KickStarter King Arthur: Knight's Tale + Legion IX standalone expansion - dark fantasy turn-based tactical RPG from NeocoreGames

[Infinitron]

Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/neocore/king-arthur-knights-tale

https://www.kingarthurknightstale.com

Spoiler

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 is a Role-playing Tactical Game - a unique hybrid between turn-based tactical games (like X-Com) and traditional, character-centric RPGs.

Knight's Tale is a modern retelling of a classic Arthurian mythology story filtered through the dark fantasy tropes, a twist on the traditional tales of chivalry.

The story campaign puts a huge emphasis on moral choices, which have significant consequences in a rogue-lite structure, adding extra tension to the tactical and management decisions.

Spoiler

Control a small team of heroes and fight gruelling, but satisfying battles with a deeply engaging, tactical turn-based combat system.

• Diverse battle maps - Position yourself, avoid shieldwalls, flank your enemies. Use covers against archers, make use of the terrain, hide in the foliage, surprise your enemies!

• 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!

No one can face the nightmare alone - gather an army of loyal knights, settle disputes and forge your own path

• 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.

Forge your kingdom with steel and faith - restore the order and bring an end to the nightmare unleashed in Avalon

• Explore the land of nightmares - “King Arthur: Knight’s Tale” is an imaginative take on the aftermath of the Arthurian mythology, beginning where most tales end. After his last battle, where King Arthur suffered a lethal wound, he has been taken to the magical island of Avalon where he was supposed to gain immortality, but what happens when immortality means that he is simply unable to die?
• A terrible force in Avalon - The Once and Future King is now trapped in the realm of Avalon and his pain is slowly turning this magical place into a nightmare version of his own Britannia, populating the land with the familiar and the uncanny.

• Your kingdom in need - See the entirety of the land presented on a strategic map, observe all fiefdoms and secret corners, select your missions and explore various places. The people are suffering, the land is plagued by nightmares and the choice is yours: will you be savior or the scourge of this cursed realm?

• Camelot reborn - Management in “Knight’s Tale” focuses on rebuilding Camelot and expanding the mystical Stronghold with new buildings that each unlock various upgrades, and also offers different ways to heal up and manage the heroes of the Round Table.

Whatever you do, you will shape your legend, but all your choices will have severe consequences.

• Write your own tale of chivalry - Play as Sir Mordred, the former nemesis of King Arthur. Explore the mystical island of Avalon, venture on knightly quests and make decisions in various encounters where you'll need to make moral choices, as in most RPGs, which all have impact on the story and your Morality.
• The making of a monarch - The Morality Chart represents your general alignment as a ruler. Your status between Christianity and Old Faith, between Tyranny and Righteousness. Your choices affect values on this chart, influencing both gameplay and narrative.

• 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.

Witness the Arthurian legend like you never have before - rich in content and presented with the highest graphical fidelity to date.

• See the world and the countless legends it harbors - Complete more than 50 unique points of interest on the Adventure Map, including 20 story missions and various side quests, taking place on diverse terrains, from the dark castle dungeons to the forests of the Sídhe.
• Tackle them one by one - Challenge 7 enemy factions, fight more than 50 types of enemy units, overcome 10 incredible boss fights throughout your quests.

• A spectacular view - The production of "Knight's Tale" relies heavily on photoscanned environments and high-quality mocap animation, all rendered inside a modern PBR engine utilizing DirectX 12, supporting strong, atmospheric effects.

 

[Citizen]

Sorta cool, but neocore should have made another grand strategy/rpg hybrid, the first King Arthur game was fucking great

 

[Darth Roxor]

whoa

WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA

DONATING NAO

 

[Dodo1610]

During gameplay, you can see that everyone has as health and an armour bar...
Also, too much grim dark some colours wouldn't have hurt.

 

[Saerain]

 

[Q]

It needs co-op and environmental interaction.

 

[Kem0sabe]

the art style has a disciples vibe to it

 

[BarbequeMasta]

I like the art style. cant say much beside that until we see more.

 

[bec de corbin]

I liked the actual roleplaying stuff in their previous arthur games, and the ripoff total war combat was rudimentary and bad, so I'm pretty excited to see what they do with a King's Bounty kind of game.

 

[Renevent]

Art style is great, and personally glad they are going to more of a squad based RPG format. That said I understand if there's folks who would prefer it stayed grand strategy. Pledged $20, what the hell...also it looks like there zero SJW crap in it as well.

 

[Darkzone]

Too much grim dark if you would actually play King Arthur and now this is only a happy place for teen emos. Shit Why do all the developer have to go always over the top to go over the bord. It is a fucking simple formula:

 

[Sarathiour]

Sorta cool, but neocore should have made another grand strategy/rpg hybrid, the first King Arthur game was fucking great

Yeah, i thought it was the third of the series at first. Look like it's not a sequel to the story, but they seems to kept the same aesthetic.

Looking forward to it.

 

[Ninjerk]

It needs co-op and environmental interaction.

and twitch integration

 

[Sarathiour]

Woha, they want to release it in 2021 ? Seems like an awfully tight schedule.

 

[Renevent]

Woha, they want to release it in 2021 ? Seems like an awfully tight schedule.

Yeah I didn't notice that...very tight schedule. It does seem pretty far along though, thinking this is more a way to drum up support and get it noticed. While not a huge team, the idea all they need is $150k to finish the game is probably bullshit as well.

 

[Infinitron]

There were some press previews: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...k-fantasy-xcom-alike-king-arthur-knights-tale

The Van Helsing team unveils dark fantasy XCOM-alike King Arthur: Knight's Tale
You won't Avalon wait to play it.

I don't know why they didn't just call it Mordred. If you're going for a dark Arthurian vibe, why name it after a fluffy Heath Ledger film? Joust kidding. I'm sure there's a good reason. Maybe Heath's handsomeness didn't get as far as Hungary, and so we've got King Arthur: Knight's Tale instead.

It's the new game from a Hungarian studio called NeocoreGames, which you might know as the maker of the Van Helsing series of action RPGs, or Warhammer 40K Martyr, or, longer ago, the King Arthur series of games. But those Arthur games were different, quite Total Warry. This one, the new one, is more XCOM.

You play as Mordred, the famous baddie from the King Arthur tales. And true to form, it was you who killed King Arthur here. But he also killed you, so you both died and yet you both live. The Lady of the Lake kept you alive, and she wants you to end Arthur - who brought some kind of nightmare army to Avalon - for good. And you will fight his dark forces one turn-based, grid-based, tactical fight at a time.

You're not alone. You control Camelot, excitingly, which means you can call on the fabled Knights of the Round Table to join you in battle as well. You can upgrade Camelot too, via some kind of kingdom management layer, and rule the wider land, affecting a Tyranny/Righteousness gauge with every decision you make.

It's rather handsome, isn't it?

Your companions will watch you. They apparently have minds of their own and will react to your decisions as well as cause disputes and conflicts by themselves. They'll get injured and diseased, too, and they'll possibly die - and I mean permanently - so you'll have to juggle your starting line-up (sounds like Darkest Dungeon) and how they work together will be key (sounds like chemistry in FIFA Ultimate Team).

Knight's Tale is going to be heavy on story and role-playing, I'm told, and it sounds like there's a fairly full world to explore and lots of depth to plumb. And to be honest, it looks pretty good, judging by the short gameplay video I was shown while we chatted to the NeocoreGames team. A bit slow maybe, a bit sedate, but atmospheric and precisely the kind of strategical RPG I get giddy for.

King Arthur: Knight's Tale will also have a Kickstarter campaign, launching today. But don't panic. This isn't a case of 'here's an idea, pay us and we'll deliver it three years from now'; it's more of a 'we've made the game, we just want to get the word out and finish it to a higher standard' affair. It's similar to what Larian did with the Divinity: Original Sin games, if you remember, and they turned out alright didn't they?

"One thing I can say for sure is: the game will be made, absolutely," PR manager Gergely Vas told me in a Q&A after the presentation. "We [have been] working on it for more than a year and we have gameplay ready, and we are planning to release it early next year. The game will happen whatever happens on Kickstarter."

He added: "We want to try Kickstarter because we haven't tried it yet and we like experimenting, and we will see how it goes. Pretty much we are launching a Kickstarter to involve our community and with the funding we'd like to add some extra features to the game."

The base funding goal is pretty low: £115,000. There will be a beta version of the game released "sometime in November", when the Kickstarter campaign ends.

King Arthur: Knight's Tale is currently in development for PC, Steam specifically, "but next-gen consoles are also considered and will be implemented in the future, later on," said PR manager Patrik Csörnyei. The aim, as mentioned above, is an early 2021 release.

https://www.pcgamesn.com/king-arthur-knights-tale-kickstarter

XCOM meets a nightmarish Arthurian legend in King Arthur: Knight’s Tale

If you’ve ever sat there and thought, ‘The Arthurian legends are great and all, but what they’re missing is a touch of nightmarish horror that turns the promise of the ‘Once and Future King’ into a bleak hellscape’, then you’re in luck. King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a grim take on the legendary story that’s here to give you just that.

It’s the latest project from NeocoreGames, a Hungarian studio that has been making strategy/RPG hybrid experiences since 2009. One of the earliest games it made was the original King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame, published by Paradox Interactive. A sequel was made in 2012, but since then the studio has moved on to bigger and better things. Most recently it’s known for the action-RPG Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr.

Knight’s Tale marks a return to that dark, twisted vision of Arthurian fantasy where the company first made its mark. It’s not connected to the original King Arthur games, but it deals with the same subject matter and certain elements may feel familiar to anyone who remembers those previous titles in any detail.

Unlike the studio’s previous works, which have largely been real-time affairs, Knight’s Tale has decided to take a leaf from XCOM’s book. This is a turn-based strategy game which will feature small ‘squads’ of knights battling groups of monsters and other nightmarish creatures as you hunt for the missing King Arthur, who’s dead, apparently.

Your main character is actually Sir Mordred, the iconic villain of the Arthurian canon. The legend typically ends with Mordred dealing Arthur a mortal blow before being struck down in turn, with the hero himself being taken away to the isle of Avalon. In Knight’s Tale, something goes wrong: Mordred doesn’t actually die, and the land gets consumed by all kinds of horrors and demonic persons.

The Lady of the Lake, who doesn’t have any better idea of what’s going on than anyone else, tasks Mordred to go find King Arthur and finish what he started – the Once and Future King must die. For reals, this time.



There will be full RPG progression for a cast of over 30 diverse characters, many from the core myth’s expanded universe and some new inventions as well. Mordred will be able to recruit these knights to aid him on his quest, and they represent a key resource. Injuries will be long-lasting and take a while to heal, with permadeath offering a touch of roguelike to the proceedings. We imagine the game hopes to tap into that XCOM magic of developing groups of individuals, and the pain you feel when your best sniper dies, or your hero-medic.

Other talking points we can throw at you include:

• Five character classes
• 50 enemy types across seven factions
• 20 main story quests, with even more side-quests and ‘points of interest’
• A city management layer
• A branching narrative with several paths, ensuring no playthrough is the same
• Tactical maps with a strong focus on using the environment and traps
• ‘Endgame’ content for after the main campaign

Overall, some interesting things to unpick here, but as we were only given a presentation to work with, it’s all very ‘to be determined’ right now. It’s always good to see more tactical games enter the ring, though, and anything that uses XCOM as a starting point is already off to a decent start.



There’s one final thing to talk about: King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is going to launch on Kickstarter first. Today, in fact. It’s looking for $150,000 to help give the game one final push before release, although we’re told it’s largely complete and will get released regardless of whether the Kickstarter is successful or not.

King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is due to release early 2021 on PC via Steam, with further platforms being considered further down the line.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Too much grim dark

They are very clearly going for the aesthetic and feel of King Arthur 2, and it worked great there.

 

[Abu Antar]

I'll keep an eye on this, but I am hesitant to back.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The KS isn't exactly setting the world ablaze so far, but I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[bec de corbin]

Too much grim dark

They are very clearly going for the aesthetic and feel of King Arthur 2, and it worked great there.

KA2 was interesting, but held back by truly horrible performance and their continued inability to balance the RTS stuff. Even if doing Arthur as the fisher king is bullshit, they are different and that is pretty important dammit

(Though Excalibur also did that so it's not entirely Neocore's fault I guess)

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

 

[Haba]

The animations are so slow that it is almost comical.

But thank god for no(?) gender swapped knights.

 

[Darth Roxor]

also, closer analysis of the trailer reveals that this is, of course, fully deterministic

 

[Heroic Liberator]

also, closer analysis of the trailer reveals that this is, of course, fully deterministic

A game made for lukaszek.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG