Neocore Games studio has trusted Kickstarter to announce King Arthur: Knight’s Tale. Inspired by Darkest Dungeon and previous own work, we played the role of Mordred to star in a hunt against King Arthur. We have both killed each other but we are still alive. It is time to put an end to this hellish fight. We will have to recruit troops, rebuild our city, strengthen ourselves and fight to the end.
The Hungarian studio Neocore Games is known in our territory for its video games: Warhammer 40,000 Inquisitor , Deathtrap and those dedicated to Van Helsing, but between 2009 and 2012 they published several video games about King Arthur. In January 2012, he released King Arthur II: Dead Legions. In this title, part of the main theme of his new project was already dealt with: an old enemy of King Arthur was reborn to regain his power. Eight years later, Neocore Games changes the massive strategy of the armies of that game for one more similar to the turn-based combat of Baldur’s Gate 3. It dyes everything with a dark and gloomy patina, and decides to approach Darkest Dungeon in difficulty, in the way of recruiting new members andin the management of our base . To that mix he adds a couple of very interesting ideas: we can grow our kingdom, raise new buildings and constructions that improve the capabilities of our allies. We will also have to decide, a lot. Depending on the decisions we make, our friends may cease to be friends, new ramifications of history may open up, or everything may end badly. And we don’t want that to happen because if Mordred dies, the game will be over. In King Arthur: Knight’s Tale permadeath or perpetual death rules.
To find out more about this interesting title, how its different playable mechanisms are embedded, why the story will go and how its development progresses, we have been able to interview Neocore Games. The studio has decided to bet on Kickstarter for its announcement and subsequent launch, but not because they need the funding to launch the base game: “we thought it would be cool to try Kickstarter with our game. King Arthur: Knight’s Tale will come out yes or yes, but we wanted to tell with the community for its development and use the funds to make it a bigger and better project.” To this day, there are several elements of the game to be decided, but an early access version is already announced for the end of November and December this year. The base is already created. We will be Mordred. We will go through a map marked with milestones finding new enemies that we will have to defeat by fighting in turns and using strategy. We will return to our base to grow it, find new allies, upgrade their forces, heal them, and grow our settlement. Little by little, battle by battle, we will be closer to facing King Arthur , or whatever it is that he has become after dying.
One of the elements that are still to be determined, and that seem more promising to me, is whether they will use the undead condition of Mordred and King Arthur to introduce elements of rogue-like or rogue-lite : “We are studying how to rogue- elite we want to be, but we have not decided 100%. For now, if Mordred dies, it’s game over. But Mordred is very strong compared to the rest of his men. (…). ” That is, Mordred will be the pillar of the adventure. Around him will gather more and more warriors who can die, become ill or be seriously injured. We will have to be careful which ones we use and which ones we allow to rest so that they do not perish after each adventure. And there is the grace of this game, in choosing who accompanies us, especially during the combats: “some combinations of correct heroes can turn the gameplay upside down, and the decisions you make in relation to them can give access to both new stories like meeting new heroes. ” These warriors also have a value known as loyalty. “Each hero has a loyalty marker that represents his relationship with Mordred. Loyalty can be modified by our actions or what happens, causing some characters to turn against us.”
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale: A tough and intense fight
From our base, we will move through a map that looks similar in structure to King Arthur II: Dead Legions. It will be a world map full of points of interest that will have to be unlocked to advance. In them the story will unfold and the fighting will take place. In the trailer presentation they have seen these battles. They are a hybrid between RTS and turn-based RPG; In other words, the positioning, the strategy and how the terrain, the environment and the synergies work will be very important, both for and against. The pace of the game is calm and the tone of the adventure is dark, so a sense of high difficulty is transmitted and that mistakes are paid.
About the type of classes we can choose for our team and how they will improve, Neocore explained the following to me: “We are planning to add five classes (…). The important thing will be the teamwork that they will develop between them. They will earn experience points and skill level as they level up. Players will be able to choose their favorite branch within a talent tree and unlock new abilities. There will also be artifacts that will appear during missions that will equip them with more tricks for combat. All this will depend on the path that the player decides to take “.
But King Arthur: Knight’s Tale doesn’t stop here. Another of its playable possibilities lies in our base and morality when building and making decisions that affect our emerging empire. “Morality is a value with four branches, and how moral or amoral we are will affect both the improvements that can be accessed and the tone of the story, for example. (…) You can build temples, taverns and everything else. what you expect from such a mysterious place as Camelot. You can also upgrade these buildings and get upgrades for your soldiers. All this will also vary depending on your decisions.”
Neocore Games has a very interesting project on the table. In addition to the main campaign, which will last between 20 and 25 hours without counting on an “endgame that will be especially difficult and challenging”, they are also considering integrating PVP into the game. For now, the dark tale of King Arthur: Knight’s Tale will arrive on PC, but they do not rule out transferring it to consoles later. I asked them about a possible Switch version and they said it wasn’t planned, but they didn’t rule it out either.
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