Indie Urtuk: The Desolation - open-world dark fantasy turn-based RPG

[cvv]

Looked around for a good tactical RPG and this popped out as a new release. Twenty bucks, why the fuck not.

Played for about 2 hours, so far it's a blast. A very good mix of Darkest Dungeon and Blackguards, two games I love. The UI is rough, game is made by like 4 people only, but otherwise the artstyle is pretty and everything is nice and polished.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Looked around for a good tactical RPG and this popped out as a new release. Twenty bucks, why the fuck not.

Played for about 2 hours, so far it's a blast. A very good mix of Darkest Dungeon and Blackguards, two games I love. The UI is rough, game is made by like 4 people only, but otherwise the artstyle is pretty and everything is nice and polished.

Don't neglect armor piercing in your party composition/mutators, third and fourth area are more than brutal on higher difficulties.

 

[Abu Antar]

All Events > Urtuk: The Desolation Events >
Free DLC available now!
I am pleased to announce that Urtuk gets a free DLC content!

Hello all!

After some time, and no updates in several months, I am really pleased that Urtuk is now getting a new content in the free DLC!
We have worked on it for some time now, so sorry for not posting any updates during that time.

new faction - The Shattered
new biome the Obsidian
30 minutes of new music
new events, items, objectives, boss maps, game mechanics, and steam achievements
lots of improvements, balances and fixes
.. you can read all the changes and additions in the changelog located in the steam forum.

The new Shattered event is present already in first zone, and you will encounter them quite quickly!
I don't want to spoil the story behind them, so it's up to you to discover more.
However, after fulfilling a special event, you can even unlock them as playable faction!

Please note that the DLC content has been
integrated directly into base game
, so you don't have to do anything to get this update! Just make sure steam is automatically updating Urtuk.
Unfortunately, with this major update, your saves won't be backwards compatible (sorry!).
The version of Urtuk with the DLC integrated is
1.0.0+81.

With this special day we will be also running a 20% discount for several days!

I hope you'll enjoy the content, and please make sure you'll give us feedback on the new stuff, so we can improve it further! (Best place is steam forum or our discord)

David

 

[vazha]

I am ashamed to say, but I couldn't get into this, much as I tried. Cant really pinpoint what it was, just couldn't really be arsed to.

Wanted & expected something like Battle Brothers when I gave it a go, and that probably skewed my view a bit too.

 

[flabbyjack]

It suffers from being repetitive, a lot.

It's repetative? Like, it repeats, a lot? The same thing? Again? Over and over? Multiple times?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I'm liking musics.

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, better late than never, i didn't want to leave a bad review during their official launch, even if it probably would have little impact on their sales since i had fun with the early beta versions.

Review:

Urtuk is a tactical sandbox, the combat is extremely tactical and it seduced me in about 30 seconds, all the ingredients are here to make a great tactical game, the greatest even.
You can push your opponents onto walls to stun them, from higher grounds to damage them, into deadly pits or spiked barricades for insta-kill.
You can lay traps, terraform to create higher or lower grounds, shoot them from afar, poison your enemies, immobilize them, stun them, get extra attacks against some enemies (depending on your unit's class and traits), sneak attack, get critical strikes, get damage bonus by attacking from higher ground, use choke-points and traps to your advantage, use a lot of different skills to reduce your enemies to a puddle of blood and bones...
It's really fun!

Character development is also unique, on top of regular attributes, and unlockable class traits, you can use mutators from fallen enemies to get extra traits, like poisonous strike or health regeneration each time an enemy gets killed, sure crit against stunned targets and so on.
You can also absorb a limited number of these mutators, making room for some more and increase traits power.

Units all have their specialties and different ways to be usefull.
The priest casting protection or regeneration as the expense of his own health and depending enemies gruesome death to regenerate his own health.
The Guardian can push enemies away and protect allies with his shield.
The Berserker is specialized in piercing armor and hitting a lot (too much for his own good fatigue pool though)
The Bloodknight is specialized in incredibly high damage with the right perks/traits.
The Hunter lays traps and has high ranged piercing damage.
The javelin thrower can shoot over friendly units, making him a great ranged support...

You can also unlock different factions, Vampires, Beasts, Forsaken, et.
There special champions to fight and recruit after a really tough battle, a boss on every region.
The itemization is good, with some interesting uniques and relics.
Gathering relics will have related factions send mercenaries after you as long as you keep them, and they keep getting stronger.
There is village and fortress sieges, you can also wait for some enemies in there once you've claimed them.

That's for the positive, if you play it for 20-40 hours, you'll probably get a blast and there's that.
On the other hand, it gets real repetitive after some time, depending on your interest and you tolerance.
The exploration is limited at best, one of the weakest point as you'll travel on a worldmap made of nodes with a fog of war.
Another weak point is the quest design, which is really basic, you'll get some hints like "villagers enslaved by beasts" or blacksmith captured by X.

Now for the worst mechanics.
The balance is constantly adjusted, early one was tough but fair but since the most early beta, they constantly tweaked without finding a similar tough but fair balance, it only got worse.
Level scaling is off the charts so after a while, you'll know if you levelled too much because not only you'll face 20-30 enemies with your 6 units or more with allies but they'll be 10 level ahead of you.
Not only you don't have control over friendly NPC most of the time (sometimes you do) but they'll lack the traits you and your enemies have and will be mostly way weaker if not useless.
While you'll bring one or two tank/protectors units, in some layouts, your enemies will have gather a crowd protected from all sides by 5-10 units.
Your NPC allies will throw themselves at stronger enemies and get wrecked, spoiling your future quest rewards.
Having 6 units agains legions, fatigue impacts you way more than your opponents.

TLDR
Great tactical combat with interesting character development mechanics and ... that's it, nothing more, exploration and quests are nothing to write home about.
They ruined the balance for my taste trying to tweak it a million times with each micro update way before the official launch.
Also, i think the game didn't need more regions/factions but rather a better exploration and quest system, a bit work with NPC and and allies AI and builds.
Great for a short incomplete run if that's what you're used to, very grindy otherwise.

Well, they have 91% positive reviews on steam so don't listen to my ramblings too much.

 

[Riel]

There's a flash deal at GOG if you are so inclined, just under 12€.

 

[Haba]

Grabbed the game, positive initial impression.

Spent too much time on the first map... now every fight on the 2nd map has "hard" rating and is a serious chore to get through. Why, oh god. Why?

 

[Darth Canoli]

Grabbed the game, positive initial impression.

Spent too much time on the first map... now every fight on the 2nd map has "hard" rating and is a serious chore to get through. Why, oh god. Why?

Swamp monsters should be easy to dispatch, going through the game is pretty much cracking the right combination of mutators on the right guys and then evolve them.
When you start to get how things work, a restart is mandatory, it's one of these games.

 

[Riel]

How many levels does this game have? I got to the Swamp and abandoned the game because it was too repetitive. I think I levelled too much in the first map too. I had a javalineer that regularly killed 5+ guys every battle, an assassin with delirium and Strong vs Armor, the guy didn't even need to backstab to kill stuff... he used to be a glass cannon but then I got a legendary mutator that increased his hit points by 80%.... the rest of people were pretty strong too, but those two were hilarious to watch, for a time.

 

[Haba]

How many levels does this game have? I got to the Swamp and abandoned the game because it was too repetitive.

Four.

 

[Darth Canoli]

How many levels does this game have? I got to the Swamp and abandoned the game because it was too repetitive. I think I levelled too much in the first map too. I had a javalineer that regularly killed 5+ guys every battle, an assassin with delirium and Strong vs Armor, the guy didn't even need to backstab to kill stuff... he used to be a glass cannon but then I got a legendary mutator that increased his hit points by 80%.... the rest of people were pretty strong too, but those two were hilarious to watch, for a time.

Yes, it is repetitive, there's some nice features like the bounty hunters and the legendary mercs you can recruit but the simplistic "quest" system and bland exploration makes the game way too repetitive.
This and too much grinding to upgrade feats and mutators.

Earlier versions sent overlevelled kawla monsters after you after 20 or 30 days so you had to either move on or try your luck and hope for good maps with choke points...

The combat system and character development deserves better exploration and quest design.
You could make a great RPG or tactical RPG out of it but I doubt it's going to happen.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I have fun with it.

 

[Eyestabber]

This game is pretty good. It's giving me that Blackguards fix so many other titles (including BG2) failed horribly to provide. Will post impressions/pseudo review once im on my desktop again.

 

[Barbarian]

I will probably try this out. Is it full sandbox or does it have something akin to an endgame scenario? The premise is about the "main character" finding a cure after all.

 

[Grunker]

I will probably try this out. Is it full sandbox or does it have something akin to an endgame scenario? The premise is about the "main character" finding a cure after all.

It's not a sandbox. The structure is sort of like a modern Roguelike a la Slay the Spire. You're here for the awesome progression and even more awesome combat. Everything else is whatever.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I've enjoyed it. Played it on and off over the years. Seriously entertaining.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Decided to check if the developer of this was making an another game.
Found this.

 

[Abu Antar]

Might as well call it Malaka.