The Bearer & The Last Flame (PS5) – Review

There’s a moment early in The Bearer & The Last Flame where you step out into the ruins of a dead kingdom, lantern light flickering against the stone, and for a split second you can almost believe in the journey ahead. A lone soul carrying the final flame across five fallen realms should feel mythic, a pilgrimage through despair toward some fragile hope. But the game never quite earns the weight of its premise. Instead, it leans on familiar dark‑fantasy beats without giving them the texture or specificity needed to make the world feel alive, or even meaningfully doomed.

The opening hours set the tone for what becomes the game’s defining struggle: navigation that feels less like exploration and more like being lost in a maze built by accident. Corridors loop into themselves, staircases lead nowhere, and visual landmarks blur into a single palette of stone, fog, and shadow. Progress rarely feels intentional. You don’t learn the world as you brute‑force your way through it.

The hub area, complete with vendors and a towering war elephant, hints at personality, but even here the layout is confusing. Elevators, doors, and branching paths create a sense of scale without meaningful structure. Later regions only amplify this, layering ladders, platforms, and narrow walkways into a tangle that feels more exhausting than atmospheric.

There are moments of intrigue like a mimic chest lunging at you, a shortcut discovered after a long detour, but they’re fleeting sparks in an otherwise directionless sprawl. Soulslike combat lives or dies on clarity, weight, and consistency. The Bearer & The Last Flame struggles on all three fronts.

Hit detection is wildly unreliable. Attacks pass through enemies that should be struck cleanly, while foes sometimes connect from improbable angles. Lock‑on breaks at the worst moments, sending your character swinging at walls or empty air. Movement feels floaty, slippery, and disconnected from the animations on screen.

Instead of learning patterns or mastering timing, you’re left hoping the game registers what you’re doing. And when enemy density ramps up with archers, knights, spiders, and undead swarming narrow corridors, the flaws become impossible to ignore. Running past encounters often becomes the most viable strategy, not because it’s clever, but because fighting simply isn’t fun.

The game offers ten character origins, elemental weapon buffs, crafting materials, and a full upgrade system, but the underlying combat never supports the complexity. Even basic actions like blocking or healing feel inconsistent, with items disappearing or failing to trigger reliably.

On PS5, the game’s technical performance is one of its biggest obstacles.

• Severe screen tearing, even on VRR displays

• Frequent stuttering and frame drops

• Pop‑in, especially with flames and environmental details

• AI pathing issues, with enemies walking in circles or getting stuck

• Occasional crashes

Visually, the world has ambition with its vast spaces, dramatic lighting, and a constant interplay of shadow and flame, but muddy textures and echo‑heavy audio flatten the atmosphere. Even open areas sound boxed‑in, as if every fight takes place inside a metal container.

There’s a full suite of Soulslike systems here: corpse runs, bonfires, shortcuts, gear drops, elemental weapon infusions, and a sprawling inventory of materials. But the game overwhelms without guiding. Item descriptions are tiny, tutorials are sparse, and the upgrade grind is steep for minimal payoff.

The world is large, but often empty. The lore exists, but rarely resonates. The structure is ambitious, but rarely coherent.

You can see the outline of a compelling dark‑fantasy adventure — the kind of obscure, slightly janky experience that earns a cult following — but the fundamentals simply aren’t strong enough to support it.

Pros

• Strong dark‑fantasy atmosphere with a moody, end‑of‑the‑world tone that occasionally lands.

• Large, ambitious world with multiple regions, dungeons, and a central hub.

• Ten character origins offering different starting stats and playstyles.

• Elemental weapon buffs and crafting add some build variety.

• Occasional moments of intrigue, like mimic chests, shortcuts, and hidden loot.

• A few striking visual set‑pieces, especially in wide, open areas lit by flame.

Cons

• Unreliable combat with inconsistent hit detection, floaty movement, and lock‑on issues.

• Chaotic enemy density that feels unfair due to the shaky fundamentals.

• Confusing level design with looping paths, unclear routes, and disorienting layouts.

• Poor technical performance on PS5, including screen tearing, stuttering, and crashes.

• Muddy visuals and echo‑heavy audio that flatten the atmosphere.

• Sparse storytelling that never gives the world or characters emotional weight.

• Underdeveloped systems that overwhelm without guiding the player.

• Frequent item and input inconsistencies, like heals not triggering or disappearing.

The Bearer & The Last Flame wants to be a grim pilgrimage through a dying world, but on PS5 it’s a journey defined more by frustration than discovery. Unreliable combat, confusing level design, and unstable performance overshadow the glimpses of atmosphere and scale that occasionally break through. There’s a spark of something here, a world with potential, a tone that could resonate, but the flame never catches.

XPN Rating: 2 out of 5 (SILVER)

The Bearer & The Last Flame is available now!