Citadel Forged with Fire is the new MMORPG coming to Xbox One that gives us virtually unlimited hours of gameplay as we explore and create our own story in the fantastic world of Ignis.

Citadel: Forged with Fire on the Xbox One doesn’t get off to the best of starts, throwing you in at the deep end with nothing to cling onto. The tutorial does a terrible job of explaining anything, even causing you to re-assign many of the buttons on the controller. But it’s worth sticking with. Figure out what you’re supposed to do and the game becomes a delightful sandbox for you to become the mage you were born to be.

Citadel: Forged with Fire comes to market with an interesting magic system, but with a final result that does not differ from other games of the genre.

There’s clearly a lot of time and effort that has been put in to Citadel: Forged with Fire. An impressive amount of detail has gone into the systems and world and for those who get into the swing of things, this will likely hold their attention for quite some time. Unfortunately, the gathering and combat is tedious, the UI and control scheme is maddeningly unhelpful and to achieve anything noteworthy takes far, far too long.

Citadel: Forged with Fire is a good game, but needs more polish.

I didn’t mind Citadel. It was the first of its style that I have ever actually played. I now realize the open world sandbox “do whatever you want” kind of games are not really for me, but I can easily see fans of this genre can have some fun here even with the shallow quest system, some clunky controls and the technical issues.

There is potentially a fun game underneath, but Citadel: Forged with Fire is mired in a relentless time-draining loop of meaningless activity.