If you are in the mood to play Skyrim or the recent Oblivion remaster, but you don’t want to play a Microsoft-backed game for, oh, any number of reasons, the word on the grapevine is that open world RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is pretty decent. We don’t have a review as yet, but Khee Hoon Chan called Questline’s previous Tainted Grail: Conquest one of the best games you missed in 2021, and The Fall Of Avalon is currently humming along with an Overwhelmingly Positive Steam user consensus as it prepares to leave early access today. The Steam page also harbours a demo, plus the below, moderately thunderous trailer’s worth of first-person spellcraft, shattered cosmic castles and fishing mechanics.
The Fall Of Avalon is set in another dark reimagining of Arthurian myth, one less abundant in beauty influencers than Tides Of Annihilation. It takes place about 600 years after King Arthur’s fall, in a realm of “unending strife” and plague that is divided into three zones.
The game is said to span 50-70 hours, with over 200 sidequests and an assortment of miscellaneous activities such as decorating your house, farming and “sketchbook journaling”. I sincerely hope that last one is a fully fleshed-out illustration subgame, or at least some kind of fantasy photography mechanic. We need more virtual idylls like Eastshade.
but you don’t want to play a *Microsoft-undermined game,
Tech corporations (especially US ones) that big don’t back anything, they enclose markets, buy the innovative companies and undermine the industry until they can force a meager profit out of the industry even though they are selling crap.
Exhibit A: Gamepass
I will not be a part of the Spotify-cation of the video games industry, for that is one of the things that killed my love for producing music.
You do you but Game Pass is awesome and the value is unmatched.
Why do you think it is that way right now?
What part of the progression to the end stage of Spotify do you think we are at?
Maybe the stage where they give you a bunch of stuff in an unsustainable firehose because it is meant to destabilize the industry and decisively put Microsoft between gamers and video game developers so they can charge both more rent once there aren’t any popular alternatives left?
I know that someone like you with your attitude will just say “whatever bro, it is what it is” and frankly I don’t want to live that way because nobody can live that way forever.
To be clear, Gamepass itself is a totally fine concept, but if you choose to remain ignorant of the context Gamepass is being used in that is your problem and honestly people are going to remember you didn’t care, especially video game developers.
I find massive value in the service so I subscribe to it. When I don’t I won’t. It’s not the deep “bro”. Maybe Microsoft does have some underlying motive to reshape the gaming industry but I’m not going to think about it that hard. Also things change and it’s ok. Apple started the digital music movement BTW and I’m not an artist so that is theirs and the labels deal to negotiate. Spotify is great value too FYI.
It’s not the deep “bro”. Maybe Microsoft does have some underlying motive to reshape the gaming industry but I’m not going to think about it that hard.
I know you don’t want to, that was obvious from our initial interaction which is precisely why I am taking the time to try to get you to think about it harder or at least point out to others the folly in your shallowness.
Plenty of other things in my life that require that attention over a video game service.
That is perfectly ok, you don’t have to tackle the world by yourself, thank you for providing me the public opportunity to show why you are so critically incorrect in your approach to things you love so the rest of us can evolve together :)
Just because we are leaving you in the dust doesn’t mean we won’t care for you, but my oh my you are taking out a big future debt on your soul by going through your life with an attitude like this.
Me and 34 million other people, thanks for having our backs!
You sure are spending plenty of attention on defending that you don’t have attention to spend on this. We all vote with our wallets. There’s no opting out.
Just wait for the enshitication. Once they have a stranglehold on the gaming industry, that’s when the prices go up and the benefits go down.
Nobody is forcing anyone to subscribe.
It doesn’t make a difference. They’ll enshitify that service to hell whether you subscribe or you don’t.
Amazing how I’ve been hearing the same thing since the service released 8 years ago. Will it eventually get shitty? Probably. But in the meantime it’s a phenomenal value.
Step 1: get lots of subscribers Step 2: enshitify
It took them 8 years of trying to get to step 1.
They hit 10 million subs 5 years ago. Not sure what your definition of “lots” is…
Then you guys should stop wasting your time.
My friend, this is why Lemmy exists.
They said that about steam and look at us now.
It’s people flocking to it until it’s the only place to release games that is gonna force you.
People use something out of value and/or convenience. It taking over is just the effect of that. It’s capitalism not some underlying motive from the corporation. Of course a business wants their product to succeed.
Can we exploit the shit out of the game within the first 10 minutes? Because that’s one of the most important aspects of bethesda games
Its strange to me that there are so many high budget open world games that fall within the assassin’s creed / far cry / GTA triangle and yet it seems like nobody tried to copy the Bethesda open world formula given the enormous popularity of Skyrim.
I mean, part of that popularity is the modding community (and also re-releasing it a dozen times). It’s not like Elder Scrolls has the best gameplay around. Always been a bit clunky. Narrative is hit or miss, but the lore and worldbuilding is what saves it, along with some great environmental storytelling.
But in general, Bethesda games live and die based on how strong the modding scene is. It’s why a fair portion of people are still playing Skyrim and Fallout 4 instead of Starfield. It has its mods, but the community isn’t as interested in it as they are the others.
That said, I’d say Breath of the Wild has some classic Elder Scrolls moments. The world has a lot of “hey, what’s that over there? Oooh, new unmarked side quest/cool thing to do!” experiences.
It can be a difficult thing to replicate.
The music of this game and the previous one is really good
How many towns can I build?
With a name like that I half expected a Monty Python themed game.
I mean, Arthurian legend/the quest for the grail has been around for like a long time before Monty Python.
Well yes, the story of Arthur goes back centuries, that’s where they got the idea from for the movie. It’s just that to me “Tainted Grail” sounded like something right up their alley.
The fractured but whole.
Oh, that kind of taint. Having played the game instead thinking about it in the corrupted sense
Ya just my silly mind at work and I thought it was a little humorous at least, even if no one else did.
No, you’re all good, just my brain being one track
Apparently mine is on the other track lol
The leveling curve on this game is pretty rough, making it tough early on, but damn if it ain’t a great first person RPG.
