsters to feed their children. This lived-in, melancholy atmosphere works on paper, pulling obvious inspiration from The Witcher franchise’s emphasis on natural exploration.

However, the game frequently interrupts its own pacing with unskippable voiced dialogue that literally holds your controls hostage mid-traversal, a massive oversight for any seasoned action RPG player.

See Also: Complete It Takes Two Story Chapters Guide and Level Order

The Relic: First Guardian Gameplay Review: Mechanics, Animation Locks, and Stamina Economy

If you are coming into this expecting the stamina management of a traditional Soulslike, adjust your expectations immediately. The combat prioritizes pure aggression and unbroken offensive flow.

Attacks cost zero stamina. You can spam light and heavy strings continuously without worrying about an empty green bar. Stamina is strictly reserved for defense, dashing, and blocking.

This completely shifts the pacing; you are not playing a methodical game of resource management, but a highly aggressive hack-and-slash. However, the mechanical implementation is incredibly jarring.

The primary dodge mechanic is a high-velocity dash mapped to the X button (with no custom remapping options). This dash lacks the precise i-frames we expect from the genre, often flinging you past the enemy hitbox or straight off a cliff due to poor distance scaling. 

Furthermore, combat readability suffers heavily from an erratic camera and screen-smothering particle effects.

You can deplete a boss’s stagger bar to trigger a “groggy state,” but the game entirely lacks a visceral or riposte system; you simply keep swinging at a static enemy until they recover.

Weapon Scaling and the Five Archetypes

Your loadout defines your class. There are five weapon masteries: Sword & Shield, Battle Staff, Daggers, Two-Handed Weapons, and Longsword. Each weapon is special to the world; there are no duplicate drops or RNG stat rolls.

• Daggers: Offer the fastest animation frames and quickest attack cancels, allowing you to instantly transition from an offensive string into a defensive dash.
• Two-Handed Weapons: Trade animation speed for massive posture damage, quickly chewing through enemy stagger bars, but leaving you highly vulnerable during lengthy recovery frames.

Each weapon features twelve exclusive skill trees powered by Ancient Relic Energy. Skills operate on cooldowns rather than a mana pool, turning high-level boss fights into a rotation-management game rather than a resource-management one.

The Rune System and Gold Economy

Progression abandons traditional XP and attribute allocation. Your build is entirely dictated by the gold economy and your equipped Relics.

There are over 70 passive Relics earned from boss kills, reshaping skill behaviors and altering your combat tempo.

The gold economy, however, is drastically imbalanced. Every chest, enemy drop, and exploration reward funnels into gold, which is then dumped into weapon skill trees.

One egregious trap involves an NPC who demands 600 gold for a permanent health increase; the game fails to warn you that this is a one-time buff, allowing players to dump millions of gold into a void with zero return.

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The Relic: First Guardian Release Date & Platforms

For players tracking the rollout, the launch schedule is split across digital and physical windows. The PC version officially dropped on Steam on July 30, 2026, followed closely by the PlayStation 5 digital release on July 31, 2026.

If you are holding out for physical media, the PS5 disc edition lands on September 4, 2026. The developers have confirmed that ports for the Xbox Series X/S and the Nintendo Switch 2 are slated for later in the summer of 2026, though concrete dates for those specific hardware ecosystems remain pending.

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The Relic: First Guardian Price

The barrier to entry for this dark fantasy action RPG sits at a standard mid-tier bracket. The base game is priced at $49.99 on the US Steam store and PlayStation Network (roughly £44.99 in the UK).

For players looking to min-max their loadouts immediately, the game launched alongside a premium DLC package titled “The Night of the Unextinguished Flame”.

Priced at $9.99 / £8.99, this expansion grants access to an additional Brutal dungeon, a passive Relic, and an exclusive legendary armor and weapon set.

Given the game’s steep optimization issues and mixed launch reception, players must heavily weigh the $49.99 asking price against the current technical state of the game.

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The Relic: First Guardian is a wildly ambitious title from a small twelve-person team. While its zero-stamina combat and lore-heavy weapon system offer some genuinely engaging build-crafting moments, the abysmal technical performance, reused assets, and unpolished camera systems hold it back from greatness.

The rapid patching from Project Cloud Games shows promise, but navigating Arsiltus currently requires a high tolerance for jank.

While studying weapon scaling and perfecting your animation cancels will give you a massive mechanical edge in Arsiltus, experiencing this rich semi-open world and experimenting with all the relic combinations requires actually owning the game and its premium expansions.

Dealing with regional payment errors or missing out on deluxe edition cosmetic perks can quickly dampen the launch day excitement.

So grab secure, instant, and affordable Steam Wallet top-ups at Joytify so your digital library is fully prepped for the journey into Arsiltus without any checkout friction.