14 DAY TRIAL // A land assaulted by darkness. Heroes need to band together to try and make things right. Tactical battles with squares, action points, and skills. A story that tries to use some classic mythological figures in new and surprising ways. This is the experience that the upcoming King Arthur: Knight’s Tale aims to deliver.
Based on the Early Access version of the title I can say that it is on track but has quite a bit further to go. Those who pick up the game right now will get to play two core missions and some side quests, while also engaging with other core systems.
Players become Mordred of Arthur mythology but with a new twist. The legendary king himself has become a threat to the land and needs to be taken down. Players need to do missions, gain more knight characters and develop their base in order to achieve this objective.
Inside a level, exploration is free and real-time. Once enemies make an appearance a grid, turn-based system is used. Each character has action points to either move or attack, there are special abilities, facing matters and points can be reserved to pull off a powerful move later on. Combat feels a little slow but solid, with meaningful choices despite the limited number of enemies featured.
Outside of missions gamers can engage in some base building and hero customization, in true role-playing fashion. Their choices will also determine their placement on a big alignment chart, offering them bonuses and more characters to work towards.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale looks good, even if it does not move as fast as I would want it to (there’s a major need for optimization). There’s a grim implacability to the design of the characters and the locations, appropriate for the tale the game is focused on. The user interface offers plenty of information, both in and out of battle. The presentation does suffer a little from wooden voice acting and music that, while fitting for the concept, is a little too subdued and repetitive.
Conclusion
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is both developed and published by Neocore Games. The current plan is to keep it in Early Access for at least 3 more months, getting feedback from fans, and adding new content and mechanics. At the moment the whole experience looks solid and it will be interesting to see how the team ensures that it does not become repetitive.
