Game of Thrones Review

In case you’re still on the fence about Cyanide’s latest RPG, Game of Thrones, you’ll no doubt be interested in PC Gamer’s fashionably late review of the title. They weren’t especially impressed with it, offering a 58% score and some, ahem, choice words.

This is all the more impressive next to the shoddy design. Game of Thrones RPG is riddled with grating wait-a-minute stuff, like trying to pretend that four guys outside a castle constitute a riot, hilariously coy handling of the series’ sexual content, and explaining its combat so poorly that you’re almost guaranteed to get destroyed once you get out of the unofficial tutorial areas and face a few street thugs.

Even when you .et’ it, combat feels weak and ill-thought out bland, uninteresting, and based almost entirely around status effects. Use skill to make enemy bleed (or whatever). Use skill that does extra damage against bleeding enemies. Repeat until all the enemy’s blood has gone. Other elements are simply out of step with the source material, such as glugging down health potions mid-fight and Alester’s more advanced fire powers. Honestly, it’s best to just switch the difficulty to Casual and focus on the story. Most regular fights become trivial, though there are still a few tough ones to handle.

Ultimately, Game of Thrones is a frustrating, ugly, low-rent RPG that’s flawed in almost every way and difficult to impossible to recommend but which fans still might enjoy more than they probably should. At the very least, it’s not a lazy cash-in, just one trying its best on far too small a budget. If you can tolerate that and yes, it’s a lot to tolerate don’t necessarily run screaming from its score.

Considering this is the same PC Gamer that awarded the controversial Dragon Age II a 94%, it might be worth taking the review with a grain of salt.