AFK Journey Review: Heroes, Guilds, and Gacha - Should You Invest Your Time?

AFK Journey by Lilith Games and published by Farlight Games released on March 27th, 2024 and since that time millions of players have hopped in between the PC and mobile version to get in on the ground floor of the next big gacha hero collector.  Previously, I touched on some early impressions from my time between PAX East and my experience with the early post-launch game. Now as I reach the end of the journey so far, it’s time to look back with a candid take on whether my time spent was worth it, and whether it will be worth it for you in the future.

AFK Journey is the direct sequel to the popular mobile only title AFK Arena which is known for its appealing heroes and hands-off approach to strategy gaming. AFK Journey has taken this formula and a gorgeous canvas art style and expanded into the world of pseudo-MMO, where you can now traverse a large story-driven world where you’ll meet up with other players, join guilds, combat world bosses, and compete against other players and guilds for exciting rewards.

AFK Journey manages to do a lot of things right with their wide array of game modes, and it all starts with a familiar feeling story, where you, as the protagonist, find yourself with a bout of amnesia. You’re later found to be Merlin, the most powerful mage in the land, and of course, you quickly assemble a team of fellow heroes to embark on a quest that builds a simplistic story that carries you through numerous chapters. There are points of the story that I found enjoyable, but so much of it played out between talking heads and not through cutscenes, which dissuaded me from expending the energy to watch through each conversation. Many of them were lengthy, simply due to the cadence of speech.

Most of the conversations were voice acted, but there just wasn’t as much impact as I would have liked, especially when compared to other games such as Honkai Star Rail which beautifully crafts an engaging story. Journey instead feels like a lot of the content is story