There’s a strong and immediate sense of Elder Scrolls to Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. In so many ways it feels like the exact same experience. First-person: check. Fantasy: check. Begins in a prison cell: check. Skills increase as you use them: check. Stealth works the same (even the icon is identical), combat and dialogue feel familiar. This is a copy of Elder Scrolls barely concealed.
Tainted Grail suffers because of these ill-concealed similarities, initially. Whilst Bethesda Game Studios commands huge budgets to make its games, this small Polish team, Questline (which made Tainted Grail with around 50 people) clearly does not. It’s most apparent on the faces of characters in the game-world, which look simple and dated by today’s standards, more like something seen in Skyrim 10 years ago.
To continue my mean streak, I also cringed hard at the story and theme: another dark take on Arthurian legend and the idea that a ‘one true king’ needs to return in order to save us all. That, and the game spells Camelot with a K. How very dark and edgy. Mixed first impressions, then. Tainted Grail seemed derivative, juvenile, and presentationally dated. But then it began to charm me.
After all, why should The Elder Scrolls have a monopoly on these game ideas? I now admire the decision to build Tainted Grail on a template that I, and millions of others, are not only familiar with but feel fondly towards. I like that I don’t have to learn a new suite of gameplay ideas. I know immediately, when I’m poking around the prison, after I’m suddenly let out of my cell by a mysterious stranger, how this goes. I know there’ll be a backstab, I know I can parry, I know broadly how magic will work. Even cheeky skill-boosting tricks from Elder Scrolls games work in the same way. It’s both helpful and incredibly nostalgic.
That’s not to say Tainted Grail doesn’t have any ideas of its own. Notably, there’s a dash ability as standard that leaps you away from danger, and there are pages of skill trees ranging from those that improve your unarmed attacks to those that increase your crafting aptitude, spell abilities, armour effectiveness, bartering prowess, defensive capabilities, and more. There’s cooking, there’s alchemy, and I assume there’s weapon-making and armour-making (although I haven’t gotten there in the game yet). There’s a full complement of RPG systems here.
Also, for all that the character faces and fidelity of the world sometimes be lacking, the game’s strong sense of style more than makes up for it. Tainted Grail is dark and twisted, by turns reminiscent of a FromSoftware world or a Witcher world. There’s an HR Geiger quality to some of it, particularly the vast underground chambers with pools of blood and intricately sculpted black podiums. Dreary prison halls lead to rooms piled high with tortured bodies, while gruesome diagrams pinned to walls speak of the unthinkable things being done. The mist-choked world outside, meanwhile, is one of crumbled splendour where the dead walk again.
Even the overused dark Arthurian theme provides an unexpectedly compelling hook. It’s hard to say too much without spoiling an early reveal, but the story gets going blessedly quickly and provides surprise turns alongside more predictable developments. The characters met in the world, too, are always more interesting than I expect them to be, with their bizarre perspectives and peculiar sensibilities, and in the stories they have to share. I believe things like this show the game’s desire to be different and stand out.
That said, temper your expectations a little. Tainted Grail is better than I expected it to be but it can still feel awkward and, sometimes, harsh and punishing. It takes a little while to adjust to the game’s first-person combat rhythms, and enemies which leap at you and throw things. Spells in particular feel weak early on, as does stealth, which a lot of enemies seem to simply ignore. I desperately wanted to push enemies off high ledges – there’s a push attack! – but I couldn’t seem to close the gap to melee range without them noticing me, even if they were turned around. Even then, the push seemed ineffective, which I hope is not a missed trick on the game’s part.
But I’m starting to make meaningful progress in the game now. I’ve done my early-game floundering and have a foothold in the world to strike out from, and to gradually build my power from, and what I see – crucially – is a world I want to explore, and systems I want to play with.
I don’t know how Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon will develop here, but I’m encouraged by a positive start and by knowing the game has already spent time in early access, and by knowing it has the depth of prior Tainted Grail boardgame adventures to draw upon. I don’t know how it’ll sustain itself over the 50-70 hours of gameplay the developer says it has, but so far it’s been an unexpectedly pleasant surprise. Tainted Grail may be, alongside Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, another small-team-made RPG to be excited about.