Gord Review

When I thought I couldn’t get enough strategy games on console this year, another one arrives on Xbox. Team 17 have thrown themselves into the midst of some unique and different indie experiences lately and it is refreshing to see. Instead of seeing some family fun after the recent Moving Out 2, we see a dark and gritty single player adventure in Gord. Developed in conjunction with Polish developer Covenant.dev, I was really keen to see how this one would play out.

It makes sense that anything strategy will always be best suited to PC, but seemingly in 2023 we have had a huge influx of titles in the genre. Surprisingly for the most part, plenty of studios seem to be nailing the control system with a controller in hand. Gord instantly gives me vibes of The Witcher universe and places the focus on survival. In a world encapsulated by Slavic folklore, this is a city builder where you’ll need to build on your settlement and protect your community. But it won’t be easy.

This isn’t your typical colony survival game and doesn’t go overboard using lots of complex systems. Some may view this as a negative, especially if they are experienced RTS players. But the fortunate factor is that players who may not have much time with titles of this nature, may find it easier to engage with. There are still plenty of challenging elements to the gameplay loop though by looking after and nurturing your colony.

There are some pretty dark warnings prior to the game commencing, so if you’re faint hearted or a child then it may be worth ducking out of this one. It warns of drug and alcohol use, death, suicide and suffering, physical abuse and violence including towards children. So yes, this isn’t suitable for little ones and perhaps prying eyes. For some though, this may make it all the more entertaining for those who love the gritty and gory side of gaming. You play as the leader of the tribe of the dawn and you’re tasked with leading your clan through the forbidden lands of the north.

Without delving too deep into the story, since the cutscenes do that for you. The character selection and storytelling aspect around your community has a slight The Sims/Rimworld esque feel to it. You’ll be able to change names, check on each persons qualities and what they will bring to your tribe in terms of strength and weakness and so on. You’ll be starting off by following your way through the campaign missions which is broken up with some really well animated cutscenes or building a custom scenario.

Starting with your settlement, you’ll be crafting structures that will assist with your resource gathering. Lumbermills, scout huts, fishing elements and suchlike, you get my drift. You can extend your Gord over time but unfortunately this is quite restrictive and you’ll want to think about whether your base camp is fully protected from the outside. Don’t expect to me smashing up really complex and vast areas such as in Anno 1800 or Age Of Empires. The main focus isn’t really about this area though and what is nice about Gord is that it is following the story and sending a crew out to explore the land which makes the adventure interesting.

When sending your villagers out into the unknown it is important to look and prioritise who you want to take and who to leave behind. You don’t want to be taking someone who isn’t very good at combat for instance, or they may succumb to a quick death. Whilst the game works pretty well with an Xbox controller, I found the micro management of villagers to be a royal pain in the ass at the best of times. It took me a while to find out how to assign people to particular tasks and trying to unassign and reassign workers in your tribe to different work becomes a bit of a headache.

It becomes pretty difficult to keep and eye on how things are going at base camp when you have other things going on. The game could do with an in depth tutorial and a bit of fine tuning in these areas, especially on console. Often I’d attempt to send a villager to an area to source something and they would either not respond, or they would but it wouldn’t display on the HUD. So I think it is clear that this is a poor design or a bug that doesn’t seem so obvious on the surface of the gameplay loop.

Not only do you have to keep an eye on resource gathering and the safety of your people, but you also have to keep an eye on their sanity and happiness. There are points where villagers may disobey your orders because of certain situations. Now this is quite a clever and interesting system, but does become a little frustrating when you have other factors to keep your eye on. I often found myself pausing the game to think about what to approach next. Engaging in quests and getting stuck into combat was really enjoyable, but often I’d have to take my eye off the ball if the narrator was telling me that one of my villagers was idle.

Visually Gord is exceptionally well done with brilliant animation in cutscenes and fantastic lighting that illuminates across darkness. Voice acting is really well done and the atmosphere is well and truly set through the storytelling. The HUD design has been constructed to be comfortable across the screen and at no point did it feel too overwhelming for me. Audio hits all the right notes and sound effects perform as I’d have expected them to. There are also some impressive accessibility options in the game menus should anyone require them.

Gord is an interesting and engaging concept that doesn’t always deliver quite how I’d like it to. The game could do with fine tuning the consistent observation of your villager behaviour to make it easier to deal with their erratic and spontaneous movements. Whilst the overall presentation of the game is really fantastic across the board, there often feels like there are too many things being juggled at once. This is when the game starts to feel more of a chore than fun and that elements become more punishing than rewarding. That said though, this isn’t a terrible experience by any means and fans of the genre should still give it a look at its reasonable price point.