Brighter Shores Early Access Playability In 2025: Is This Game Still Have Advantages?

As a mainstream game type, MMORPG is now almost everywhere, and covers all styles: Eastern martial arts, Western fantasy, casual, combat-focused, almost everything.

If you are an older MMORPG enthusiast, you should have a special liking for those old games that are still running, such as RuneScape, which was launched in 2001.

Interestingly, in 2010, Andrew Gower, one founder of the game, set up his own company and started developing a new game Brighter Shores in 2016. The game was then released in early access on Windows and macOS in November 2024.

Although Brighter Shores is inevitably similar to RuneScape, it still has its own unique advantages, so it received a lot of praise after it went online. However, more than half a year has passed, facing more new MMORPGs, has it maintained its advantages? Let us analyze it for you.

British Warm Game Atmosphere

Although many MMORPGs will set up additional casual gameplay in the game, in order to get a better upgrade experience, they are still mainly based on combat. In contrast, the slow pace of Brighter Shores will almost make you feel like you are just wandering in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In Brighter Shores, even Brighter Shores gold farming required for survival does not have to be earned by fighting completely, but you can choose to utilize your profession like an ordinary person to earn it.

Based on this experience, you will find that the game is full of warm and comfortable atmosphere from the picture, music to the gameplay, which is enough to make you relax and enjoy.

Unique Profession Gameplay

The first uniqueness of the game in terms of gameplay is reflected in the profession tasks. To earn gold in this way, you need to constantly complete different profession tasks in order to complete the upgrade, so that you can get more gold.

For example, if your profession is chef, you will automatically unlock the basic bacon sandwich recipe at the beginning, and then make and sell the finished product. But you can only unlock the better lesser jellied eels recipe after reaching chef level 2.

In addition, some profession tasks are related to each other. For example, as a chef, you need lesser eels as raw materials to make lesser jellied eels, but your fishing level must reach level 2 before you can go to Eel Street Bridge to catch this fish.

There is no doubt that compared with the exciting battles in Diablo or Path Of Exile series, Brighter Shores maybe too relaxed, so that it looks like a bit boring. But this is its feature - players should be allowed to have the right to take a vacation in MMORPGs.

The Combat System Is Not Inferior

Brighter Shores is not only a casual gameplay. In terms of adventure and combat, the game adopts a linear exploration mode. That is to say, if you plan to go out for adventure, you will not face a large map with a completely open world, but multiple separate rooms.

Different rooms correspond to different explorable content, and even if you enter the same room multiple times, you will have the opportunity to trigger more different options when talking to important NPCs according to the changes in the clothes you are wearing.

This combat gameplay creates a kind of “Pandora’s Box”-style fun within a limited scope. You will never know what kind of enemy you will face after opening the next door before completing all the rooms! Although it is a bit like an old-fashioned point-and-click adventure game, it still does not seem outdated today.

Time Investment And Playable Edition

Like other free MMORPGs, most of the content of Brighter Shores’ early access is currently free to enjoy. Although it only includes two areas, it is enough for you to play for hundreds of hours. If you want to unlock the other two areas, you need to get the game’s premium pass.

It is currently expected that the early access stage will last for several months, so if you plan to get Brighter Shores at this time, the free edition is enough for you to play. Of course, getting the premium edition will be more fun, and it will also allow you to experience the new area Stonemaw Hill as soon as possible later.

How Are The Players Reviews?

According to the evaluation of players in the game community, social media and related forums, the overall view of Brighter Shores is still relatively positive, which is mainly due to the leisure and relaxation part of the game.

But this does not mean that the game has no shortcomings, or rather, the disadvantages are also obvious. Summarized as follows:

• Boredom caused by repetition: In terms of the profession system, those upgrades and gold earning tasks seem too homogeneous, so after the novelty is over, the overall experience will decline significantly.
• Lack of interaction between players: One characteristic of MMORPG is to allow players to interact with each other, including fighting and trading. But Brighter Shores does not set up effective content in this regard.
• The combat system is slightly rigid: Despite its own characteristics, most of the battles in Brighter Shores lack balance and excitement, and the character combat is a bit rigid.

However, considering that Brighter Shores is currently in the early access stage, everything needs to be improved, so the above shortcomings may be optimized later.

To sum up, from the gameplay point of view, if you like casual elements rather than hardcore combat, or even like to do other things while playing games, Brighter Shores is still very good.

However, if you have experienced all the free content, you may try to shift your attention to other games until Brighter Shores releases the official version or brings a new patch for early access.