Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is like a smaller Skyrim, just better in telling the story
Got your hopes up for Chernobylite 2? This could go either way, but there's another AA Eurojank RPG on the horizon. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a kind of „little Skyrim,” which may turn out to have a great story.
Honestly, at the beginning, I didn't give this game much attention. The world of Twisted Grail started as an elaborate combination of board game and RPG with slightly wild mechanics and a brilliant narrative (strongly recommended in a four-person party) – and I wasn't sure if it would work in the mini-Elder Scrolls formula. Awaken Realms' first approach to video games, namely Tainted Grail: Conquest, was a tactical RPG with traces of the board game's DNA, and as such it mainly appealed to its fans.
The Fall of Avalon is aiming higher, but the first screenshots suggested a genre that might have already become a bit stale for a certain group of players – including myself. It looked like just another FPV dungeon crawler or a budget Skyrim-like. And you know what? This *is* a budget Skyrim-like – only one with heart and soul. One that, despite some clear limitations, already does many things really well in Early Access.
The Fall of Avalon
As you might have guessed, I know this lore – I played the Fall of Avalon board game campaign with friends. Despite the combat mechanics sometimes causing dizziness, the lore and nonlinear, extensive plot encouraged multiple playthroughs and felt enchanting. I can, however, immerse myself in this world deeper than someone new to it. Interestingly, I always saw potential for an action-RPG strongly related to the Souls series in this setting.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
Corrupt Celtic myths and Arthurian legends were practically begging to get oblique and demanding video games, preferably with spectacular, 3-rd person combat, exactly as I imagined it. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is closer to Elder Scrolls or even Avowed than to Dark Souls, but maybe that's for the better – Soulslike games mushroomed lately, even your dog is probably programming the successor of Khazan: The First Berserker when you're looking the other way.
Since The Fall of Avalon is quite gloomy (though not short on humor), let's get the nasty stuff out of the way first. It's clear the publisher had to persuade the studio to make compromises in order to meet the budget. For instance, all camps, settlements, and hubs seem pretty deserted, even for a post-apo fantasy where aliens are known to wipe entire communities out. Often, there aren't enough guards, warriors, or just regular people make this world credible. Character models, particularly facial animations, are underwhelming and evocative of the previous console generation (and occasionally even the PS3 era). They're moderately well animated, but unremarkable. If your roomie is playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 (first-person RPG with sword swinging) in the room next door, you can feel the difference particularly strongly.
You also need to be aware that this game exemplifies a very old-school approach to design and, however beautiful, encouraging to explore, and ultimately rewarding the world is – you will not be able to perform feats from Morrowind or Skyrim, games that provide so much room for creating your own story or weaving emergent narratives. The world, of course, leaves a lot of basic interaction points known since the times of Gothic and Elder Scrolls like places to sleep, craft, and a multitude of everyday items, but it seems that – for better or worse – the narrative written by Awaken Realms is what matters most.
Of course, don't expect everything to run perfectly, at least for now. Considering the complexity level of the project, Tainted Grail maintains decent stability, but you may stumble upon a bug that will crash the game (it happened once) or cause HUD to freeze (twice), but generally – you can play quite smoothly. I don't foresee traumas like after Chernobylite 2.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
Too quick day and night cycle is also a bit annoying – a day here may last like half an hour, maybe less – generally too short. Of course, the onset of night somewhat intensifies the survival atmosphere (Avalon is haunted at night by a mysterious force called the Oddity), but despite all, this disrupts the rhythm of gameplay.
And one thing is absolutely missing – third-person view. TPP would probably bury the budget with additional animations and it would be harder to resort to tricks to increase performance, but the game, its landscapes, and this land – are just begging for it. Seriously, at times we come across truly Souls-like sceneries that are begging for a contemplative, cinematic TPP view. Just check the photo mode screenshot. Hopefully, the game will get such an option after release or, as with the first Kingdom Come, the modders will get to work. Enough complaining; let's focus on the game's positives, and there are many.
We have Johnny Silverhand at home... I mean, in Avalon
The Fall of Avalon takes us to the titular island. We arrive as a fugitive from Asylum, where a group of scarlet-clad priest-medics quarantine those sick with incurable plague. Even though the disease did affect us, we try to escape and in the course of action, fate imbues us with the soul of... King Arthur. Well, a fragment of his soul. The legendary monarch, powerful and just, may be the key to mysteries and solving the problems that, you know, plague the land. Having this passenger shields us from the plague's influence, but hints suggest this "cure" might be a bigger issue than expected. Not that the king would even ask for our permission.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
This prologue evoked certain vibes of Cyberpunk 2077 – a legendary, uninvited guest living in our head. Johnny Silverhand was with us throughout the journey in Night City, oftentimes making his presence felt. King Arthur speaks sporadically and only at key moments, and sometimes appears when we light a souls-like fire to level up, cook something and sleep for a few hours. Thanks to him, our anonymous exile and ex-prisoner, created from scratch in character builder, gains some abilities, but the spirit remains lost – perhaps even worse, as his soul was inexplicably fragmented. The game indeed suggests that the reason was serious, although Arthur seems quite a nice, if somewhat naive, guy.
In the plot setup, there's a strong Scrolls vibe: we begin as a prisoner, stumble upon destiny that sets us free, and then rush through the game, saving the world. So it's like a garden-variety story, like it we've already seen it a million times, but not really.
The story matters – especially such this one
Firstly, this game is very well written. The love poured even to minor characters should make Bethesda blush. Thanks to the way both ordinary people and magicians or supernatural beings were invented here – we won't be bored. Every named NPC in this game is a distinctive character with their own goals, needs, and quite extensive opinions on burning, current matters. And in this world, a lot is burning. There's warring factions, the upcoming visit of the not-so-gentle Knights of the Round Table, a creature haunting the land at nights, making travel unsafe, and on top of that poverty, bandits, and regular monsters – something is definitely rotten in the state of Avalon.
...But despite this, many characters keep their humor – the devs from Awaken Realms approached the creation of NPCs very creatively and made sure that even small, scripted and linear quests would create the impression of dealing with a living and bustling world. Side quests often turn out to be linear, with one correct solution, but they make up for it with creativity, plot twists, and fun self-awareness. As concerns side quests, one about a soldier who gets drunk in the tavern and needs us to recover his papers really got me. The second gem that stuck with me was a chance encounter with a thief goddess at the bottom of a cave. The prankster, experienced content with her fate, shares her power with us if we steal a trifle, just because she likes us. And these situations are just the background, we can skip them if we're not interested in exploring.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
In the main storyline tasks, we face serious choices and oddities, such as the plot involving a necromancer and his servant. I just feel that the lack of money for directing bombshell scenes and cinematically animated dialogues was made up for with flashes of genuine creative joy and some great writing. Because of this, tasks that seem like just another mundane quest to tick off – develop in an unpredictable and surprising way.
Even the main quests that tie everything together and form story arcs usually contain a twist, and the dilemmas we face can have different gravity. They can be simple, like solving a problem with violence or peace, or complex, involving socio-political gray areas where decisions are less clear-cut. The further into the forest, the thicker it gets, at least in the first act, which is available in Early Access.
Even if the developers take the easy way out in design sometimes, we're at least allowed to play very different reactions to the encountered situations in quite lively lines of dialogue – this helps to build our character and empathize with it. Tainted Grail also gives us plenty of role-playing tools. I offended one NPC during a medical discussion so profoundly that I messed up the whole task.
Somewhat annoying day and night system aside, the content was well-distributed across the map, and the designers did a good job embedding the quests in the environment.
With fire, sword, magic and some crafting
The mechanics pretty much offer "the best of" genre's math-based solutions, and despite not bringing anything new to the table, they reinforce the freedom (even though this freedom always heads towards confrontation with the plot more than in Elder Scrolls). Crafting is classic, maybe even a bit archaic, but it works. We search for recipes to make armors, talismans, or soup, or we improvise with a few ingredients, sometimes ending up with a great meal, other times something barely edible. We can also enhance equipment and brew potions in quantities. These will be useful, as combat is the backbone of the gameplay.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
Until I got some decent iron and scored a few character points, I wasn't a fan of this system, above all the feeling of battles. After an hour or two of playing Tainted Grail, these animations, sounds, and pace – less spectacular and polished than in competition – can really grow on you. Responsiveness is spot on; swinging a two-handed sword to drain enemy's stamina and then finishing them off with a single hit feels really satisfying. This is my usual play style, though – using a one-handed weapon (slashing, stabbing, or blunt) with a shield or spell support works equally effectively.
Using a bow can help weaken groups of enemies and draw out single fighters, even if it's not our main specialization. The character development is flexible, allowing you to create a hero who specializes in one or two areas, but can also use other tools creatively to solve problems, thanks to the freedom the game offers.
In combat, we use quick or heavy attacks, blocks, and jump-based combos. Positioning, dodging, and stamina management are crucial, and we occasionally use a special acceleration skill. It's generally dynamic and demanding, especially at first, and just a few bullets can end us. However, with some skill and planning, we can succeed even where we might not have expected to. However, the dynamics change to a style resembling Gothic when we start investing in our character, getting better equipment and improving statistics (crafting also won't hurt).
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
Rest assured – there's no level scaling. If we go too far – we will most likely get a beating or have to really fight for every inch of survival. Of course, the game allows, and even encourages, to play it – whether it's cheesing or creating OP builds (you can find a perk in the skill tree that grants 2% bonus to damage for each kg of weapon weight, with some weapons weighing 100kg or more). We can also exploit AI's weaknesses by skirting enemy aggro zones. In a slightly different title, all of this could be considered a flaw, but in this setting it's more like a genre feature. The designers challenges us, pushing us to strategize system-wide, even at the risk of cheesing. It works, entertains, gives satisfaction. Just like in Gothic.
Character development itself is classic, clear and it simply works. This is a combination of spending points on skill trees and core stats, leveling up skills that we actually use. The latter offers bonuses for using your favorite gear, while leveling up grants XP.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
Since Tainted Grail is not plagued by the nightmare of level scaling, we won't find ourselves in a dead end, hopping like rabbits across the map or cooking pea soup all day long. Can we end up as demigods? Probably so, but at the early access stage, I simply didn't feel the game punished stubbornness or inventiveness. So much, and so little at the same time. Monsters respawn after a wild night, providing plenty to hunt after dusk, though we often become the hunted. This allows us to train many skills, if we have the time and inclination.
The diversity of opponents at this stage seems sufficient. Thugs, bandits, undead, drowners, wild animals, ghosts, and creatures from Celtic folklore all appear here, each with in a few variants. Even when I was overwhelmed and needing to reload the game a few times, the encounters felt fair and enjoyable. Naturally, if we stay in one sector for too long, a slight monotony may creep in, but generally it's not bad. And although opponents aren't always the sharpest teeth in the muzzle, they can surprise us in a group, so we won't run out of adrenaline surges.
Dangerous, but beautiful island
What fascinated me the most was the environmental narration and location design. The designers, despite operating on a modest engine, created atmospheric landscapes and elegantly developed a story about a tormented land, subtly hinting the horrors that took place there. Other locations build mystery. When exploring open spaces and dungeons many hidden secrets await us, offering useful weapons, small tasks, or refreshing altars.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
There are many attractions, each rewarding exploration, and the enthusiasm is tangible and contagious. I enjoyed both the main storyline and exploration, with everything packed so well that it never felt empty or monotonous. Initially, some open spaces seemed kind of empty, but that changes over time, possibly to depict the emptiness of the Celtic coast. Even the location from the prologue contains a few secrets worth exploring.
The shortcomings of Tainted Grail's technology are compensated by an atmosphere that's as dense as the mists of Avalon, as you might tell by now. Creatures evoking the Arthurian bestiary, and the conflicts, customs, or magic often draw inspiration from myths and legends. I bet a bar of dark chocolate that the chilled NPC I met on a small island near the first city is the Fisher King. Of course, there are more delicacies here that developers use to create cultural clashes and dilemmas.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, Awaken Realms, 2025.
The mood is also boosted by the music, especially the main menu track – it offers a mix of adventure, anxiety, and mysteries. The graphics can also be bold at times. Although the ornamentation from the early Middle Ages dominates here, to avoid being too boring and obvious, it's mixed with body horror (after all, it's a plague story) and Giger-esque architectural feats. Ultimately, even the wildest artistic ideas of the game become coherent and enrich the whole. It's not the same level of wild as in the retro-pixel Dread Delusion, but it can still surprise.
A crude work of art
I think that with a bigger budget, this game would outperform most of the competition, at least in the fantasy genre (I'm not sure if it could beat KCD2, but that's a powerhouse game, and not really fantasy). But maybe not – maybe its charm comes from the scale of the project, maybe that's what sparked the creativity? Flaws are obvious here and I intend to make you warned – some of them might make you think twice about buying the game. The RPG from Awaken Realms, however, has so many advantages and charm that it might simply be appealing – if you can excuse this adjective considered passée in the eyes of the viziers of online video criticism. It can be very appealing indeed.
The Fall of Avalon is a game that shamelessly takes concepts from previous generations of RPGs – and it absolutely owns them. The old-school charm, enhanced by a self-aware, colorful narration, is the envy of contemporary productions. The gameplay mechanic range from adequately fulfilling their role to encouraging a strategic approach and exploration. Just for fun. If the remaining chapters maintain this level – we are in for a pearl among Eurojank. Maybe even a hit.
