It’s been a while! Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates it. We had a pretty fun time, and I’ve had a busy few weeks. I visited the Lake District for a couple of days in early October, followed by a week of stomach issues.
October has been one hell of a busy month for video games, from The Outer Worlds 2 to Arc Raiders, and things are somewhat chaotic! I am featuring two games today that I have been looking forward to for a while now, in Escape from Duckov and Knights of the Crusades. Let us begin!
Knights of the Crusades
Knights of the Crusades comes from Reverie World Studios, which has made several ambitious grand strategy games. I have found their titles a mixed bag overall. They brim with charm and some fascinating ideas, but the jank has often been a problem. Knights of the Crusades is their most interesting title to date, however, and while it does not quite escape the lack of polish with their other games, this is probably my favorite game from the studio so far.
Set during the time of the First Crusade, this game blends RTS and citybuilding mechanics into an odd duck. There are some intriguing aspects at play, featuring an expansive set of campaigns and a sandbox mode to explore. As 4X games go, Knights of the Crusades offers something different with real-time citybuilding in short bursts, allowing a limited time for players to build settlements on the battle map. It is a nice mechanic, but a bit buggy.
The game also features a real-time battle mechanic for sieges, where you construct weapons in real-time, gather resources, and mobilize troops in a twisted blend of Age of Empires and Total War. It is enjoyable enough. The usual management mechanics are in place between gathering resources, managing your army, and making sure you join the Crusades on time.
The ideas are excellent, with some refreshing twists to the genre, although the game still needs some work, despite having left Early Access a few weeks ago. Optimization is a problem, and I found several crashes during the campaign map. Sometimes, save files would refuse to load, and the unit pathfinding in battles tended to get lost during sieges. The graphics feature some lovely environmental effects, especially in the campaign map, but I found the battle interface somewhat lacking. I would also like to see a separate battle or skirmish mode, because there is a lot of potential there.
For its price tag, however, I feel Knights of the Crusades offers a somewhat refreshing alternative for strategy fans looking for something different. It’s rough around the edges and still needs some TLC, but it is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts.
Escape from Duckov
I have been growing fond of extraction shooters lately. While I never played Escape from Tarkov, I was a big fan of games like Zero Sievert and Witchfire. Arc Raiders launched very recently, and I haven’t picked it up yet, but I played the server tests and enjoyed what I saw.
Escape from Duckov looks like the world’s biggest practical joke at first glance. Escape from Tarkov, but play as a small duck? Now that sounds like my cup of tea. This game has gone pretty viral with over two million copies sold and Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam, which is damn impressive. After spending some time first with the playtest a while back and the launch version, I can see why the game is so popular. It might require some work, but a solo extraction shooter is still very rare, and Escape from Duckov oozes character.
Being a single-player game, Duckov sets itself apart from the competition. After a short tutorial in which your heavily customised duck avatar is broken out of prison, the gameplay loop reveals itself. The game is played as a top-down shooter, where the ultimate goal is to eventually escape the island by building up resources while managing food and energy. Survival management is my go-to preference in games like this, and the frantic gameplay is sometimes at odds with the cartoony graphics Duckov offers.
It is still surprisingly relaxing for all the brutal fighting curves. The maps randomize their loot for replayability, and the gameplay loop of scrounging supplies, exploration, and building facilities in the main base works as expected. The cute vibes and ducks running around, being goofy with each other, are hilarious, and it is just a solid loop. The grind can be challenging, and despite making things more approachable by making it a solo experience, the constant risk of losing everything in your inventory when you die makes it essential to be careful.
While this is an early impressions review from me, Escape From Duckov is more than just a novelty mockery of a bigger game. Duckov is a competent extraction shooter in its own right, removing the multiplayer annoyances while maintaining the same great gameplay loop.
