After a lengthy early access period, developer Questline and publisher Awaken Realms’ open world action RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon launched for PC and consoles earlier in May, and as many may have told you by now, it’s quite an impressive and well put together experience, flaws and all- of which it does have a few, admittedly. Barring some undeniable rough edges here and there, however (like questionable technical deficiencies), The Fall of Avalon does succeed in delivering a game inspired by beloved genre greats like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion and Skyrim, which also makes its own stamp in certain key ways.
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.
