Dragonkin: The Banished Review (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC)
Developer: Eko Software
Publisher: Nacon
Release Date: March 19, 2026
ESRB: T – Teen

I loved Warhammer: Chaosbane. I still think it is a vastly underrated ARPG that never got the attention it deserved, and when Eko Software announced Dragonkin: The Banished I was excited enough to pre-order the Blood Scales Edition without a second thought. And that’s without following the game’s year in early access on PC, because I knew I would play on PS5 and wanted to experience it for myself as a fully released game. I’m happy to say that Dragonkin: The Banished is a great game and one of the more pleasant surprises I have had in this genre in years. And yet, just like Chaosbane, it isn’t receiving the attention it deserves.

There’s no denying that Dragonkin: The Banished looks a lot like Diablo IV. The aesthetic, the UI layout, the way loot looks in the inventory and ability icons are presented — all of it carries the visual fingerprints of Blizzard’s flagship ARPG. In the same way that Chaosbane looked a lot like Diablo III in the sames ways. Underneath the familiar presentation Dragonkin does way more than enough things differently (and does a lot of things better) to stand firmly on its own without the surface level comparison.

The world of Dragonkin is one where dragon blood has corrupted everything, and you play as one of four dragon-hunters tasked with pushing back the draconic threat and ultimately taking down the Dragon Lords responsible. The setup is pretty straightforward fantasy fare and the story does not reinvent the wheel. As is always the case for me with these kinds of games, I don’t care about the story and generally only play through it once.

As per usual, Dragonkin offers up four distinct characters/classes to play with: the Tracker, the Barbarian, the Oracle, and the Knight. Each has their own abilities, combat style, grid layout and elemental identity. The Tracker plays nothing like the Knight, and the Oracle plays nothing like the Barbarian. Each character feels purpose built and fun in its own right, which means the replayability is baked right in. Four characters to level is four reasons to keep coming back well after your first playthrough is done and the endgame begins to feel repetitive. For my first playthrough, I went with Tracker and have loved it.

The gameplay feels great. Eko Software clearly understands that the core combat loop of an ARPG has to feel satisfying on a moment to moment basis or nothing else matters, and they essentially nailed it. Skills are powerful and punchy, enemies react to your abilities in a way that feels impactful, and the general feel of moving through a zone and clearing areas is satisfying enough that it keeps you going for one more zone, one more boss, one more hour. Visually the game holds up well too. The environments cover enough variety ( jungles, frozen landscapes, toxic swamps, ancient ruins, etc) to keep things from feeling monotonous, and the spell effects have a weight and spectacle to them that makes your character feel increasingly powerful.

But the thing that elevates Dragonkin above the crowded pack of Diablo-alikes is the Ancestral Grid, and it is not particularly close. The Ancestral Grid replaces the traditional node-based skill tree with a sort of puzzle system. Skills and support fragments drop from enemies as loot and are physically placed on a grid, with shapes and sizes that matter for how efficiently you can fit everything together. It sounds complicated but it clicks quickly, and once it does you realize you are looking at the most interesting character building system this genre has seen.

The reason it works is that it makes building feel like a genuine creative act rather than a chore. In most ARPGs, at least for me outside of initial playthroughs, you follow a guide, click the recommended nodes, and call it a day. It’s usually pretty brain-dead if you run the meta because someone else has already done the theory-crafting. The Ancestral Grid does not let you do that. At least not easily. You are making real decisions about how to use the space you have, which supports to prioritize, and how to stack Effective Power into the skills that matter most to your build. Connecting the right supports to your primary skill and watching it rank up into a higher tier feels like an accomplishment in a way that clicking a passive node never does. This is the best skill system in the genre. In this regard, the games blows Diablo and Path of Exile out of the water.

The quality of life features that Dragonkin brings to the genre deserve a mention too because they are excellent additions. The death log tells you exactly what killed you and how much damage each hit did, which sounds like a small thing until you die seemingly instantly and see in the log exactly which enemies where hitting you and how quickly you actually died. It’s a game changer for the genre. The real time (togglable) DPS counter visible during combat is the kind of feature that should be standard in every ARPG and somehow still is not. Dragonkin introducing both of these (to my knowledge) puts it ahead of games three times its budget in terms of giving the player the information they actually need.

The city of Montescail adds another layer to the experience and makes it different than most other games in the genre. It serves as your hub between missions and grows alongside your character as you progress through the game. As you earn City XP, you are making decisions about which buildings to upgrade and which services to unlock, and the city gradually expands into your customized base of operations with merchants, crafting options, and support services that feed directly back into your builds. It is not a deep city builder by any stretch (you are choosing upgrades rather than managing resources or placing structures) but it gives you something meaningful to invest in between hunts and makes returning to the hub feel purposeful rather than just a loading screen with extra steps.

The endgame hunts can be a bit repetitive. That’s par for the course in this genre now. It’s all about doing the same loop at higher difficulties. If you are coming to Dragonkin expecting anything different you are going to be disappointed. What saves it is the depth of the customization; with four characters to level and the near endless combinations available through the Ancestral Grid, there is always a new build to try or a new character to take through the content. The loop stays engaging because your character is always changing even when the content around them is familiar.

The Ancestral Grid alone is worth the price of admission for anyone who has ever wanted their ARPG character building to feel like more than just following directions. With four distinct characters, deep customization, and some of the best quality of life features in the genre, this one is going to keep me busy for a long time. If you’re a fan of Diablo-like or Exile-like games, then Dragonkin is definitely one you should have in your rotation.

Dragonkin: The Banished gets a four out of five: GREAT.