Escape from New Flagstaff

Finally, after almost 24 hours in and around the capitol of Sector Two, I'm done with New Flagstaff.

It's a big town – much larger than Embry or any of the other settlements in Sector One – and this, combined with the more or less flat plain upon which it sits, means New Flagstaff is rarely out of sight while levelling up around it. The long questlines also involve a fair amount of running back and forth and after a while I really wanted a change of scenery. It doesn't help that it's not very interesting to look at to begin with.

This is also the location of the most irritating questline I've done in Fallen Earth, as I met up with Elena Winters again to continue the main storyline. The problem isn't the quests itself, it's that she's situated at the end of a long underground tunnel swarming with level 25 rats, which aggro in groups, respawn very quickly, even for this game, and hit harder than any other mob in the vicinity of New Flagstaff. By this time I'd improved my gear to a point where I was shooting my way through Aesterly like the Terminator, but these rats were still able to chew my health bar to bits in seconds.

I died at least half a dozen times – probably more – just to get to Winters, and that was just to start this stage of the story. Returning to speak to her again – which I had to do several times to move the plot along – resulted in more squeaky death.

It's bloody annoying.

Rats aside I don't dislike New Flagstaff, exactly, but I'm glad to leave it behind. It's too focused on just a few locations, some of which are revisited several times.  The long ride down to Devon Township, with detours to explore interesting sights along the way, was a welcome return of the sense of freedom of action, to explore and feel the scale of the world, that is one of the strengths of Fallen Earth.

 

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