The Relic: First Guardian PS5 Review - A Flawed Soulslike Worth Discovering

Project Cloud Games and publisher Perp Games take a decidedly dark approach to the action-RPG formula with The Relic: First Guardian, a single-player adventure inspired by Korean folklore, mythology, and tragic folktales. Set in the ruined world of Arsiltus, the game casts players as the First Guardian, the last hope of a land devastated after the destruction of the Great Relic. As the designated hero you must explore the shattered world, recover the pieces of the Relic, uncover the memories and stories buried within Arsiltus, and ultimately seal the Void that has consumed the land.

Arsiltus is presented as a semi-open world filled with ruined settlements, dungeons, caves, cemeteries, forests, and other remnants of a civilization that has effectively been erased. Exploration is a major part of the experience, with hidden areas, relics, equipment, bosses, and pieces of lore encouraging you to wander away from the main objective.

The central objective is to locate fragments of the Great Relic and restore them while unraveling the mystery of what happened to Arsiltus. Along the way, the game uses environmental storytelling to communicate the tragedy of the world. Objects, locations, and encounters are often connected to the memories of people who once lived there, giving the otherwise bleak environment a surprisingly melancholy atmosphere.

There is also an impressive emphasis on boss encounters. The game features dozens of major bosses, with the developers originally describing more than 70 and the current game advertising as many as 80. These encounters are intended to function as individual stories rather than simply being roadblocks between areas.

The Gameplay ...

Combat is where The Relic: First Guardian makes some of its most interesting decisions. There are five primary weapon styles, including Sword & Shield, Battle Staff, Daggers, Two-Handed Weapons, and Longsword. Each provides a different combat rhythm, while individual skill trees allow you to customize how those weapons function.

Perhaps the biggest departure from the traditional Soulslike formula is the way stamina works. Attacks don't consume stamina. Instead, stamina is primarily reserved for defensive actions such as dodging and blocking. This creates an unusual contrast wherein offensive combat can be aggressive and fluid, but defensive mistakes can quickly leave you vulnerable.

Skills also operate on cooldowns rather than conventional resource consumption, allowing you to use them freely when available. The result is combat that encourages aggression while still demanding careful attention to positioning, enemy patterns, dodges, and defensive timing.

Character progression is similarly unconventional. There are no traditional character levels. Instead, your Guardian becomes stronger through equipment, crafting, weapons, and Relics. The Relic system contains more than 70 passive effects that can modify abilities and fundamentally alter the way your character plays.

The equipment system is another clever idea. Weapons and armor aren't simply randomized pieces of increasingly powerful loot. Each item is intended to be unique, giving equipment a stronger connection to the world's history and encouraging players to think about what they equip rather than constantly replacing gear with marginally better versions.

Dungeons, puzzles, exploration, crafting, boss battles, and equipment customization therefore work together to create a game that is considerably more exploration-focused than a corridor-to-boss Soulslike.

Make no mistake though, The Relic: First Guardian can be difficult to play through. Enemy encounters and bosses can punish careless play, and learning attack patterns remains essential. However, the difficulty isn't always perfectly balanced. Some of the game's roughest moments originally came from enemy placement and encounters that could overwhelm players through sheer numbers rather than intelligent combat design. Fortunately, this is an area where the developers have made substantial progress.

Patch 18, released in September, specifically reworked enemy placement and density in several areas, removed unfairly positioned hazards, reduced excessive enemy concentrations, and changed certain encounters to use location-triggered ambushes. Boss encounters were also adjusted, including changes to Ishak and the addition of a second phase for Eltrin.

Those changes matter because they make the challenge feel more deliberate. The game is still asking you to learn, adapt, and improve, but some of the situations that previously felt unnecessarily punishing have been addressed.

The Presentation ...

Visually, The Relic: First Guardian is an interesting mixture of strengths and weaknesses. The art direction does a good job establishing its dark Korean-folklore-inspired world. Ruined structures, corrupted landscapes, gloomy forests, cemeteries, and monstrous creatures create a consistently oppressive atmosphere. There is an unmistakable sense that you're traveling through the remains of a civilization rather than simply moving between disconnected video-game levels.

However, the game's technical presentation hasn't always matched its ambition. Some of the character animations, environmental assets, facial work, and visual effects can feel dated, particularly when compared with other modern PS5 action RPGs. 

The important distinction is that The Relic isn't necessarily unattractive. Its strongest visual moments come from its atmosphere and art direction rather than cutting-edge technology. When the lighting, environment, creature design, and soundtrack come together, the game can create some genuinely striking scenes.

And the developers have continued improving the presentation. Recent patches have enhanced environmental elements in several areas, while additional audio has been added to locations and events that previously lacked it.

The soundtrack is one of the game's more successful atmospheric elements. Music and environmental audio help establish the lonely, mournful personality of Arsiltus. Rather than turning every encounter into an overwhelming musical spectacle, the audio design frequently reinforces the feeling that you're exploring a world haunted by what happened to it.

The developers have also continued expanding the game's audio presentation after launch. Patch 17 added audio to multiple environments and story-related events, while Patch 18 added additional sounds to cemetery and dungeon locations. That ongoing attention is significant because sound plays such an important role in selling the game's folkloric, tragic atmosphere.

The Updates ...

It's difficult to review The Relic: First Guardian without discussing its updates. The launch version had legitimate problems. Project Cloud Games itself acknowledged shortly after release that the game had not launched at the standard the team intended. Early patches concentrated on stability, performance, boss and event progression issues, combat responsiveness, rewards, and progression. That is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the launch build, but the important part of the story is what happened afterward.

By Patch 18, the developers had released 18 patches and were still actively working on technical issues and performance. Recent updates have addressed enemy placement, combat balance, map functionality, boss mechanics, environmental presentation, audio, and numerous bugs. The result is a considerably more appealing proposition for someone discovering the game now than it was for someone who played immediately after release.

That doesn't erase the game's underlying shortcomings. Some animation, graphical, camera, and presentation issues remain part of the experience, but the continued support demonstrates that Project Cloud Games is listening to player feedback and attempting to improve the game rather than simply moving on.

The Verdict ...

The Relic: First Guardian is an ambitious action RPG that sometimes struggles to execute its ideas as well as it conceives them. Its best qualities are easy to appreciate such as the dark Korean folklore-inspired setting, large number of bosses, exploration-focused world, unusual progression system, unique equipment philosophy, aggressive combat, and impressive build customization. The decision to remove traditional character levels and make Relics, equipment, and skill choices the foundation of progression gives the game a distinctive personality.

Its weaknesses are equally apparent. The graphics and animations can look dated, the camera occasionally works against the player, and some encounters can still feel less polished than those found in the best Soulslikes. The launch version's technical problems also left a poor first impression, but the current PS5 version deserves to be judged on where the game is now rather than where it started. Eighteen patches have addressed a wide range of technical, balance, combat, environmental, and audio issues, with recent updates specifically targeting unfair enemy density and encounter design.

For pure polish, The Relic: First Guardian still falls short of the genre's heavyweights. For originality and sheer ambition, however, there is considerably more here than the rough presentation initially suggests.

The difficulty, itself, is challenging without being inherently inaccessible, particularly after the enemy and encounter adjustments. The combat becomes more enjoyable once you understand how its stamina and cooldown systems are designed to work, while the progression system provides plenty of room for experimentation.

Most importantly, the game has improved considerably since launch. It isn't a technical masterpiece, but it has evolved into a much more playable and interesting action RPG than its early reputation might suggest.

The Relic: First Guardian, in my opinion, is best suited for Soulslike fans who enjoy exploration, boss hunting, build experimentation, and discovering obscure action RPGs, particularly players who are willing to overlook some technical roughness in exchange for an unusual setting and progression system.

If you're looking for a meticulously polished PS5 blockbuster, there are better choices, but if you're intrigued by Korean mythology, dark fantasy, challenging combat, large numbers of bosses, and a Soulslike that isn't afraid to experiment with the formula, The Relic: First Guardian is now worth investigating, especially in its considerably improved post-launch state.