Well, can you blame me for thinking that the Ironeye Character Trailer might be an April Fools’ joke?
FromSoft dropped us a couple little teasers on the 1st and 3rd of April: a Character Trailer and a Gameplay Reveal — displays of solo play using multi-arrow shots, agile evasion by wall-hopping, flaming arrows, and powerful arrow impacts — and what gets me every time is the darn size of that thing.
I mean the bow, of course.
You could make a joke about compensating, but with how cool Ironeye looks with it I wouldn’t be exactly sure for what
Ironeye Abilities
The Gameplay trailer describes Ironeye as “an archer with split-second judgement and pinpoint accuracy” and mentions Ironeye’s Abilities:
Character Skill | MARKING: Marks enemies to create a temporary weak point.
Ultimate Art | SINGLE SHOT: Shoots a supersonic arrow that pierces any defense.
In other words, a Ranger class, assisting the party by increasing the number of loot and creating weak points for improved damage. These two make the Ranger sound like a great Support character (though, FromSoft is doing as great job keeping each character playable solo so far). More loot means higher chances of a more successful run, naturally, and frequent Marking should help bring down high-HP targets (bosses, in other words).
The character’s ranged stance is also interesting to consider in light of the resurrection mechanic (where you hit your fallen teammate to bring them back to life) — is this method safer in the middle of combat, or annoyingly slow if aiming is involved? That would be interesting to see.
The Ultimate doesn’t just come with a cool animation to feature your people-sized bow, but it also seems to ignore enemy defense — don’t forget that you are landing this shot at range. For how good Ironeye’s support abilities are, he should also theoretically be impressively soloable, especially against single targets, when leaning into his strength evading the enemy and landing their hits from a distance. Obviously, their Passive and Skill should help with their solo runs also (or, alternatively, the “divide and conquer” tactic in a group).
Yet, this character might not be as attractive to those looking for flashy abilities — all of Ironeye’s look primarily like different versions of shooting an arrow. Though, note that the Character Trailer features multi-arrow shots and a flaming bow, so those pretty attacks might come from Ironeye’s weapons instead.
Ironeye Trailers
The two trailers are available on the BANDAI NAMCO official YouTube channel or, to save you the time, here are both of them:
What are your impressions? Feel like this guy might get unfairly overlooked in party comps or become the most popular due to the sheer effectiveness of the good ol’ bow & arrow? Let us know in the comments below?
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Mila Grish
Dedicated contributor at EIP Gaming and a part-time collector of books she will never have time to actually read. Jumps on the newest releases just as quickly as on the uncovered dusty collections from the basement. For her, shiny graphics can never be an excuse to not have a polished player experience or an immersive story.
