The Indie Informer

Keep it active and make it simple. Thronefall serves these two ideas up on a silver platter while simultaneously, impossibly, offering comprehensive gameplay even strategy veterans will prize. In addition to accomplishing this impossible quest, the game is also gilded with vibrant visuals. I’m nearly four hours in — the game’s main path should take anywhere from five to seven — but will spend so many more than that defending my expanding realm.

I need you to hear me out after this next sentence, okay? Thronefall is, at its core, a tower defence title. I get how that reads on paper — that’s usually not my typical genre preference — but the devs have made a few astute changes.

First, you ride into battle on a cute little horse. This point isn’t as flippant as it sounds, as this minor change makes the entire experience more immersive, and thus causes me to connect more. I can dodge and weave through the enemy lines, rallying the troops with a well-placed swordstroke. Or, I can command my warriors to follow me in defending a weakening fortification. The shift from looking down from the clouds watching my preparation either succeed or fail to riding among my fighters, bleeding with them on the front lines, is compelling.

The mechanics underpinning this seamless action is is also impressive in its straightforwardness. Giving directions and attacking have their own dedicated buttons in battle, with a third relegated to urging my horse into a gallop. In the increasing chaos of battle, the scheme is as intuitive as it comes.

Having explained all that, perhaps it’s time to zoom out a little and explain the game. Jumping in, I play a would-be monarch. The short but effective tutorial teaches me to first build my kingdom’s central keep by spending a few coins and a couple of seconds holding down a button. With that, I’m now the ruler of a single building. It’s not much, but success invites envy.

Every night, enemies invade from beyond my border aiming to raze my meager holdings to the ground and leave me to die in its smoking rubble. Luckily, with a castle center built, I now have the option to build walls, barracks, and auto-shooting defence towers. All of these snap into the landscape in predetermined places, so I don’t spend time worry about the details of construction. It couldn’t be easier.

Except it takes money. There are buildings that increase my daily funds, though I have to carefully weigh whether a tax-producing house is more important than a troop-recruiting archery range. As time goes on, well-planned income rises, but cooler structures with desperately needed features also cost more. The enemies also grow increasingly numerous and stronger as my influence spreads. Eventually, I’ll either be standing after the last wave of raiders is struck down, or my kingdom will fall.

Victory earns me experience for permanent progression leveling up. New levels come with unique personal arms, perks to aid things like funding or health, or modifiers causing the game to be harder (but resulting in even more experience). Beating a level also unlocks new maps, each as aesthetically arresting as the last. The dream is to ride through Thronefall‘s fields, deserts, and tundras knowing I ruler over it all. And I’ll get there some day.