Developer Neocore Games (Warhammer 40k: Inquisitor, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing) announced a new project. Called King Arthur: Knight’s Tale, it has started its Kickstarter campaign, seeking to raise $150k with over $30k already pledged and 29 days still to go.
The team describes King Arthur: Knight’s Tale as a Role-playing Tactical Game – a unique hybrid between turn-based tactical games (like X-Com) and traditional, character-centric RPGs. The game is a modern retelling of a classic Arthurian mythology story filtered through the dark fantasy tropes, a twist on the traditional tales of chivalry. Players will have moral choices to make which will have significant consequences.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale Story:
You are Sir Mordred, the nemesis of King Arthur, the former black knight of the grim tales. You killed King Arthur, but with his dying breath, he struck you down. You both died – and yet, you both live.
The Lady of the Lake, the ruler of the mystical island of Avalon brought you back to end a true nightmare. She wants you to go on a knightly quest. She wants you to finish what you have begun. Kill King Arthur – or whatever he has become after she took his dying vessel to Avalon.
King Arthur: Knight’s Tale Features:
Combat:
- Control the battleground – Scouting ahead is important as your enemies could be hiding as well. Use traps, lure and avoid enemy combatants until you can strike safely.
- Team tactics – Choose from more than 30 heroes of 5 diverse classes to assemble an efficient team. Combine hundreds of skills and artifacts, but be careful. One misstep and your heroes could be maimed, or worse, killed permanently.
- Learn about your enemies – Opposing forces and mythical creatures will try to challenge you at every step. Pay attention to their weaknesses and strengths!
Characters:
- The Round Table reborn – Gather your own Knights of the Round Table and send them on knightly quests. In “Knight’s Tale” these heroes are the most important resources and the most complex gameplay elements at the same time.
- Complex RPG-like characters – The character progression system is designed to be as deep as in the traditional RPGs: heroes level upon unique skill trees and the complex loot system provides unique options to fine-tune their tactical capabilities.
- Death is always final – Beware! Heroes can die during missions and the treatment of their injuries, curses, diseases takes time. You must manage them at the Round Table accordingly, planning ahead before going into battles. As heroes take time off between consequent missions, management of their injuries and selecting their substitutes are essential components of gameplay.
- A question of loyalty – Each hero has a distinctive personality. Settle disputes and grant favors to convince various knights to remain loyal to you. Some of them will observe your decisions closely, and some knights will even have conflicts with each other. It is your job to select heroes that are the best fit for your goals (and each other) at the Round Table. The heroes’ loyalty is constantly changing through the decisions made by the player – in certain cases they can ever leave the Round Table and turn against you.
Decisions:
- The weight of decisions – Reloading is not an option in Knight’s Tale – as you make your tough choices, the fun comes from dealing with severe consequences. Based on your decisions, every playthrough can unfold differently, branching in unexpected ways in a non-linear fashion. Planning and choosing differently will result in vastly different playthroughs: your legend is shaped by every action you take.
- The end is only the beginning – The end of the campaign opens up new endgame content for the bravest of all: tough new challenges appear on the map with challenging, mythic bossfights and random quests, loot, and character progression ultimately leading to the banishing of Balor, the monstrous god-king of the Fomorians himself.
