Developer: Animus Interactive Inc.
Publisher: Animus Interactive Inc.
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises – Preview
Early Access games, you either love them or hate them. In the large array of Early Access games, Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises appears and the developers hope it can hold its own in the RTS genre. The Early Access stamp can really put some pressure on the developers, this often creates an atmosphere for them to either step up their game or watch their playerbase dwindle before it has really had a chance to lift off. Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises doesn’t show all its cards at once as the only thing currently available is the multiplayer mode. This means there’s more RTS goodness coming in the form of singleplayer when the game is further developed.
With Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises, it really is a meager reaping when you’re set for a story driven experience. There is -currently- no campaign mode for you to explore so you won’t have the forced experience of having to roleplay as a nobleman or a knight commanding an army against the oppressive forces of darkness or another nation. The game as it is now, only has a multiplayer to it, so there’s currently no lore to the game. What it comes down it is that you will be the overlooking godlike deity commanding your army and taking down the other player’s bases. So no character development or growing fond of certain troops as they all react and act the same. So you’ll just shrug as another batch of them take a dirt nap.
Graphically the game really shows off its ‘Early Access’ state. Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises demands quite a bit of resources of your computer. If you want to have a shot a playing the game you’ll need these components in your computer: At least 4 GB of ram memory, a Intell HD3000 and Intel Core2Duo or something similar. That’s when you are just scraping the bottom of the barrel. If you want a playable adventure you’ll need 8 GB of RAM, Nvdia 750 or something better and your Direct X needs to be at 11 at least. For those of you who aren’t fluent in the computer lingo, it boils down to having at least a semi decent pc. So mildly put, any decent gaming computer will run this, but that doesn’t mean the graphics hold up that well. There are currently mobile games that look far more pleasing to the eye and use less resources when it comes to hardware. Case in point being that your characters clip through the ground if they change elevation, as the maps aren’t all flat surfaces, and buildings do, too.
There’s a real bad focus when it comes to field of vision and this makes it so that objects, buildings and terrain flicker in and out of focus. Blur is created willy nilly, not just as a way to create depth. The character design is rather detailed, which is rather nice. Seeing as Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises is still in early access, it might be polished and this would benefit the game immensely.
Soundwise the game is rather simplistic. It comes down to two tunes. One for the menus and a very short one for when you are actually playing. Both of them loop, but when playing it becomes far more annoying as the track is really short. This means the loop is really obvious. Which starts to bother you when, not if, it draws your attention. They both have medieval written all over them, but the menu music is a lot more upbeat, while the ingame one is rather low key, almost gothic like, giving the game a rather grim tone. Avalon Lords has a very Warcraftian feel to it as whenever you select a certain group of characters, be it peasants or your army, they spout out a one liner and set out for the thing you selected them for. So there isn’t really much, but then again, if you keep it simple, there’s little to mess things up.
Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises is an RTS with action packed gameplay. The Early Access means that currently only the multiplayer part of the game is unlocked, as stated before. This is rather tragic as this makes it difficult for the developers to add a tutorial into it. What they’ve done to remedy this isn’t all to ideal to be honest. They’ve created videos explaining what you can do before you start up the game, and they go to say that without it players can become rather confused on what to do first. If the developers themselves state this, you know you are in for an adventure. Video tutorials aren’t really immersive, but when done correctly, they get the message across. What Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises does however is something that throws players out of the immersion completely. When you click on the tutorial videos, a browser opens and you can watch the tutorials on the website. That’s a no-go. This breaks the fourth wall and forces players to take extra steps just to get into the game, killing off any kind of immersion right off the bat.
When the game is fully released, there will be a campaign mode which will hopefully encompass the tutorial to remedy the loss of immersion. When you do finally get into the game and past the tutorial videos, be wary of very strong A.I.. If you are new to these kinds of games, you’ll surely get your ass whooped. As you are still building your armies and fortifying your base, the enemy A.I. will already be done setting up and have their troops march to your front doors. You’ll have to really prioritize the necessities to stay alive and when you’ve got this down to a T, you’ll be able to hold back the enemies and hopefully take down their fortresses. It’s certainly no easy game.
Conclusion
Whether or not Avalon Lords: Dawn Rises lives to see another dawn rise, is completely up to you, the Early Acces game currently still needs a lot of polish and the playerbase is rather small, so the matchmaking isn’t really up to scratch. If you’re into RTS games and are looking for one that embraces the medieval spirit, then this game will steal some hours from you, if however you can’t be arsed with building structures and having to wait before you can wage war upon others, then you’d best let this one pass you by. It’s free so it doesn’t really hurt to try it out and help out the developers by playing a match or two.
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