Developed by Frima Studio and published by Kalypso Media, Disciples: Liberation is a turn-based strategy with RPG elements that launched in November 2021. Since its initial release, the game received a variety of patches and hotfixes as well as the Paths to Madness DLC.
Liberation serves as the latest installment into the fan-favorite dark fantasy franchise, continuing the story of Nevendaar and its inhabitants, including Avyanna – the protagonist of the game. Avyanna, or Avy as her friends call her, is a nephilim and daughter of Angel Inoel and Demon Haarhus, characters that have made their appearances in the previous games of the series.
If you wonder what it’s like to work on a game that is supposed to continue the legacy of the famous franchise, consider checking out our developer interview with Frima Studio, where we chatted about the development of the game, some design decisions and more.
Those who have beaten the final boss and finished Disciples: Liberation, will unlock the so-called Liberation Mode, DI’s take on New Game+ mode. Before the game whisks you to watch the credits, Avyanna receives a vision from her mother, Angel Inoel, that lets her daughter know that all her sufferings and sacrifices were, in short, in vain.
A creature older and more cruel than the Highfather affected the way the events of the game turned out and, despite your best efforts, you played into its hand. Inoel’s way to fix this is to send Avyanna back in time, retaining some of her memories, to change your decisions and through it how this story ended.
And so you start the game again at Level 1, with your pretty average green gear.
Playing the game in the Liberation mode gives you a variety of bonuses: extra experience gain allowing you to reach the level cap of 80 without any trouble (especially if you have the Sovereign Shard of Nevendaar), new Liberation options in certain dialogues that give you +25 to all reputations which, in turn, lets you max your reputation with all factions and loot those pretty legendary armors from Yllian’s vaults, new storyline resulting in the secret mini-chapter and secret end boss and perhaps the most interesting… The removal of the cap on the number of companions.
The ability to take all your companions with you at once provides you with a wealth of extra dialogue around the game as well as ensures the player having a varied party with no real need for hired creatures, with the exception of the backline.
Altogether, Liberation Mode allows players to soften some of the game’s rougher edges, ensuring an especially pleasant playthrough.
Thanks to the extra-experience, you will find that your party levels up extremely fast. That fact allows you to make use of the game’s Conquest feature – automatically winning a battle where your forces overwhelm those of the enemy, minus quest encounters – that became nigh unavailable after Frima Studio rebalanced the game in one of the patches.
The fact that you can skip a lot of random battles that would otherwise eat up your time lets you concentrate on the game’s story instead of diving out of the 3-hour long spree of inconsequential battles and wondering “What did Tuchulkan want again?… Who even is Tuchulkan? Where am I?”
This improvement to the game’s overall pacing was the main winning point for me and the reason I finished the second playthrough of Disciples significantly faster than the first one, both in terms of days taken and the overall number of hours.
Of course, you still have a lot of battles to tackle and a lot of Backline animations to suffer through, even at 300% animation speed increase.
The ability to bring all 9 companions (counting Orion) ensured a diversified group of characters with their unique abilities but also gave an opportunity to get to know some of these characters better.
While the game always treated the companions as if they were always in your party, with them readily discussing things with you in Yllian, it felt nice to actually receive their comments and interjections in real time, as you play.
Even small things, like a demon from Barat Nor saying something like “Hey you, elf!” – and both Ormeriel and Melendrach eyeing each other warily, wondering which one it might be.
Of course, the most interesting thing is the addition of new dialogue options, spelling a new half-story. I cannot call it a new story completely, as you still go through the same locations – Grayleaf, Wotan’s Grave, Atellean, Heurik, etc. – and have largely the same choices, both in dialogues and actions.
Except this time it is heavily hinted, almost outright spelled, that Avyanna lived through countless versions of her life and that experience has given her new knowledge about her destiny and new dialogue choices.
With the extra reputation provided by these dialogue options, you might find some quests or even locations turning out much different than in your first playthrough. For example, in my first playthrough, the Empire forces would almost attack me on sight on the fields of Veranto’or due to my extremely negative relationship with the faction. This time, the meeting was civil, almost friendly.
Overall, on average you will have one or two of those Liberation choices per location. As you finish Veranto’or, it will be revealed that from this point on you have to choose the Liberation options whenever they pop up if you want to unlock the secret ending.
Besides hinting that the secret ending is the true start of the Epoch of Heathens, there is very little that differs it from the original non-secret endings besides a few lines of dialogue. However, the smoother experience of the New Game+ was well worth it anyway as it addressed almost all of the negative points I’ve mentioned in my original review of the game. The dragged on forever battles with a million ways to regenerate and heal remain an exception, even with the 300% animation speed added in a patch. However, Conquest takes care of most of those.
The Liberation Mode is really how Disciples: Liberation is meant to be played. It’s only a pity that it requires a full complete playthrough before you can enjoy it for all it is. But, as our protagonist would say, “Regret later. Act now!”
