King Arthur: Knight's Tale Kickstarter Campaign Live

You probably know NeocoreGames as the team behind The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr. However, prior to becoming a studio known for its action-RPGs, they also worked on a series of turn-based Arthurian RPGs.

And now, it looks like NeocoreGames is going back to its roots with this Kickstarter campaign for King Arthur: Knight’s Tale – a modern retelling of Arthurian legends with a dark fantasy tint. The game is described as a tactical RPG with a huge emphasis on moral choices and a roguelite structure. And in order to make it happen, the developers need around $150,000.

Check out the official Kickstarter trailer:

With 24 days still to go and $69,635 currently pledged, the campaign seems to be going strong. Here’s some additional information:

Gameplay Overview

You are Sir Mordred, the nemesis of King Arthur, the former black knight of the grim tales. You killed King Arthur, but with his dying breath, he struck you down. You both died – and yet, you both live.

The Lady of the Lake, the ruler of the mystical island of Avalon brought you back to end a true nightmare. She wants you to go on a knightly quest. She wants you to finish what you have begun. Kill King Arthur – or whatever he has become after she took his dying vessel to Avalon.

King Arthur: Knight’s Tale is a Role-playing Tactical Game – a unique hybrid between turn-based tactical games (like X-Com) and traditional, character-centric RPGs.

Knight’s Tale is a modern retelling of a classic Arthurian mythology story filtered through the dark fantasy tropes, a twist on the traditional tales of chivalry.

The story campaign puts a huge emphasis on moral choices, which have significant consequences in a rogue-lite structure, adding extra tension to the tactical and management decisions.

Your Fights

Control a small team of heroes and fight gruelling, but satisfying battles with a deeply engaging, tactical turn-based combat system.

Diverse battle maps – Position yourself, avoid shieldwalls, flank your enemies. Use covers against archers, make use of the terrain, hide in the foliage, surprise your enemies!

Control the battleground – Scouting ahead is important as your enemies could be hiding as well. Use traps, lure and avoid enemy combatants until you can strike safely.

Team tactics – Choose from more than 30 heroes of 5 diverse classes to assemble an efficient team. Combine hundreds of skills and artifacts, but be careful. One misstep and your heroes could be maimed, or worse, killed permanently.

Learn about your enemies – Opposing forces and mythical creatures will try to challenge you at every step. Pay attention to their weaknesses and strengths!

Your Heroes

No one can face the nightmare alone – gather an army of loyal knights, settle disputes and forge your own path

The Round Table reborn – Gather your own Knights of the Round Table and send them on knightly quests. In “Knight’s Tale” these heroes are the most important resources and the most complex gameplay elements at the same time.

Complex RPG-like characters – The character progression system is designed to be as deep as in the traditional RPGs: heroes level upon unique skill trees and the complex loot system provides unique options to fine-tune their tactical capabilities.

Death is always final – Beware! Heroes can die during missions and the treatment of their injuries, curses, diseases takes time. You must manage them at the Round Table accordingly, planning ahead before going into battles. As heroes take time off between consequent missions, management of their injuries and selecting their substitutes are essential components of gameplay.

A question of loyalty – Each hero has a distinctive personality. Settle disputes and grant favors to convince various knights to remain loyal to you. Some of them will observe your decisions closely, and some knights will even have conflicts with each other. It is your job to select heroes that are the best fit for your goals (and each other) at the Round Table. The heroes’ loyalty is constantly changing through the decisions made by the player – in certain cases they can ever leave the Round Table and turn against you.

Your Kingdom

Forge your kingdom with steel and faith – restore the order and bring an end to the nightmare unleashed in Avalon

Explore the land of nightmares – “King Arthur: Knight’s Tale” is an imaginative take on the aftermath of the Arthurian mythology, beginning where most tales end. After his last battle, where King Arthur suffered a lethal wound, he has been taken to the magical island of Avalon where he was supposed to gain immortality, but what happens when immortality means that he is simply unable to die?

A terrible force in Avalon – The Once and Future King is now trapped in the realm of Avalon and his pain is slowly turning this magical place into a nightmare version of his own Britannia, populating the land with the familiar and the uncanny.

Your kingdom in need – See the entirety of the land presented on a strategic map, observe all fiefdoms and secret corners, select your missions and explore various places. The people are suffering, the land is plagued by nightmares and the choice is yours: will you be savior or the scourge of this cursed realm?

Camelot reborn – Management in “Knight’s Tale” focuses on rebuilding Camelot and expanding the mystical Stronghold with new buildings that each unlock various upgrades, and also offers different ways to heal up and manage the heroes of the Round Table.

Your Legend

Whatever you do, you will shape your legend, but all your choices will have severe consequences.

Write your own tale of chivalry – Play as Sir Mordred, the former nemesis of King Arthur. Explore the mystical island of Avalon, venture on knightly quests and make decisions in various encounters where you’ll need to make moral choices, as in most RPGs, which all have impact on the story and your Morality.

The making of a monarch – The Morality Chart represents your general alignment as a ruler. Your status between Christianity and Old Faith, between Tyranny and Righteousness. Your choices affect values on this chart, influencing both gameplay and narrative.

The weight of decisions – Reloading is not an option in Knight’s Tale – as you make your tough choices, the fun comes from dealing with severe consequences. Based on your decisions, every playthrough can unfold differently, branching in unexpected ways in a non-linear fashion. Planning and choosing differently will result in vastly different playthroughs: your legend is shaped by every action you take.

The end is only the beginning – The end of the campaign opens up new endgame content for the bravest of all: tough new challenges appear on the map with challenging, mythic bossfights and random quests, loot, and character progression ultimately leading to the banishing of Balor, the monstrous god-king of the Fomorians himself.

Beyond the Legend

Witness the Arthurian legend like you never have before – rich in content and presented with the highest graphical fidelity to date.

See the world and the countless legends it harbors – Complete more than 50 unique points of interest on the Adventure Map, including 20 story missions and various side quests, taking place on diverse terrains, from the dark castle dungeons to the forests of the Sídhe.

Tackle them one by one – Challenge 7 enemy factions, fight more than 50 types of enemy units, overcome 10 incredible boss fights throughout your quests.

A spectacular view – The production of “Knight’s Tale” relies heavily on photoscanned environments and high-quality mocap animation, all rendered inside a modern PBR engine utilizing DirectX 12, supporting strong, atmospheric effects.