King Arthur: Knight’s Taleasks the age-old question: What would happen if King Arthur and his mortal nemesis Sir Mordred were resurrected from the dead, along with a bunch of other Avalon residents, only for Arthur to be corrupted by nefarious powers? It’s a tale as old as time, and one I got to go hands-on with ahead of its impending launch on consoles.
It’s a game that received a lot of love when it was released on PC and one that I, admittedly, didn’t know too much about. However, after playing a few hours of Knight’s Tale, I can certainly see why it was so revered.
Despite being British, the story of King Arthur isn’t one I’m particularly familiar with and, thankfully, the giant departure from the source material meant I didn’t have to be. With a once-dead Arthur taken by evil forces, I stepped into the shoes of the typically evil, and also reanimated, Sir Mordred, destined to undertake The Lady of the Lake’s calling to stop the previously-beloved king.
I began my journey in Camelot, a grand castle, and, unlike many other games I’d played in the turn-based strategy genre, was set free to roam said castle, loot chests and discover the secrets it had in store for me. I was quickly confronted by Sir Kay and, after a short, turn-based duel, I was able to recruit him to my party and I set forth on my journey across Avalon.
With my newfound freedom to explore, I unlocked a range of missions across the land, each one combining exploration and looting with typical strategic combat. Each of these missions, whether main or side, felt like they had a purpose. They introduced me to new characters, allowed me to recruit new party members and, of course, furthered King Arthur: Knight’s Tale’s story. I thoroughly enjoyed the wealth of extra-curricular activities available within the game, as not only was I set free to complete missions, but was also tasked with rebuilding Camelot Castle. In doing so, I unlocked various utilities, including a merchant to buy new skills and weapons and a medic, to help my party recover from combat situations.
The combat itself, especially given the trepidation many have with console-based turn-based strategy games, was slick, fluid and extremely easy to pick up. The control scheme worked perfectly and the game’s UI was super-intuitive, never once leaving me feeling overwhelmed. Battle situations were multifaceted and surprisingly deep, with my party’s formation playing a role in how things played out. As combat started, I regularly had the opportunity to position different members of my team in different locales on the battlefield, allowing me to strategically gain an advantage depending on where I placed each class. I generally opted for a couple of ranged characters, one using a bow, the other magic, a heavy character and a more well-rounded melee character, each having their own arrays of skills and abilities. This was a technique which seemed to work well, with minimal casualties.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale takes a leaf out of the books of many harder strategy titles, with permadeath enabled giving an extra edge to combat and making sure I never played too recklessly. Party members each had two segments to their health bar, their HP and Vitality Points. The HP would regenerate after every mission and was akin to armor, however, once that was depleted, enemies started to deal damage to my Vitality Points. These are more critical to preserve as they are harder to recover, often requiring you to leave party members behind in Camelot to recuperate. Taking damage to your vitality also had the potential to cause serious injuries which resulted in debuffs. Again, these could also only be healed by leaving the injured party member in Camelot for a period of missions for them to shake it off.
Like all good games of this ilk, party composition was key to success and every character I unlocked had a sufficiently deep skill tree and a bunch of different weapon, armor and items slots which allowed me to customize them as I saw fit.
The biggest gripe I had with the game was that some missions ran long, likereallylong. I’m not the type of person who seeks instant gratification in video games, however, there were times I had to explore giant maps that contained multiple combat situations which lasted upwards of an hour. The contents of the missions were generally relevant to the game and its story, they just took too long to beat. This was further compounded by a lack of fast travel. I often found myself on one side of the game’s vast maps, with my only objective directly across the other side, leaving me to run across barren landscapes that I’d already cleared of foes and loot.
The voice acting and group dynamics were also, at times, a little bizarre. There was one character who flitted between an Australian, British and American accent mid-conversation and the tone of certain conversations often felt strange and forced. One of my party members was a devout Christian, while the other three were on the darker side of the alignment chart. However, our resident Christian failed to read the room and continued to harp on about their religious beliefs with no retort from those around her, making things feel awkward.
During my roughly seven-hour journey around Avalon, I had a blast. I visited a variety of locales, recruited a range of allies for my turn-based team, faced down the living and the dead and undertook a range of quests for the citizens of the land. It’s a game that won’t be for everybody, but forstrategy RPG/turn-based tactics fans, it’s one that should be given a chance.
