Early Access Content and Reception

Kingsroad has been in early access since March 26^th with a full release set for May 21^st. 63 days is not a very long early access period, but the developers at Netmarble are confident in the stability of their game. The early access build is nothing to sneeze at content-wise, boasting a whopping 50 chapters within the main story as well as large number of explorable cities and landmarks including King’s Landing, Winterfall, and Highgarden. That said, regardless of how Netmarble feels about the state of the game, player reception hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Kingsroad currently sits with a ‘mixed’ rating on Steam across over a thousand players. Most critical reviews cite aggressive pay-to-win monetization as a major hindrance to enjoying the game.

Built in UE5

Epic recently released an interview with the devs of Kingsroad, discussing the methods used to craft the open-world mobile title. So, it’s no secret just how proud the graphics engine leader is in this game. One of the key takeaways from the interview is the world partition technique used to lighten the performance load of the open world. This is done by only loading in zones within proximity of the player. Draw distances are pretty impressive as well, with HLOD being employed to keep the 700 foot wall and other towering landmarks detailed from most vantage points.

Open-World Exploration

While we don’t know the complete surface size of the game’s map, we do know the early access areas are quite large. Opening up the map reveals all of Westeros with the Kingsroad dividing the center. A majority of the early access areas are in the North, including large zones around Castle Black just south of The Wall. Areas are so large that horse mounts are available early on in the game to traverse around with. Like other open world RPGs, the environment is filled with crafting ingredients, shops, treasure chests, quests, and world bosses. If you’re looking for a bunch of open world activities to lose yourself in, this has plenty.

Crafting and Loot

The most ubiquitous of these activities is, of course, ingredient gathering. Kingsroad has a healthy amount of crafting materials that can be plucked from the environment and some are quest rewards and daily bonuses too. Materials have a rarity tier to them, which determines the quality of items you craft. Some of the more common items that can be made from crafting are potions like HP tinctures, but elemental arrows, bolts, and throwing daggers can be crafted as well. Inventory is limited in the game, so frequently crafting and selling items is well advised.

Quests

If it’s the story you’ve come to experience, Kingsroad has a very lengthy main quest. You start out as a heir (shocker) to house Tyre in the North and eventually become entangled in the political escapades the series has been known for. There’s a lot of classic Game of Thrones lore found throughout this game’s quests, with the main character’s journey coming to a head with the ultimate showdown between the Nightswatch and White Walkers. The game is set during the later half of the show’s season 4, so it’ll be interesting to see if the story can fill in some of the holes that season ended on. The hundreds of side quests, faction quests, and artifact quests compliment the main story with faction disputes, hunts, and helping popular characters out from the show. Kingsroad is a very story-heavy game, with 10-long talking sessions and cutscenes being somewhat common.

Fun Action Combat

Since this is an action RPG, the player has full range of movement and manual attack inputs during combat. Dodging, countering, and guarding all come into play here, with enemies also performing the same range of defensive moves depending on their intelligence. Oh, and you can even animation-cancel, which is always one of the key hallmarks of a good action RPG for me. Each class has unique attacks that are set on a timer, so don’t go in expecting a thoughtless button masher. There’s a basic attack, heavy attack, and various skill attacks to choose from with the three classes determining more unique abilities.

Classes

Yes, even the full release of the game is locked to just three classes. Hopefully the limited range of classes is enough to sustain the game for a while. Sellsword is the middle of the line warrior class balancing defense with offense. This is likely the class to choose if you’re planning to use a hybrid swordsman/archer. The Knight is the defensive tank build meant to establish an array of defensive buffs. Knights get the heaviest weapons in the game and excel in heavy attacks. I’m hearing a lot of good things about the Assassin class thanks to their agile DPS output. Flipping around with daggers like a ninja is no doubt going to be the choice for those wanting to really get in close with stealth kills.

Boss Fights

There are plenty of unique boss fights in the game to test a player’s endurance and skill (and maybe bank account but we’ll get into that later). These battles will especially test one’s mastery of cooldowns and inventory management as the pressure to heal and apply antidotes becomes a necessity. The bosses with multiple group enemies require target lock usage more than the larger bosses. If you want a cool Monster Hunter Wilds-like experience, hunt down some of the World Bosses for some jolly cooperation against Westeros’ dragons and the like.

Altar of Memories

And that’s where this dedicated mode comes in. The Altar of Memories mode is where players can join others in raid type boss battles. Teams of up to four players battle through dungeons, where special traps are used to immobilize large bosses like the Ironbeak Griffin and giant ice spiders.

Skills

Skills grant players the more interesting attacks and abilities in the game. Only a set number of Active Skills can be equipped, and they’re typically unique to the a particular class. Skills like the Riposte Stance and Shoulder Charge require Rage (which accumulates by attacking) to perform. Meanwhile, Basic Skills enhance ordinary basic attacks and cooldowns. Levelling up Active and Basic Skills requires Skill Points, which are attained mostly through quests and levelling up your character level.

Trait Trees

Of course, being the RPG that it is, Skills aren’t the only way to progress a character. Traits confer a variety of passive stat increases along with unique abilities. Attack, Defense, and Support are the three Trait trees, and if you’re like me, you’ll be heading straight to the Parry ability located within the Defense tree.

Estate Management ‘minigame’

Being the heir to one of the houses comes with some responsibilities. And in this case, one of those is rebuilding an estate filled with various services and buildings. Building materials and currency are needed to upgrade aspects of the Estate, so there’s a potential for some grind, especially given the free to play live service nature of the game. Estate buildings range from workshops that sell equipment to Stables which sell and store horses.

Daily Activity Caps

So yeah, back to why the game has a mixed rating on Steam. While basic story progression isn’t exactly gated behind any paywall, it can be restricted based on the Recharge Point system. When RP runs out, the player must either spend virtual currencies to buy more or wait until the next day.  The way the developers have addressed RP concerns is not exactly comforting either. Netmarble reassures that the “team is actively discussing balance adjustments to increase the daily amount of RP provided.” So, RP limitations are still a thing with the full release; wonderful. Additionally, there’s timed missions, which just further adds a sense of FOMO in a game where there really shouldn’t be any.

Monetization

Well, this is a mobile live service game after all, so maybe FOMO and monetization is expected. In-game currency can be used to fast travel and share equipment across different characters on the same account. There’s also a lot of cosmetics to purchase within the game’s various menus.

Platforms and Pricing

But at least the game is free to play, right? Well, it will be when it officially launches. To play during the early access period, you have to shell out $24.99 for the standard edition, which grants an additional outfit. Game of Thrones Kingsroad comes out of early access with its official launch on May 21^st on PC, Android, and IOS.

It has been a while since we’ve received new information about ThatGameCompany’s Sky. If you’ve seen or played Journey by the same developer, then this game will look quite familiar to you. A new 30 minute trailer has been released for the game, and we now get to see how the game differs from Journey. 

In the trailer, we see the character first traverse around  the environment by foot until finally gaining the ability to fly. Towards the end of the video we get to see the character fly through large clouds, and it looks gorgeous. The distinctive art style and soothing music complement each other perfectly. The difference between this game and Journey is that it will feature a more active multiplayer experience as players will have to cooperate with each other so as to achieve certain goals.

Sky will first be releasing for Apple devices including the Apple iPad, Apple iPhone and Apple TV. We’ll have to wait and see if the game will also make its way onto other platforms eventually. You can check out the new trailer below.

Thatgamecompany’s newest game has been revealed and it’s called Sky. Looking to carry on the legacy of the studio’s critically-acclaimed Journey, Sky seems to involve players venturing out into a world of clouds together. The goal, like Journey, appears to be fairly mysterious but we can dig it. Check out the reveal trailer below.

Sky has been in development for several years and follows on Journey’s formula of playing together with your loved ones. That’s one of the reasons that it’s coming to mobiles. Thatgamecompany describes it as a game “specially created to be played, and shared, among loved ones and family”.

It’s perhaps worth noting that Sky will be coming to iPhone, iPad and Apple TV first this Winter. Don’t worry – it’s not exclusive to just those platforms. However, when it hits Android, is there a chance that it could come to consoles and handhelds in the future? Here’s hoping because Sky looks absolutely enticing.

To learn more about Sky, you can head to the studio’s official website. What are your thoughts on the reveal trailer? Let us know in the comments.