King Arthur: The Role-Playing Wargame

 PC
User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 152 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 103 out of 152
  2. Mixed: 29 out of 152
  3. Negative: 20 out of 152

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  1. Novahawk
    Mar 17, 2010
    7
    KAtrw reminds me of the TW installments as it resembles much of its layouts. It gives much originality with the "hybrid" feel of having a bit of TW gameplay and that of King's Bounty's, KAtrw would easily be recommended if only there was no lacks in 2 major areas; the camera angles and a very clunky interface. As the battles enfold before your very eyes, what you see can be KAtrw reminds me of the TW installments as it resembles much of its layouts. It gives much originality with the "hybrid" feel of having a bit of TW gameplay and that of King's Bounty's, KAtrw would easily be recommended if only there was no lacks in 2 major areas; the camera angles and a very clunky interface. As the battles enfold before your very eyes, what you see can be limited and there is no way of adjusting it so you can see exactly where the whole action is at a glance like in TW. Thus, there will often be times when your battles end in disarrays due to this flaw with the cam technicality. The rusty feel interface does not help either with its vague descriptions and tooltips. KAtrw experience gives you a whole feel that it didn't go into extensive refining and tuning to give that spontaenous wow feel. The graphics is ok although there could have been more options ie. uncheck show enemy movements. which were overly repetitive. Music is uninspiring and a bit midi sounds alike. Voiceoves are also uninspiring from the intro theme. Adding Ice Age 3 actors in here would have made it "it". Replayability value is high for the fact that KAtrw offers a multi and complex paths adventure with Arthur at the helm. Overall, support KAtrw for a fair share of fun when you're done killing that cheap joystick you hated so much.… Expand
  2. BrianH
    Mar 30, 2010
    7
    This is a good game that can only get better. Currently your immersed in to a fantasy England where you have to take on a fantasy elven race and a dark lord sort of race. Your given choices and your enemies change according to those choices. So its all pretty cool stuff. Unfortunately the games let down by a crash that the developments have not fixed that happens as you start a battle or This is a good game that can only get better. Currently your immersed in to a fantasy England where you have to take on a fantasy elven race and a dark lord sort of race. Your given choices and your enemies change according to those choices. So its all pretty cool stuff. Unfortunately the games let down by a crash that the developments have not fixed that happens as you start a battle or as on ends. Forcing you to play the same battles over and over and hope it will end without crashing the next time. After you played the same battle half a dozen times, this game starts to get boring fast and you find your self stuck in the same spot, just after you get your first stronghold. Which is roughly when the crashes get worse. I tried to play this several times now and gave up in frustration. This is a common issue with the game and theres no solution in sight yet. Hense the score.… Expand
  3. ppx100
    Feb 5, 2011
    7
    Bought this game out of curosity, left it to download and few hours later press play to start game. My only intention was 20 minutes game play and come back later, next thing the sun went down, my room got dark and it was me left in front of the glare of my monitor taking over cornwall and battling king idris and this was six hours later. If your looking for a total war game but moreBought this game out of curosity, left it to download and few hours later press play to start game. My only intention was 20 minutes game play and come back later, next thing the sun went down, my room got dark and it was me left in front of the glare of my monitor taking over cornwall and battling king idris and this was six hours later. If your looking for a total war game but more colourful, then this is it. I read a few reviews and everybody gives it a 50/50. I enjoyed this game, well worth the money and the good thing is once you've got it you can always come back to it in your steam account. I give it 7/10, if anyone needs more info about the gameplay of this game you can contact me through steam, ppx100. LONG LIVE STEAM GamerZ UnitE… Expand
  4. Baudros
    Dec 26, 2011
    7
    Decent RTS with some nice RPG elements: similar to Warcraft 3, Heroes gain levels and are assigned various abilities based on their class, Warlord etc. I did find the actual RTS battles to be a bit awkward however. Heroes are very powerful (maybe that's your thing), but also camera angles I found to be awkward making controlling armies more difficult than in the Total war games. TheDecent RTS with some nice RPG elements: similar to Warcraft 3, Heroes gain levels and are assigned various abilities based on their class, Warlord etc. I did find the actual RTS battles to be a bit awkward however. Heroes are very powerful (maybe that's your thing), but also camera angles I found to be awkward making controlling armies more difficult than in the Total war games. The combat is somewhat...clunky...hard to describe.

    That said, overall King Arthur does hold up well when compared with Total War. The unit choices are different and interesting for the most part, and the RPG elements make units and heroes more meaningful.    … Expand
  5. Eavg148
    Jul 24, 2011
    7
    This game is going to appeal to a very select group of people ALOT, but in general will leave many disappointed. The subtitle "a role-playing wargame" should let you know right off the bat that this game is different. Its not just a mashup of an RPG and RTS its really a combination of 4 different games.

    First portion of the game you come across is the TURN BASED grand strategy section    This game is going to appeal to a very select group of people ALOT, but in general will leave many disappointed. The subtitle "a role-playing wargame" should let you know right off the bat that this game is different. Its not just a mashup of an RPG and RTS its really a combination of 4 different games.

    First portion of the game you come across is the TURN BASED grand strategy section of the game. Here you will hire and manage armies. Move generals and their said armies to various places to various bad things to other peoples armies and castles. Here time will progress through 4 seasons including winter where your armies must hunker down for the cold. This part of the game is done well enough to get the job done, and the graphics are good enough. The UI itself can be a tad complicated but thats to be expected in a game like this. So if your the kind of person that absolutely refuses to read the instruction manual, and will try to hurry through the tutorials, then this game is not for you.

    The second part of the game, which is accessed via the main map, is the TEXT BASED (and yes i mean text based) questing system. These quests are vital to the game and not only progress you through the game but gets you good loot and new heroes for your armies. An old school gamer like me felt right at home with this questing system, but younger gamers with an aversion to reading are not going to like this, so the game therefore isnt for them either.

    The third part this ambitious mashup is the ROLE-PLAYING section of the title. While the questing system is of course part of the role-playing, what im talking about here is the characters of the game. You the have leveling, loot, equipment and special abilities (some magical) that you would find in any basic RPG. There are different classes of heroes available and each has very diffferent powers which is a good thing. Dont skimp on the magic in the game because you will quickly find your heroes make or break your chances on the battlefield.

    Which brings us to the fourth part of the game, the RTS battles. Theirs definitely a wide selection of units in the game including giants to ghosts to axemen and archers. Most of the melee units though dont seem to be all that different from each other, but you will notice the different between missle units and melee in a big way. Even though in a later patch they toned it down a bit, archers in the game are second only to magic users. Archers do huge amounts of damage and if not countered very quickly the battles can be very lopsided. But myself personally, i found the RTS side of the fights to be my cup of tea. They may seem hard at first but once you get the idea of how all the units perform, you will get the hang of it quickly.

    An important thing to note, is the scale of the these battles. While a large number of people compare this game to the TOTAL WAR series, its not allways a fair comparison. Total war games deal with huge armies fighting it out nation to nation. King arthur deals with much smaller regional kings fighting what amount to a succesion war for the kingship. The battles here are more along the lines of hundreds of troops per side, not thousands like in the total war games. This helps in one way to make you feel more connected to each unit you have, and since they level up like the heroes do, this can be a fun difference from total war.

    The company itself has gone alone way since its release add new features and campaigns via dlc and to rebalance the game to be more fun. I loved everything about this game and would have given it a 8.5 or 9 until this year. What happened? Simply put, they broke it. Bugwise i mean. Fixing the game for other people somehow made it crash before or after battles about 50% of the time (usually after a long hard won battle, which is VERY annoying). I never had problems with the game before the latest expansions and patches and now its unplayable. Being from a small company, you expect the tech support to be from bad to no existant. They have chosen to be non existant. They have yet to respond to my emails and instead rely on forums in which people not related to their company in anyway give nonsense advice and this bug seemingly has no fix or work around.

    BUT... not everyone gets this bug (honestly it seems to be happening most to people with 64 bit windows) and this game is pretty cheap right now. While this game has alot of different parts, that certainly wont appeal to everyone, its still worthwhile as long you dont get unlucky enough to be amongst those while game ending crashes.    … Expand
  6. S'jetK
    Mar 18, 2010
    5
    Camera angles and movements are ackward to play with around the battleground edges. No instant focus on the action around the edges which is major negative on the score. There are hardly any hotkeys for enemy targeting link. Can get confusing with the numerous types of units. Interface is also ackward and descriptions are generic and vague. Graphics is dated 2004. The whole feel is Camera angles and movements are ackward to play with around the battleground edges. No instant focus on the action around the edges which is major negative on the score. There are hardly any hotkeys for enemy targeting link. Can get confusing with the numerous types of units. Interface is also ackward and descriptions are generic and vague. Graphics is dated 2004. The whole feel is unrefined. A game for Total War and Arthurian fans with a bit of Darkfalls on the side. This could have been a whole lot more fun if reworked. The units are also very unbalanced.… Expand
  7. Dethstar
    Oct 12, 2011
    6
    A nice concept in a game which somehow failed to deliver the game play to meet the promise. I really really wanted to enjoy this game far more than I did. In the end I never ever played very far. In fact I found it difficult to get very far at all as it all got so repetetive.
  8. homers
    Dec 8, 2009
    6
    King Arthur is an ambitious game - of many elements blend together. And just like many other games that tried to do to same, this game is lacking depth in many of its area. Gameplay - lack of instructions and extremely poor interface. There is little indication on quest objectives. Even if you happen to have completed 1 quest, it is very likely that a certain procedures you toke to King Arthur is an ambitious game - of many elements blend together. And just like many other games that tried to do to same, this game is lacking depth in many of its area. Gameplay - lack of instructions and extremely poor interface. There is little indication on quest objectives. Even if you happen to have completed 1 quest, it is very likely that a certain procedures you toke to complete the previous quest will make completing the next step quite impossible. Sound - a strength of this game. Beautiful background music and voice casting. But there is no combat sound, reducing the thrill of battle to almost none. Combat - unsatisfying control and units setting... When two teams of troops engage, the team of troops will only engage in a formation, i.e. only a minimal amount of troops are actually hitting the enemy... Overpowered archers that kills anything... Once engaged in melee combat, you cannot withdrew a unit from the engagement... Multiple winning scenarios that show clear bias towards the side with more troops - strategy and skill are of no practical use... Unclear skills tool tips... stats of units do not reflect actual performance... crippling difficulty in certain scenario... poor camera control... poor unit management control... Design - beautiful unit, story and atmospheric design. giving players a good sense of the mythical encounters in the game...… Expand
  9. Yogi1001
    Dec 31, 2011
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It's a great game- but I will probably never bother to finish the campaign. It is because now- near the end I have a super powerful army with four heroes who can teleport on top of the enemy army and win the battle for me without even having to use my army. It was not easy to get my army so strong as the 40+ hours I spent on the campaign to get to this point attest. But now I am suddenly bored by it. The game is just throwing battle after battle at me - and I mean dozens upon dozens. And the battle is alway the same- I win easily with my 4 overpowered heroes and their spells. It has become very repetitive and I am going to force myself to have a battle a day to finish the game! This aside, I found the game to be challenging and refreshing at the early and mid game phases before it became a grind and I recommend it for anyone who likes the idea of magic, roleplaying and total war being put together.… Expand
  10. TheCornflex
    Feb 1, 2018
    6
    Not bad but Total War offers a bit better gameplay-mechanics than this one.
  11. Kotofon
    Jun 6, 2020
    5
    Продолжение героической стратегии «Король Артур», снискавшей признание у поклонников жанра и высоко оцененной критиками. События игры развернутся спустя многие годы после того, как юный Артур вытащил из камня чудесный меч, объединил Британию, сплотил вокруг себя рыцарей Круглого стола и с помощью силы Святого Грааля обеспечил мир и спокойствие в Камелоте. Но на этом эпопея, о которойПродолжение героической стратегии «Король Артур», снискавшей признание у поклонников жанра и высоко оцененной критиками. События игры развернутся спустя многие годы после того, как юный Артур вытащил из камня чудесный меч, объединил Британию, сплотил вокруг себя рыцарей Круглого стола и с помощью силы Святого Грааля обеспечил мир и спокойствие в Камелоте. Но на этом эпопея, о которой сложили легенды, не заканчивается. Грядут новые, темные времена…… Expand

Awards & Rankings

47
#47 Best PC Game of 2009
48
#48 Most Discussed PC Game of 2009
68
#68 Most Shared PC Game of 2009

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
79

Generally favorable reviews - based on 23 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 23
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 23
  3. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. My Gamer
    Dec 9, 2010
    92
    Like so few games before, it King Arthur - The RPG has managed to make many an early morning "quick game" turn into a late night session of "just one more turn".
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  2. Impulsegamer
    80
    Sound in the game is superbly done, the music sound track fits the look and feel of the game. With sweeping grand music and drumming beats fit for the grand epic adventure that the game is. So too is the voice acting, with flair and conviction and an earnest truth ringing in the words.
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  3. GameWatcher
    80
    The consistency in design and reverence for the subject matter is King Arthur's greatest strength. Too often war games of this persuasion end up as dry, hardcore affairs that only the slimmest of niche audiences can appreciate. Neocore, although biting off a little more than it can chew, has provided an experience that positively oozes with atmosphere and challenge, yet all the while catering to those that spend twelve hours a day devising battlefield plans - and the other twelve reading the Art of War.
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