The Technomancer

The Technomancer is an enormous open-world RPG with 40+ hours of content that has an expertly-crafted world at its center. Unfortunately, it's held back by technical issues that are hard to overlook, poor narrative, and unoriginal design.

62%Game Brain Score

story, gameplay

grinding, stability

68% User Score Based on 1,930 reviews

Critic Score 55%Based on 32 reviews

Platforms

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About

The Technomancer is a single player role playing game with a science fiction theme. It was developed by Spiders and was released on June 28, 2016. It received neutral reviews from critics and mostly positive reviews from players.

The Technomancer is a sci-fi RPG set in a post-apocalyptic Mars, where water and power are scarce. As a Technomancer, a warrior with dynamic magical abilities, players explore the red planet, completing missions and making dialogue choices that alter the story. Various combat styles, crafting, and a party system add depth to this immersive, expansive title.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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68%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,930 reviews

story682 positive mentions

grinding73 negative mentions

Engaging story with interesting characters and choices that matter.
Unique combat system with multiple stances and skill trees, allowing for varied playstyles.
Rich world-building and atmosphere, capturing the dystopian feel of Mars.

Excessive backtracking through the same areas with respawning enemies, making gameplay tedious.
Combat can feel clunky and unresponsive, leading to frustrating encounters.
Technical issues, particularly with modern CPUs, causing crashes and loading problems.

story
2,178 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
31%
63%
6%
The story of "The Technomancer" is generally well-received, with many players appreciating its rich lore, character development, and the intertwining narratives of companions. However, criticisms arise regarding pacing issues, repetitive quests, and a lack of impactful choices, which can detract from the overall experience. While the game offers an engaging sci-fi narrative set on a post-apocalyptic Mars, some players find the execution lacking, particularly in terms of dialogue delivery and quest design.
- “The story is great, the NPCs are awesome, and the voice acting is fantastic.”
- “The story is thick with intrigue, political conflict, and moral ambiguity, capturing the precarious nature of life on Mars where various factions vie for control, and survival is anything but guaranteed.”
- “The narrative explores themes of loyalty, identity, and sacrifice, and choices made throughout the game influence not only the story’s outcome but also the player’s relationships with key characters.”
- “Story-wise, nothing interesting happened in the first hours; the characters weren't interesting, the writing wasn't good, and the world felt overall less interesting than Mars: War Logs.”
- “Every quest involves minutes of walking from point A to point B without any ability to fast travel through the dead world you can barely interact with, to arrive at a place you have already been to, most likely to talk to an NPC and then walk right back to turn the quest in.”
- “The story is dull for the most part, to the extent that I found myself zoning out.”
gameplay
478 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
63%
15%
The gameplay of "The Technomancer" has received mixed reviews, with many players noting its clunky mechanics and repetitive nature, particularly in combat and quest design. While some appreciate the tactical elements and character customization options, others criticize the lack of polish and the tedious backtracking required to complete missions. Overall, the game offers an engaging story and atmosphere, but its gameplay may not satisfy those seeking a more refined experience.
- “It ambitiously combines sci-fi storytelling, complex role-playing mechanics, and third-person combat, all wrapped in an atmospheric and richly detailed world.”
- “The combat is fast-paced and satisfying, with three melee class trees and one 'magic' class, the titular technomancer, who learns a variety of lightning-based attacks and defense.”
- “Once I got used to the mechanics, I really enjoyed the fighting.”
- “The gameplay is clunky and the story isn't very gripping in the beginning; it's sort of vague.”
- “The real issue comes with the gameplay, which is incredibly repetitive.”
- “The gameplay here is solid garbage as you flip around linear corridors and wonder how these companies stay afloat.”
graphics
443 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
45%
48%
7%
The graphics of "The Technomancer" have received mixed reviews, with some players praising the art style and atmospheric design while others criticize the visuals as outdated for a 2016 release. Many noted that while the graphics can be visually appealing, they often lack the polish of AAA titles, featuring inconsistencies and occasional glitches. Overall, the game is seen as having decent graphics that effectively capture its unique setting, though they may not meet the expectations set by more recent games.
- “The graphics are great even for today's standards.”
- “For a game that was released in 2016, the graphics, with some inconsistencies here and there, still hold up, and the art style, while sometimes a little dark, is good.”
- “The graphics are nice and the world is very detailed (on ultra settings at least).”
- “The graphics are dark and grey, and in the part I played, only the opening had any sunlight or outdoors at all.”
- “It's very bland and even the art design and graphics are bad, especially for a 2016 RPG.”
- “If I were to compare this to AAA titles of the same styling, I couldn't recommend it as it is a bleak, ugly game with graphics that seem from a generation ago.”
music
200 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
42%
47%
11%
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with some praising its atmospheric qualities and fitting integration into the Martian setting, while others criticize it for being repetitive and lacking memorable melodies. Many players appreciate the soundtrack's ability to enhance immersion, particularly in later areas, but express frustration over the overuse of certain tracks and the overall inconsistency in quality. Overall, while some find the music captivating and evocative, others feel it detracts from the experience due to its monotony and lack of variety.
- “The sound design, on the other hand, is strong, with atmospheric music and effective audio cues that complement the tense and lonely mood of the Martian frontier.”
- “The game's soundtrack complements the Martian setting perfectly, immersing you further into this intriguing world.”
- “The music is amazing.”
- “It insists too much on its worst tracks and only small segments of the good ones, something you will be made abundantly aware during act I where you'll be hearing the same two songs for 6 hours.”
- “The music ranges from bad to middling.”
- “The music is uninspired.”
atmosphere
117 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
56%
39%
5%
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its immersive and richly detailed environments, effectively capturing the gritty, dystopian essence of Mars. Players appreciate the atmospheric music and sound design, which enhance the overall experience, while the environmental storytelling adds depth to the world. Despite some criticisms regarding gameplay mechanics, the game's unique art style and compelling atmosphere make it a standout for fans of sci-fi RPGs.
- “The sound design, on the other hand, is strong, with atmospheric music and effective audio cues that complement the tense and lonely mood of the Martian frontier.”
- “Breathtaking environments, a great story, atmosphere, and deep characters made this game a real experience.”
- “The atmosphere of the game is absolutely incredible - it's gritty, but it's not depressing; there's a feeling of hope through the locations.”
- “Unfortunately, it lacks atmosphere and features a few annoying elements.”
- “Dead environment, no atmosphere at all in any of the areas.”
- “It just lacks some atmosphere throughout the middle.”
grinding
74 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
1%
99%
The grinding aspect of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it tedious due to repetitive combat, excessive backtracking, and numerous fetch quests. While some appreciate the depth it adds to character progression and enjoy the combat, others feel that the constant need to grind and revisit the same areas detracts from the overall experience, making it feel drawn-out and frustrating. Overall, the grinding can be enjoyable for those who appreciate RPG mechanics, but it often becomes a chore for players seeking a more streamlined experience.
- “Almost no grinding; however, spawns are fairly quick, so there's still a bit of fighting while traveling.”
- “The game then becomes a repetitive, grindy mess, constantly having you backtrack to already explored areas, which are now 100% hostile to you as well, meaning you have to fight the same enemies over and over again.”
- “Got tedious around the 2nd chapter and downright boring running back and forth between cities for various quests with the same monsters respawning time and time again in the same places.”
- “The combat is fun but again when it hits later points in the game it's just boring, having to fight the same guys again and again because of a bad respawn system is tedious.”
stability
71 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
3%
97%
The game's stability has been widely criticized, with many players reporting frequent bugs, glitches, and freezing issues that detract from the overall experience. While some users found enjoyment in the gameplay despite these problems, others noted game-breaking glitches that hindered progress. Overall, the game appears to be unpolished and in need of significant updates to improve its stability.
- “Runs great, looks beautiful, and plays well.”
- “The biggest reason for the low score is that many people (including myself) have been halted in their quest to finish this beautiful game due to literal game-breaking glitches that inhibit progress.”
- “Only negative review because this game really needs a patch as it's very glitchy and buggy.”
- “Despite an interesting hook and nice cutscene videos, the game is unpolished and buggy.”
optimization
43 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
56%
16%
The game's optimization is a mixed bag, with some players experiencing stable performance while others report significant frame rate drops and high CPU usage, indicating poor optimization overall. While certain configurations allow for smooth gameplay, many users find that the game demands high-end hardware to run effectively, leading to frustration with bugs and performance issues. Overall, the consensus leans towards the game being inadequately optimized, detracting from the overall experience.
- “Game runs smoothly on my gaming rig.”
- “The graphics are gorgeous and playing everything on high on a GTX 670, so I can say this game is very well optimized.”
- “Performance: well optimized.”
- “The major flaw of this title is its poor optimization, so you need to have godly hardware for the game to not drop frames in most areas.”
- “Adding insult to injury, the game suffers from really poor optimization and overall performance, with several settings really slamming the experience to unpleasant levels.”
- “I'm running a 4GHz i5-2500K paired with a GTX 780, and the CPU usage in towns was often in the 90% range on all 4 cores, GPU was 100%, and the strain was causing it to throttle down, which further hampered performance.”
character development
41 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
37%
56%
7%
Character development in the game is generally praised for its depth and intricacy, offering a variety of skills, attributes, and talents that allow players to shape their characters and combat styles. While many reviews highlight the engaging story and well-defined personalities of characters, some note inconsistencies in development and pacing, with a few characters lacking depth. Overall, the character development system is seen as a strong aspect of the game, providing meaningful choices that enhance the RPG experience.
- “Great story with in-depth character development and personalities.”
- “Overall it is somewhat rough around the edges but fully fulfills its purpose; the game tells a unique rich story with lots of charm, the environments are amazing, character development and lore is captivating and well defined.”
- “Character development is well done - for instance in the skill tree you can choose your style and combine many abilities/passives to your preference.”
- “Technomancer doesn't seem to have figured out whether it wanted to go for the freedom of decision or a story-driven character development, and with the current hybrid-ish solution, it just feels like it fails at both.”
- “Some characters have no character development over the course of the game, and it has parts that are written quite badly.”
- “I think the issue so many people have with it is that they compare it too much to Mass Effect's incredible storyline, graphics, characters, and content, as well as the flexibility in choices and character development.”
humor
34 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
94%
6%
The humor in the game is a mixed bag, featuring a blend of intentional and unintentional comedy, with players noting hilarious one-liners and awkward character animations that can evoke laughter. While some characters deliver amusing dialogue, others fall flat, leading to a range of comedic moments that can be both charming and cringeworthy. Overall, the humor adds a unique flavor to the gameplay, though some players feel it could be more consistent and impactful.
- “However, the impactful scenes Spiders is so well-known for are as present and gut-punching as ever, and you will be caught off-guard a number of times by some hilarious one-liners.”
- “And Amelia easily had the best lines--whenever my boyfriend asked me what was so funny, it was because of her dialogue.”
- “Anyone that plays, and enjoys, Spiders' titles knows what to expect; a janky Euro RPG with glitches and bugs and oft-hilarious animations, with some slightly dodgy translation and not-outstanding voice acting, wrapped up in beautifully realized worlds, oozing charm and character, thick with atmosphere, with enjoyable stories.”
- “I have my opinion about recent humanity when I see that uncontrollable, bad, unfunny meme games get positive reviews while a gem like this receives mixed feedback.”
- “The side characters and companions that tag along are equally boring, aside from their unfunny one-liners.”
emotional
33 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
85%
15%
The emotional aspect of the game is a mixed bag, with well-developed companions and touching moments that can engage players, yet many feel that the emotional depth is undermined by awkward dialogue, predictable storylines, and technical issues. While some players appreciate the heartfelt character interactions and impactful moments, others criticize the lack of payoff for emotional investments and the overall boring narrative, leading to a disconnect from the characters. Ultimately, the game struggles to consistently deliver the emotional resonance that players seek, leaving many feeling unfulfilled.
- “The companions themselves are well-developed, each bringing distinct personalities and backstories, enriching the narrative and offering emotional engagement.”
- “Watching how the plot develops and what happens to certain people was really touching.”
- “Each character dialogue always feels emotionally impactful, and they did a good job with changing the tone when talking with your companions.”
- “The game was rather repetitive, with a boring story and combat that randomly ranged between 'boring for a child' to 'move on over Dark Souls'.”
- “I literally only played for 15 minutes before realizing this is a horrible clone of a game with an uninteresting and boring story.”
- “The technomancer and spiders are a case of 'if it's broke, why fix it?' The same issues that M:WL and BBF had are still present here: boring story, broken combat, bare-bones crafting, ugly graphics, a useless party, and a boring uninspired leveling system creates an experience that either leaves me snoring or disgusted.”
replayability
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
9%
75%
16%
The game's replayability is a mixed bag, with some players appreciating the branching narrative and different character builds that encourage multiple playthroughs, while others criticize its linear story and lack of significant changes in outcomes. Many reviews highlight that while there are choices that can affect endings, the overall experience may not warrant repeated plays due to core flaws and limited variation in gameplay. Overall, opinions range from high replay value to virtually none, indicating a divided reception on this aspect.
- “This branching narrative approach lends the game replayability and encourages players to consider the consequences of their actions carefully.”
- “Like Mass Effect, there's replay value in taking different characters with you on the same missions during a new playthrough.”
- “The game can be replayable for a good amount of different decisions that can change the ending.”
- “Then there is the map which has horrid orientation issues and most of all... the story is extremely linear, which is pretty boring for 'this day and age'. It's not a bad story, but it has no replayability for me.”
- “You can't get all the achievements with one playthrough, and sadly I can't consider this game replayable.”
- “Not much replayability to be honest, the outcomes don't change much.”
monetization
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The monetization of the game is viewed positively, with users appreciating that it offers good value for a non-AAA title and is crafted with care, avoiding the pitfalls of feeling like a cash grab. Players recommend waiting for sales to maximize value, but overall, the game's pricing and approach to monetization are seen as fair and thoughtful.
- “The monetization feels exploitative, with prices that are far too high for the content provided.”
- “The in-game purchases are overwhelming and disrupt the overall experience.”
- “It seems like the developers prioritize profit over player satisfaction, making it hard to enjoy the game without spending extra money.”

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55%Critics’ scoreBased on 32 critic reviews

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21h Median play time

20h Average play time

7-36h Spent by most gamers

*Based on 35 analyzed playthroughs

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Frequently Asked Questions

The Technomancer is a role playing game with science fiction theme.

The Technomancer is available on Xbox Series X|S, PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4 and others.

On average players spend around 20 hours playing The Technomancer.

The Technomancer was released on June 28, 2016.

The Technomancer was developed by Spiders.

The Technomancer has received neutral reviews from players and neutral reviews from critics. Most players liked this game for its story but disliked it for its grinding.

The Technomancer is a single player game.

Similar games include Mars: War Logs, Bound By Flame, ELEX, Vampyr, Biomutant and others.

The Technomancer

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