With King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame In November 2009, the Hungarian developer NeocoreGames laid the foundation for a tactical role-playing game series that has been able to gather an ever larger fan base over the past 15 years. Especially the one published in May 2022 King Arthur: Knight's Tale became a crowd favorite on Steam and also received an insider tip in the PC games test.
So it's no wonder that two years later the Hungarians launched another King Arthur game and set it in the same narrative universe. However, instead of continuing the plot of Knight's Tale, you can expect a smaller, independent spin-off story with an interesting new setting and completely new protagonists.
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The focus of the plot is Gaius Julius Mento, commander of Rome's legendary Ninth Legion. Since his death on the battlefield several centuries ago, the fallen hero has served Septimius Sulla, the also undead leader of the Roman-British city of Eboracum.
On behalf of his master, Mento has put together a powerful army – the Ninth Legion – and has been looking for a way to escape Tartarus, i.e. the underworld, for a long time.
At the start of the game, this search finally seems to be bearing fruit. Because suddenly Mento finds himself with two of his most loyal comrades-in-arms on the island of Avalon – the mystical realm of the Lady of the Lake, which also plays first fiddle in King Arthur: Knight's Tale.
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When they arrive in Avalon, his magical colleague Plutonius Nerva senses the presence of a Roman shrine – a phenomenon that the team of course immediately investigates and soon after comes across the dilapidated city of Nova Roma.
What follows is a campaign divided into 15 missions that is all about reclaiming your newfound home, little by little, and restoring Nova Roma to its former glory. And who knows: with a bit of luck, Mento might even be able to regain his humanity…
Proven tactical RPG fare
In terms of game mechanics, King Arthur: Legion IX is closely based on the great model Knight's Tale. This means that after a few tutorial sections you will set up your new headquarters in Nova Roma and from there you will continue to explore new parts of the island in order to advance the story and tackle new missions.
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The latter are structured according to a tried and tested scheme. It usually starts with the real-time exploration of the current mission area from a freely rotating iso perspective. You usually look for the next mission objective, loot treasure chests and interact with campfires, which regenerate your troop's life energy or shields once.
You also stumble across shrines with regularity. These grant a character of your choice powerful blessings that usually last until the end of the respective mission.
If you look carefully around the mission areas, you will always come across NPCs who grant you advantages under certain conditions. However, you usually have to make certain sacrifices or demonstrate a fair amount of tact in multiple-choice dialogues.
For example, you come across a white, repulsive-looking rat in a crypt. If you pet her instead of trampling her, she will thank you and lead you to a hidden loot box. Or let's take a scene in a cemetery. If you allow the spirit that resides there to “consume” 25 percent of any hero's life energy, it will in return wipe out three kidnappers in the nearby combat area with lightning.
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Keyword combat areas: As in Knight's Tale, they are usually clearly marked and have several access points with individual advantages and disadvantages – such as bottlenecks that can be better or worse defended. Once you have decided on an access point, the placement of your warriors is on the agenda.
Once that's done, it's time to get down to business in classic round-robin strategy style. The most important currency in this context are action points.
With their help, you move every figure around on the battlefield, carry out standard attacks, activate special abilities or put your warrior into the genre-typical surveillance mode, whereby attacks are only triggered when enemies enter a previously marked area.
Anyone who has already played Knight's Tale will quickly find their way around here. In King Arthur: Legion IX, factors such as the direction the figure is facing towards the opponent, back stabs, half and full cover, potions and status effects such as frost, poison, shock, necrosis etc. also play an important role.