But worry not, as it’s as real as it gets. The DLC adds a new endgame dungeon, accessed from within the Forlorn Swords region, complete with a boss you need to beat to get through the door. Overcome that challenge, and you’re going to work your way through a lot of new content, the goal being to collect the fragments of the King’s soul to reach the titular Merlin’s Tomb.

Get there, and you’re going to find that the once-great sage is now a corrupted reflection of his former self, and it’s up to you to step in and help out. Of course, you’ll be rewarded for your efforts, although the scars you might earn from the fight may never go away.

If you’re interested in knowing more, the game’s Steam page has some pretty detailed information for you, as does the DLC’s launch trailer below. We’d recommend just diving right in, though, and letting the game surprise you with all its new tricks.

To start with, over 20 items have been rebalanced, but to preserve that power fantasy, players who already own them will receive duplicates. The originals remain, as potent as ever, but if you find things too easy, then the dupes should restore some of that challenge. You can also enable soft caps on your stats, granting diminishing returns past a certain threshold.

You can check out the full balance changes here, but for those who care for new content, there’s much to sink your teeth into. Act 3’s Forlorn Swords offers a new cave, two new mini-bosses (Sleepwalker and Cairnguard), and features new terrain. You’ll discover new items and even some different enemies in the Stronghold.

How about a house? Because there’s also a new quest, “The Empty House,” which gifts the Seacoast Manor as a home for players to customize. Of course, that’s not even getting into all the audio improvements, or the new 40 FPS mode for console players (that will go live in a few days). You’ll need a supporting screen, though, so keep that in mind.

Perhaps the most insane thing is that Questline aren’t done. Free DLC, which it promises will be “worth the wait,” is out by the end of March, and there are even more additions to come. Stay tuned for updates, as always, and check out our reviews for the base game and Sanctuary of Sarras expansion.

The trailer doesn’t really show off any new details about the RPG. Rather, it focuses on showing off some of its environments, enemy designs, and boss fights that players will get to experience. Celebrating this milestone, along with the trailer, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, and its expansion Sanctuary of Sarras are both available at a 20 percent discount on Steam.

“We hope 2026 has been treating you well so far,” wrote the developers in its announcement. “We kicked the year off with an incredible milestone, and now it’s time to share that… Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has sold over 1 million copies across all platforms!”

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon was originally an Early Access release. After spending two years in community-centric development, it would eventually hit version 1.0 on PC, while also coming out on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S in May 2025.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a dark fantasy take on the Arthurian legend, with the story largely taking place on the island of Avalon. The island is beset by many woes. Along with the overwhelming force of the Red Death, a strange phenomenon dubbed the Wyrdness has also been spreading across the land. The Wyrdness has been making life especially difficult for the denizens of Avalon, since anything it touches gets mutated in twisted ways.

The player takes on the role of a regular person that is dying from the Red Death. While you were scheduled to be vivisected, a mysterious knight barges in and rescues you. To make things more interesting, a part of King Arthur also seems to be following you around. To save the world, you are given an impossible-seeming task: travel the lands of Avalon to find the remnants of Arthur’s corrupted soul.

The story was further expanded through the release of Sanctuary of Sarras, which revolves around the eponymous deep sea locale and tells the story of those who decided to leave Avalon behind in their search for a better, less plague-ridden home.

While the open world and dark fantasy setting make for great selling points by themselves, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon also features fast-paced dynamic combat that allows players to seamlessly switch between their various weapons, shields, and even magic staffs. Throughout your encounters in the game, you can block, dodge and parry enemy attacks while waiting for an opening to land devastating counter attacks of your own.

The combat is further expanded on thanks to the intricate progression systems, allowing you to unlock brand new moves depending on your weapon type of choice, with some perks even promoting hybrid-style gameplay that, for example, mixes alchemy with long-range archery skills.

For more details, check out our reviews of the base game, as well as its expansion.

While the base game focused quite a bit on the classic Arthurian legend and twisting it into a dark reflection of itself, the DLC adds a surprising amount of extra detail that makes it fun to delve further into all the history that you can find through side quests, random conversations, books and item descriptions you might find along the way. Sanctuary of Sarras manages to accomplish the rare feat of actually making the story of the base game better just by existing.

"Sanctuary of Sarras manages to accomplish the rare feat of actually making the story of the base game better just by existing."

The core premise behind Sanctuary of Sarras revolves around a group that decides that Avalon under Arthur’s rule was turning out to be a little too hellish for their tastes, wants to return to what they call the “homeland” – a place far away from Avalon. This group was led by Merlin’s apprentice Nimue, and as you might expect, Arthur was incredibly displeased about this would-be rebellion happening under his rule. While he ultimately decided that he should let this group try and find their way to the homeland, and likely die trying, Merlin decided to take things a step further and sank the entire fleet while still cursing them with magic that kept them alive. This would ultimately lead to the creation of an entirely new kingdom forming underwater – the realm of Sarras, named after the ship leading the group.

The story itself ties into that of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon; you, along with Arthur, end up in the ocean after getting mysterious hints from a stranger telling you that the ocean’s depths hold important secrets to uncover. On getting there, you start peeling back layers of not only the story of the ship Sarras and how its sinking led to the formation of the realm of Sarras itself, but also more details about what Avalon was like under Arthur’s and Merlin’s rule in the fallout after the Red Death. In many ways, the central story of Sanctuary of Sarras is self-contained, with you never really leaving the underwater realm over the course of its runtime. However, the fact that it ties in so well with the base game is what makes the story especially interesting, since you also get to hear Arthur’s own thoughts about Sarras and its denizens.

"The core premise behind Sanctuary of Sarras revolves around a group that decides that Avalon under Arthur’s rule was turning out to be a little too hellish for their tastes"

Mechanically, Sanctuary of Sarras only really has one major addition to the game: a new progression system that revolves around exploring the world and finding a new passive skill tree that gives you some added bonuses to make your time in the DLC easier. Generally speaking, enemies in the DLC scale in power alongside your own level. This means that one of the best ways to get stronger than them is by getting the various buffs offered by the new skill trees, which are split across three distinct branches: Warrior, Rogue and Mystic. The bonuses are just passive ones, like letting you do more damage. They do affect your playstyle, however, since there are plenty of choices to specialise further in your preferred playstyle by, for example, getting damage bonuses according to the weight of your armour in the Warrior tree, or by applying damage-multiplying debuffs in the Rogue tree that encourages faster attack speeds.

You can switch your tree at any time, which makes experimenting painless. If you’re bored of playing an archer, for example, you can just equip the right bits of gear and switch to a magic using playstyle, while also getting power ups courtesy of the Mystic tree.

When it comes to core gameplay design, Sarras is quite an interesting place. Rather than being open for free roam like the base game, the DLC’s zone is instead separated into distinct underwater islands with access to other islands being blocked off by gates with guardian fish spirits protecting them. Each one of these islands is fairly small on its own, and as a whole, the map is smaller than what you would see from the base game. While this might sound like a letdown in theory, in practice, the relatively smaller zones throughout the map ensure that you’re never really running around for too long without something interesting happening nearby.

"Each one of these islands is fairly small on its own, and as a whole, the map is smaller than what you would see from the base game."

Eventually, however, you will want to travel to the other parts of Sarras, and to do this, you must convince the sea creature guardians – referred to as Maws of various things, like Maw of the Current or Maw of the Tide, for example – to let you use the gates to travel to other “islands”. Each one of the Maws tends to have a different request that you must fulfill before you are allowed entry through the gate. These requests can range from fighting off nearby enemies, to having a philosophical discussion about the nature of a dictatorship, to even cooking a specific food. Once you’ve completed the request, however, the gate is free to use at your leisure to travel back and forth across the various parts of the DLC’s map.

The DLC’s other major strength lies in its side quests. While there’s an excellent main quest to follow, with some downright fantastic writing that makes the whole world of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon more interesting, the side quests go a step further in giving you a glimpse into how this underwater realm survives. Just about every quest goes into some aspect, be it how humans mutated into hybrid ocean creatures, or how they established relationships with other sea creatures, and in some cases, even what their day-to-day life means in their present form.

Enemy design is also quite interesting, both in terms of visual design as well as their behaviour. Visually, the enemies fulfil just about every undersea creature you can think of, ranging from tentacled beasts to barnacle-crusted zombies, fish people, serpents, and everything in between. In fights, they tend to behave how you might expect them to; the more serpentine enemies, for instance, will tend to focus on hit-and-run tactics that let them take advantage of their agility. Zombies, on the other hand, don’t use much in the way of tactics aside from trying to swarm you.

"Enemy design is also quite interesting, both in terms of visual design as well as their behaviour."

Boss fights also don’t really get particularly complex, with most of them revolving around you hanging back for a few seconds to wait for an opening to take advantage of. Some of the bosses are slower, which tends to favour builds that focus on ranged attacks like bows or magic. Others will be faster, with moves that let them close the distance quite fast, which favours builds that either focus on heavy armour or dodging. While you’re not going to get intricate puzzle bosses in Sanctuary of Sarras, the bosses still end up leaving a lasting impact because of their visual design.

Most of these new enemies and bosses can be found in the many new dungeons you can find all over the new map. Generally speaking, only some of these dungeons tend to offer anything more interesting than groups of enemies to fight in your quest for epic loot. A few, however, can offer up more interesting encounters; these tend to be tied to side quests as part of a larger narrative, and can provide some unique chances to have a conversation with, for example, a pair of particularly intelligent serpents that are only out to partake in scientific research rather than attacking anything in their paths. Essentially, while the combat spaces might be simple, the context provided by the narrative tends to serve as their saving grace.

The DLC also brings with it a lot of new gear, from weapons to armour pieces and even accessories like rings. However, these offer little in the way of gameplay-altering changes, instead merely being different ways to boost your stats. Depending on at what point of your journey through Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon you decide to kick off your journey into the DLC, you might very well end up with gear that’s much more powerful than anything Sanctuary of Sarras has to offer. To that end, the biggest benefit to doing side quests and roaming off the beaten path to explore the world tends to be learning more about the world and lore rather than a shiny new sword. Since you need to reach Cuanacht in Act 2 to trigger the quest that starts the DLC, chances are high that you will have built up a tidy arsenal before you venture into the depths of Sarras.

"The DLC also brings with it a lot of new gear, from weapons to armour pieces and even accessories like rings."

While our review of the 1.0 release of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon had noted that the title suffered from quite a few technical problems, these issues have seemingly been smoothed out in the months since. Playing the title on an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, a Radeon RX 7800 XT GPU, and 32 GB of DDR5-6000 RAM allowed me to maintain solid frame rates of over 100, with only the occasional hiccup when loading into a new area for the first time. I was able to comfortably crank up the graphics settings to the High preset while playing the title at 1440p, facing no issues for most of my play time.

Sanctuary of Sarras is an excellent addition to Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, thanks in large part to how well it helps in fleshing out the already-excellent worldbuilding and lore of the base game. While the DLC’s story is largely self-contained, it also happens to give you a lot more context about the characters of Arthur and Merlin, and slowly learning about a medieval fantasy take on an underwater civilization is a cool concept in and of itself. It isn’t mandatory to understand the main story. Still, it meaningfully enriches the broader mythology of Tainted Grail, which helps to enhance the overarching story thanks to how it builds on the foundations that were already laid by the base game.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Touted as a “whole new act,” Sanctuary of Sarras offers a brand new story with 10 to 15 hours of gameplay, 12 new enemies, over 20 hand-crafted dungeons and “interiors,” and four new bosses. You’ll encounter new characters and side quests, discover over 100 pieces of equipment (armor and weapons), and more.

There’s even a new progression system with three skill trees that require activating shrines for skill points. While you can only have one active at a time, they’ll level up concurrently.

To venture to Sarras, players need to unlock Cuanacht in Act 2. Stay tuned for more details on the expansion in the coming days, and check out our review for the base game.

Among its many strengths, one of the ones that stands out perhaps more so than any other, however, is the game’s open world setting. Make no mistake, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is not only an accomplished RPG, but also tells a surprisingly compelling story with a handful of choice and consequence moments that stand out, and a cast that is more packed with memorable characters than you’d expect- and that’s on top of being a solid adaptation of the board game that it is based on. But even with all of that said, it’s probably the game’s open world that leaves the strongest impression.

For starters, the world’s scope and expansive nature impresses, as is often the case with such experience- we can probably get that out of the way right off the bat, given the fact that that is something that most players just take for granted at this stage anyway. But there’s much more to Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon’s maps than just their collective size. Exploring it and uncovering its secrets remains a captivating experience from beginning to end, and the game accomplishes that in several ways. Its diegetic nature, for instance, springs right to mind.

Taking unabashed inspiration from the aforementioned likes of Oblivion and Skyrim and wearing it proudly on its sleeve, The Fall of Avalon takes several steps to try and ungamify the act of exploring an open world and grounding players in its setting. For instance, the game doesn’t make use of map markers to direct you to quests or quest objectives. Quests are instead organically chanced on and automatically added to your log in several ways, either by being led to one quest by another, or by simply discovering new ones as you make your way through a new area and, say, overhear conversations between NPCs. Exploration, as such, is always encouraged.

Meanwhile, while you’re in the middle of one of the many quests the game’s world has on offer, you’re also not following markers to your destination, with the primary way of engagement being to pay attention to the world and your surroundings and talking to NPCs to get the lay of the land. Diegetic exploration isn’t always easy to nail, which is why we see so few games even attempting it, but Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon doesn’t disappoint, successfully backing its vision for grounded and immersive exploration with design that is strong enough to actually make that fun.

And the design certainly is quite impressive. No, not spectacular perhaps, but certainly legitimately really darn good at the very least, and arguably deserving of stronger praise still. The Fall of Avalon’s world boasts genuine diversity across its many biomes, dense and well designed cities, consistently enjoyable dungeons that don’t often fall into the trap of feeling repetitive- something that so many RPGs, especially those of this particular flavour, often tend to be guilty of. Consistently maintaining strong design and actual, legitimate variety across a large open world isn’t an easy thing to accomplish for most games, but developer Questline’s ambitious RPG does an admirable job of it.

And there’s yet more to it. The strong design, diegetic exploration, and impressive variety obviously make for some of the open world’s biggest strengths across all maps, but there are other ways in which the game also succeeds that elevate its open world experience that much more- specifically, the atmosphere that it evokes. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is very much designed to be a bit of an oppressive experience, with a world that often feels dangerous and unsettling, if not outright hostile, which means it’s not rare for even the most mundane exploration and open world activities to feel constantly unsettling on at least some base level. It lends a unique flavour to the world, and does quite a bit to set The Fall of Avalon apart from similar games.

It’s quite visually striking as well. Granted, this isn’t the most technically polished game you’ll ever play, and as we touched on in our review, The Fall of Avalon does suffer from its fair share of visual and technical rough edges that do impact the experience to some degree. But even so, this is ultimately a good looking game, in particular because of its strong art design. Stumbling on the next gorgeous sight or memorable piece of scenery always remains one of the many motivations to keep exploring the game’s world.

No, The Fall of Avalon’s open world experience isn’t always flawless. Some might argue, for instance, that the rewards and distractions the game offers up in the form of loot, equipment, enemy camps, or what have you aren’t always the most- well, rewarding or distracting, depending on what they’re trying to do. Often, in fact, they feel quite cookie cutter. But then again, there is a strong case to be made that the biggest reason to explore the the RPG’s world is not to find stronger, better loot, but to find new quests, learn more about the world, uncover more of the lore and the story, and meet new characters- to keep making new discoveries, in a nutshell. In fact, we’d wager that that is exactly what developer Questline would tell you- that that’s the point.

And if those are the metrics that we are measuring Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon’s open world setting by, you’d have to say that it passes with flying colours, for the most part. Either by having you organically stumble into new quests or by launching you into side stories and optional quests that quite often legitimately rank as some of the game’s absolute best content, to the point of even outmatching the main questline; either by impressing with its strong art design and environmental variety or the strong design and the diegetic exploration that enables- in more than one way, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon tries and succeeds in selling its vision of an ambitious and impressively crafted open world setting.

If you enjoy the particular brand of open world design and immersive role playing gameplay that the likes of Oblivion and Skyrim (or, hell, even S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to a certain degree) are known for, Questline and Awaken Realms’ open world action RPG is a game that may very well be worth looking into, and perhaps perfectly suited to your particular tastes. Though it does have its rough edges – which, frankly, you would expect from a game this ambitious that is far from being a AAA production – it more than makes up for many of them with the strengths that it does have- which is a list where the open world would have to be placed very high, if not at the very top.

This guide lists a small selection of the best armor sets for various builds in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

Assassin’s Armor Set

Horns of the South

Abandoned Stronghold

Slay the assassin Silent Silia, and take the entire set from her corpse.

Assassin’s Mask

• Increases Sneak Damage by 5%.

Assassin’s Tunic

• Increases Sneak Damage by 10%.

Assassin’s Gloves

• Increases Sneak Damage by 5%.

Assassin’s Trousers

• Increases Sneak Damage by 5%.

Assassin’s Boots

• Increases Sneak Damage by 5%.

17 Armor total. This stealth-focused set grants a massive 30% boost to Sneak Damage as a whole, and can then be enhanced even further by equipping the Wolf’s Fang dagger that drops with it, which multiplies Sneak Damage by x1.5.

Battlemage’s Armor Set

Horns of the South

In a Reinforced Chest deep inside

Battlemage’s Hood

• Increases Max Mana by 10.
• Increases Spell Power by 15%.

Battlemage’s Tunic

• Increases Mana Regeneration by 3.
• Increases Magic Critical Chance by 5%.

Battlemage’s Gloves

• Increases Max Mana by 10.

Battlemage’s Trousers

• Increases Max Mana by 5.
• Increases Spell Power by 5%.

Battlemage’s Boots

• Increases Max Mana by 10.

19.5 Armor total. A heavy armor spellcaster set granting an increase of 20% to Spell Power and 5% to critical chance, as well as a generous 30 points to Mana reserves, supported by 3 points of Mana regeneration.

Duel Knight Armor Set

Horns of the South

Challenge the knight Abigor to a duel, and take the entire set from his corpse.

Duel Knight Helmet

• Increases Max Stamina by 5.
• Decreases Stamina Cost by 10%.

Duel Knight Armor

• Increases Attack Speed by 25% when your Health is below 25%.
• Increases Max Stamina by 10.

Duel Knight Cape

• Increases Stamina Regeneration by 25.
• Increases Critical Chance by 10%.

Duel Knight Gloves

• Critical Hits restore 10 Stamina.
• Increases Melee Damage by 20%.

Duel Knight Trousers

• Increases Critical Chance by 25% when your Stamina is below 20%.
• Increases Max Stamina by 5.

Duel Knight Boots

• Increases Max Stamina by 5.
• Increases Movement Speed Multiplier by 25% when your Health is below 25%.

Duel Shield

• On Block, deals 20% of your Armor as damage to attacking enemies, and 75% on a successful Parry.

27 Armor total. A heavy armor set focused almost solely on raising and regenerating stamina, making it an excellent set to use with two-handed and dual wield builds, and improving even further when you are low on health and stamina.

Elusive Armor Set

Cuanacht

North of the Toll House

On a corpse hidden in shrubbery atop the battlements.

Elusive Cowl

• Increases Magic Critical Chance by 25% when below 20% Max Mana.

Elusive Rob

• Increases Magic Critical Chance by 25% when below 20% Max Mana.

Elusive Pants

• Increases Magic Critical Chance by 25% when below 20% Max Mana.

12 Armor total. This balanced armor set for spellcaster builds is all about raising critical hit chances while running low on mana reserves.

Spellslinger’s Armor Set

Horns of the South

South of Pig Benis, near the Druidic Shrine across the bridge

In a Reinforced Chest at a bandit tent camp.

Spellslinger’s Hat

• Increases Mana Regeneration by 0.5

Spellslinger’s Jacket

• Increases Spell Power by 30%.

Spellslinger’s Gauntlets

• Increases Spell Power by 15%.

Spellslinger’s Trousers

• Increases Max Mana by 20.

Spellslinger’s Boots

• Increases Spell Power by 15%.

8 Armor total. A hard-hitting, but very lightly armored spellcaster set, the Spellslinger grants a massive 60% increase to Spell Power, while slightly increasing Mana reserves and regeneration.

Those are a handful of the best full armor sets that can be found in the open world of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

The timing is all the more incredible because it’s following The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, which introduced a whole new generation to one of Bethesda’s premier titles and reminded many why it still holds up so well (warts and all). But with how notable Oblivion is and the sheer value of its deal – since it includes all expansions and DLC – what makes Tainted Grail worth checking out and in some ways, even better?

The story begins in usual dire circumstances but not how you’d expect. A plague called the Red Death swept the world, forcing King Arthur to move his people to the island of Avalon to survive. This required battling the Fore-Dwellers and contending with a mysterious phenomenon known as the Wyrdness, which twisted and mutated living creatures. However, thanks to the power of the Menhirs and Merlin, the Wyrdness was repelled, and Arthur created Kamelot to rule until his death.

Beyond this point, all you know is that the Red Death has returned, and a mysterious Order is doing everything to devise a solution. That includes taking prisoners in an asylum and experimenting on them. Cue your start sans any hope for the future. Suddenly, someone assassinates your guard and gives you the keys to escape.

Yes, it’s very Oblivion-esque, but I won’t spoil the rest. Suffice it to say that things take multiple unexpected dark turns (that part about shaping King Arthur’s legacy is much more…literal than you’d think). It’s enough motivation to explore Avalon, starting with the Horns of the South and solving the core mystery. Or you could wander around, learning more about the inhabitants, their troubles and what can be done to help them.

Maybe you’ll unravel more about the land, its past heroes and your goals, but just like Oblivion, this isn’t a story about some chosen one setting out to fulfil their destiny. You’re capable of great things, but that first requires surviving in this weird land.

And really, you can do that however you’d like. The starting playstyles afford some pretty notable bonuses that could slot into a specific class like archer, battle mage, warrior etc., which is further reinforced by skill trees for Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, and whatnot. But the relative freedom is truly liberating – as long as you have the stats, any equipment is usable, regardless of your starting bonuses.

Even if you’re keen on sticking to a straightforward playstyle, the options in other skill trees are often too good to pass off. It also doesn’t hurt that there are over 400 unique weapons and more than 55 spells (not including Soul Cubes) to diversify your playing style. Want to harness the power to lifesteal in one hand or both? Bash enemies with a sketchbook in between stabbing them with a pen? Turn your summon into cheese and cook that cheese into a Cheese Ball of Doom to level up your cooking. Why not?

As for the world design, Avalon itself isn’t going to dwarf Skyrim anytime soon, but the sheer density of content is pretty exciting. Exploring an unassuming location could lead you to partake in a limited-time hunt for some reward. Diving into a blood lake could lead to a cave where a powerful foe awaits. Even talking to different characters and choosing certain dialogue is enough to influence the story in the short and long term, sometimes to devastating effect. And that’s before really diving into the dozens of hand-crafted dungeons or the sheer multitude of side quests.

Perhaps the best thing about Tainted Grail is how dangerous its world feels (that is if you pump up the difficulty enough). Since there’s no level scaling for regular daytime mobs, you’ll level up, grow stronger and effectively curb stomp foes in earlier areas without much effort. However, this goes both ways, as you might encounter an overwhelmingly powerful threat and quickly die. So, while the urge to explore and see what’s around every corner is strong, there’s an innate thrill in the risk.

Danger can manifest in other ways, like nighttime when the Wyrdness infects and strengthens living beings. You’re encouraged to turn in at your campfire but there is a risk vs. reward element involved, since slaying Wyrd-infected enemies grants Ethereal Cobwebs used to fast travel, identify items, and even ensure a peaceful rest. It’s an ingenuous mechanic and reinforces the fact that you can’t escape the Wyrdness.

However, there are plenty of other things to love, like setting multiple loadouts for your hands and seamlessly swapping between a spell and melee weapon in one slot to a bow and arrow in another. Or the crafting system, which has a chance to reward better consumables if you invest more materials. Or the ability to kill vital NPCs, potentially locking off any quests. Even the armor weight system is a welcome bit of nuance, rewarding you beyond faster stamina regeneration for choosing to fight Light.

Now, it’s not perfect, if it rarely ever can be. Stutters and frame drops can occur pretty regularly, though this seems to be a CPU bottleneck on my end (as always, your mileage will vary). The third-person perspective was implemented shortly before launch, with Questline admitting it’s still experimental. There are still numerous bugs like quests not progressing, and iffy summon AI – heck, some have revealed that the in-game bug reporting feature doesn’t even work.

However, as with The Elder Scrolls, Fallout or any Bethesda Games Studios title in the last two decades, the question is whether the experience is currently worth tolerating these issues. More polish is needed, and for its part, the development team will launch several patches in the coming weeks to alleviate them (which should be a faster clip than Bethesda is usually known for). But all that aside, I think it is.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon imitates the gameplay from Oblivion and Skyrim in various ways, but its execution and unique mechanics win the day. That, and the absolutely fantastic world-building. Even after everything I knew from Tainted Grail: Conquest, Avalon felt distinctly new yet alive (timing of its events notwithstanding). It didn’t feel like a backdrop for random NPCs to blather about but a living, breathing world bearing complex situations that encourage different choices. Maybe you’ll make the right choice. Maybe you won’t. But there’s excitement in seeing what happens next.

And while there is a fair bit of role-playing involved, especially when optimizing your build – which strikes a balance between managing your stats, skills and equipment – it offers enough flexibility to experiment. The atmosphere is unique, and the overarching story is fantastic, with multiple endings to unlock. Questline estimated about 50 to 70 hours for the main quest and some side quests, but there’s plenty more to discover.

Even if Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has a ways to go before it’s completely polished, the fact that an Elder Scrolls-like title such as this can exist and resonate so well is nothing but good news. Where it goes next remains to be seen, and even if Bethesda may not be losing any sleep over the competition, it certainly has its work cut out with The Elder Scrolls 6.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

This guide lists just a handful of the best weapons you can find in the game, that may be useful for various builds in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

Spear of an Ancient Hero

Horns of the South

In a crate on the beach on the southern shoreline.

• Attacks against targets at full Health are always Critical.
• Dealing damage makes enemies Bleed.

A one handed spear that does guaranteed critical damage to enemies in the initial attack, and causes bleed as well.

Thunderous Greatbow

Horns of the South

Crypt of Sewal Firstfoot

Lying next to a corpse atop the walkways along the towers.

• Fully drawn arrows cost 15 Mana when hitting enemies, dealing an additional 30 Damage in an area.

Taps into your mana pool to do area-of-effect damage, but only when shots are fully drawn.

Honorary Blade

Horns of the South

Challenge the knight Abigor to a duel, and take the one handed sword from his corpse

• Deals 100% more Damage if the enemy is below 25% Max Stamina.

An excellent weapon in its own right, the bonus damage kicks in once you exhaust your enemy’s stamina.

Eclipse Shard

Horns of the South

In a Reinforced Chest at a camp near the eastern shoreline.

• For each Parry, your next attack is applied one extra time.

This two-hander is the perfect complement to a parry build, by granting bonus strikes to counterattacks.

Oldtree Staff

Horns of the South

Smuggler’s Bay Dungeon Caves

Slay the mage under the main level of this dungeon, and take it from his corpse.

• When spellcasting, you have a 50% chance to restore half of the spent mana.

A wand that can potentially keep you casting continuously, by replenishing your mana.

Duelist’s Blade

Cuanacht

Buried in the chest of a corpse.

• Deals an extra 15% Damage when facing only one opponent.
• Increases Melee Critical Chance by 25%.
• Critical Hits with this weapon deal additional 50% Damage.

This one-handed weapon grants bonus damage in one-on-one situations, with additional buffs to critical chance and damage.

Frost Needle

Cuanacht

North of the Toll House

On a corpse hidden in shrubbery atop the battlements.

• Shoots a medium Chilling projectile.
• Shoots a great chunk of Chilling ice.

An excellent weapon to deal chilling damage in projectile form.

The Ram of Nuada

Cuanacht

Lovers’ Hollow

In a chest hidden deep inside this cave system.

• Sprint Attacks cost 30 Mana and apply massive force to enemies in front of you.

A two-hander with a frontal area-of-effect damage bonus while sprinting.

Shard of Fallen Sky

Cuanacht

Buried in a tree stump next to a corpse.

• Raise your Two-Handed proficiency by 15.

This one-handed weapon grants a proficiency bonus while dual wielding another weapon.

Hefty Spear

Forlorn Swords

Old Wyrdstone Mine

In a Reinforced Chest just right of the entrance to the mine.

• Dash attacks have a 25% chance to Stun target.

A two-handed weapon that does massive damage while dashing, with an additional opportunity to stun enemies.

Those are a small selection from over a hundred weapons that can be found in the open world of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.

This guide for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has everything you need to know about leveling up quickly and efficiently.

Explore The Prison

The Prison may seem like a straightforward prologue chapter, but is actually quite complex, with a lot of missable content. There are at least three mini bosses in the level, and many secrets to be discovered, all of which can significantly contribute to leveling in the early game.

Sprint and Slide

Contrary to what you might expect, sprinting is not the fastest way to get around the map, as sliding can take you much further. But more importantly, constant use of slide to traverse the world will increase all of the associated stats: agility, evasion, and sneak. Each time those stats level up, an XP bonus will be earned towards your main level.

Sprint by default, and press crouch every so often for maximum effect.

World Exploration

Almost every interaction earns some XP towards some stat, including discovering new locations. Explore the map far and wide, and undertake all side quests from the NPCs you find.

Unlimited Cooking

Begin by maxing out your Practicality base stat attribute as much as possible, making use of an Origin Potion to first reset your skill and stat points, if necessary.

Next, The Crafting & Trading skill tree under the Practicality tab has a number of skills which can allow you to cook many more dishes from the limited number of ingredients that you have, and sell them for a higher price as well.

• Mercantile Skills: Selling items is 50% more profitable.
• Side Dish Mastery: You have a 30% chance to create an additional dish, when crafting Food.
• Reusable Resources: You have a 50% chance to recycle a single resource while crafting.

This combination of skills will keep you cooking more and thus leveling up your Cooking stat and earning ever more XP towards your level. Once your ingredients are finally exhausted you can sell all your dishes for a tidy profit, allowing you to invest in even more ingredients, so that you can repeat the cycle to your heart’s content.

Those are all the best ways to level up fast in Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon.