King Arthur: Knights Tale Review

As soon as I saw King Arthur: Knights Tale was en route to consoles, I was naturally intrigued. I live in Cornwall in the South West of England and a little place called Tintagel is where Arthur was supposedly conceived according to the history books. It has been a tourist destination for decades, if not centuries and a statue overlooking the coast is there to this day. Enough of the history lessons though, I’m here to review the tactical RPG with turn-based elements. The game arrived on PC two years ago and has shifted to Xbox Series X|S and Playstation 5. After a stream of very positive reviews across the Steam dashboard, Neocoregames are testing the waters for us controller lovers, let’s see how it fares!

A Compelling Story

There have been countless stories across the expanse of time scribed about King Arthur and I was mesmerised by them as a kid. Here, King Arthur is slain by Mordred and is resurrected in the mythical land of Avalon. It is a story presented in magnificently crafted cutscenes that had me invested from the very beginning. The intensity and grit are there from the word go and for those interested in medieval warfare and conflict, you’re in for a treat with the visuals. Whilst I don’t want to give too much of the tale away, it is important to state that Mordred is very much alive despite being killed. Arthur’s cursed shadow clouds Avalon and the Lady of the Lake tasks you with finishing Arthur off once and for all.

As you can imagine, you’re going to be faced with a plethora of enemies and combat is played out in a gameplay loop very similar to the XCOM series. Grid-based and turn-based are usually types of games I would dodge, but the RPG elements, cutscenes and Diablo-esque exploration break up the fight scenes well. It makes for a well-rounded experience and I had way more fun than I thought I would have. I kind of expected to be aimlessly wandering around but there is plenty of treasure to be discovered on your travels.

Your Choices Matter

There is far more depth than just going from pillar to post and getting into scraps out there. Between the conflict, you’ll be making decisions about who to take along on the ride, and who to leave behind and look after Camelot. Here you’ll see disputes and you will have to make decisions on who to give responsibilities to, but the sacrifice is that someone may wander away from your clan. I found this way more interesting than being blinded and confused by huge webs of skill trees which tends to be the norm in this genre. King Arthur Knights Tale does things much differently and it is refreshing to see and experience. It is a strategic management system that had me sitting for way longer than I probably needed to, figuring out my tactics.

Audio & Visuals

I went into this one with no expectations whatsoever and was pleasantly surprised at how great the game has ported across. With a controller, the game functions well and I had no frustrations here. Quite often some games ported across from PC are poorly executed, but you have no worries here. As already mentioned, the cutscenes are excellent with full voice acting to compliment the visuals. How the game displays during combat is also really simplistic and not overbearing. I’ve played plenty of turn-based titles where it becomes too much to understand and frustrating to navigate. The option to adjust camera angles and your viewpoint here shows how well it has been built logistically.

Final Thoughts

King Arthur Knights Tale is a title that was so worthy of a port to the console space. As someone who generally walks in the other direction away from turn-based titles, I had a lot of fun with this one. The elements between combat make for well well-paced and exceptionally well-written story. There is a lot of gameplay here if you want to tick everything off the list. 35-40 hours easily to just get through the game with just the main storyline and I decided to try and get as many side adventures done as well. I’d imagine for pure achievement hunters and to 100% the game then you are looking towards the 100 hours mark. For those who love to wander off the beaten track and get side quests done, then you’ll be right at home here.

If you’re a turn-based junkie who likes a challenging yet compelling game that looks fantastic on consoles and handles well with a controller it is well worthy of an investment and you can purchase it on Xbox HERE.