We have Skyrim at home
If you’ve ever wondered what it would feel like to get lost in a dark, brooding Arthurian nightmare while wandering around what feels like aimlessly at times, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is here to answer that question with a shrug and a vaguely described objective.
Oh boy, you can’t see it but I am rubbing my temples as I sit at the laptop writing this review; I just don’t understand how a game with this premise and a lengthy time in ‘Early Access’ landed here; but let’s talk about it. The premise is dope honestly: it’s Arthurian legend but make it nihilistic. During the young King’s reign, he pushed back an evil force known as the Wyrdness that taints the land. You get it? Well anyway, Arthur destroyed the Wyrdness and prosperity reigned; but that was 600 years ago. The king is dead, the land is cursed, hope is a memory and the Wyrdness has returned.
MSRP: $44.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99
Honestly, it’s a compelling setting; almost like if Skyrim and Dark Souls had a baby. The voice acting in the game ranges from “grim” to “town drunk who was just handed a script” but the atmosphere is thick with dread and fog. Let’s talk about graphics, at first glance, you might think, “Hey, this looks pretty good!” but then the game blinks, the textures forget to load, and suddenly you’re face-to-face with a peasant who has the complexion of a melted candle. Lighting gives off a moody vibe and makes things feel very atmospheric. But then shadows will pop in and out like they are auditioning for a horror movie, it all just feels disappointing if I am being honest because the potential can be plainly seen.
A lot of the environments throughout the world can be gorgeous in that “post-apocalyptic world” type way. Forests are eerie, ruins feel ancient, and the world honestly looks pretty good. But for every moment of visual splendor, there are three more where textures take so long to pop in, players will start to think they are being drawn by hand. Then there are the NPCs which seem to range in appearance from “gritty medieval survivor” to some dude with a unibrow and teeth which clip through their lip. This transitions over to the facial animations as well, which felt stiff and somewhat unresponsive.
Then there are performance issues, I played the game on the Series X and frame rates dipping was commonplace when there are multiple enemies on screen and I already talked about the incredibly long time it takes to load textures or assets in some places. It just really makes me wonder how these releases come about. This game was in Early Access since 2023 and somehow still managed to release in this state on Xbox; perhaps the performance is better on PC since that’s where the game launched into EA.
Look, in the middle of all this chaos, the world does have atmosphere. Gritty, creepy, and weirdly beautiful at times, it’s just so unfortunate that the graphic fidelity is so freaking inconsistent. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a lot like the sword Excalibur; the greatness of the sword can be seen underneath but its currently lodged in a rock made of poor optimization. If you can forgive the bugs and all of the jank this game brings to the round table, then you may just find a hauntingly cool world worth exploring.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
