Multiplat Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

[Lovestorm]

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Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a dark fantasy, open world RPG full of quests, loot, choices and monsters, set on a bleak island on the verge of ruin.

King Arthur is long dead and all the myths and legends are falling. Humans living in Avalon are desperately trying to find new ways of life and things to believe in. The plague of Red Death and the spreading Wyrdness are not helping. Time is running out and multiple factions have their own plan for the future of the island…

In this realm, slowly but surely sinking into chaos, you find yourself imprisoned in a damp, underground cell. At this point, you’re nobody, but who knows - you might just be the one who brings a spark of change to this land of everlasting Autumn.

Embark on a grim journey throughout Avalon, an immersive world in which you shape your destiny through the choices you make and who you choose to become. With quests to undertake, characters to meet and mysteries to unfold around every corner, you'll carve your own path and leave your own mark on these sinister lands, torn from the fore-dwellers by King Arthur’s hands.

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[Lovestorm]

Played the demo recently and it made me want to get the full version which is releasing tomorrow.

Obvious TES worship with some other comparisons to Souls as well. Very positive scores in early access on Steam.

 

[93confirmed]

I'm surprised its not getting more hype. I can't wait to jump in tomorrow!

 

[Lovestorm]

I'm surprised its not getting more hype. I can't wait to jump in tomorrow!

Same. It's the type of game that might appeal to gamers who enjoy Elder Scrolls and/or dark fantasy type games.

Hopefully, word will get out about it especially with well known streamers picking up on it.

 

[GtehMVP]

I've been following this, looks great. I love Arthurian stories, a perfect setting for a Bethesda-like RPG.

I've been mainly playing Oblivion and a heavily modded Skyrim, so it will be cool to play something new in this style.

 

[GtehMVP]

Anyone else pick this up? I heard so many good things about it and especially the 1.0 release improvements. I couldn't resist, as it's my kind of RPG.

I unintentionally blew past the Steam 2 hour trial last night, so I'm stuck with it, but thankfully I really like it lol.

I played through the prologue and explored a bit once we get to the mainland (start in an asylum on an island). It's got that Bethesda, something new every few minutes, thing nailed.

If you're an Arthurian fan you'll love the set up, and if you like these BGS-like RPG's, you'll be at home.

What really stood out for me is the dark fantasy art style, it oozes that atmosphere, it's sooooo good. It reminds me of Hexen, or Diablo 1, and how I pictured the world of every D&D session I played.

The melee combat is okay to decent so far, you really have to manage your stamina and dodge. I hear the magic system is awesome, but I've yet to cast a spell. I started as melee, as I generally do in these games.


This is the review my buddy sold me on though, gets into the weeds without spoilers.

Bless the Indies!

 

[hsz]

I plan to pick this one up eventually but I've read there's issues on PS5 re: performance and visual glitches. It looks right up my alley though. I'll check back in once they've released a patch or two.

 

[Lovestorm]

I plan to pick this one up eventually but I've read there's issues on PS5 re: performance and visual glitches. It looks right up my alley though. I'll check back in once they've released a patch or two.

Yeah, there's some graphics issues on console. I'm on PS5 and the framerate and screen tearing is quite poor. Seen other people share screenshots of some insane artifacting and their fix was having to reinstall.

They're working on fixes and released another patch earlier today that locks the resolution to 1080p while they figure out what's happened. At least it hasn't been left entirely to rot over the weekend.

Might be safe to pick up next week.

 

[Lovestorm]

From Discord,

Piotr K - Programmer​

PS5 has been temporarily locked to FullHD as we look for the VFX issue

AR Kacper​

Hey everyone, just a quick heads-up: We're actively reviewing all reports and bugs across both PC and consoles. Some of the problems are quite rare and difficult to reproduce, but we assure we're on it, even if we can't respond to every thread right away. Please expect upcoming patches to address most of the common issues. Thanks for your patience!

 

[Misery Signals]

It looks really good. If I knew of this game before I might have waited for it instead of buying Oblivion but whatever. I'll probably play it down the road.

 

[GtehMVP]

Yeah, there's some graphics issues on console. I'm on PS5 and the framerate and screen tearing is quite poor. Seen other people share screenshots of some insane artifacting and their fix was having to reinstall.

They're working on fixes and released another patch earlier today that locks the resolution to 1080p while they figure out what's happened. At least it hasn't been left entirely to rot over the weekend.

Might be safe to pick up next week.

I'm on PC.

It set my overall settings to Ultra, with DLSS at 70%, not sure exactly what that means lol. Is that quality, ultra quality??

I'm getting a steady 60 FPS normally, which I locked it at, but on two occasions, with a bunch of enemies present, I got some hiccups, where my frames dropped to 40-ish briefly.

There's no steady Unreal-like stutter, or any screen tearing, and the frame drop isn't consistently dropping in large groups.

I'm playing 3440 by 1440p (ultrawide) on a 3080. Textures are set as high (the highest they offer). My vram isn't being taxed (barely 50%), so I don't know what caused that; probably a Unity thing.

Hopefully they can drop a performance patch quickly, but it hasn't been game breaking.


It looks like a PS4 game ported to PC with high resolution options. The character faces are pretty basic, but the art style is aces. Unless something changes, I'll be sticking with this for a while, love the skill system.

 

[Lovestorm]

**Hey all!**

If all goes to plan, tomorrow we’ll be rolling out the first patch across all platforms. This one mainly includes bug fixes, optimization improvements, and a few small QoL updates.

Later this week, we’re aiming to release a larger patch focused on:
- VO and UI bug fixes
- Summon behavior improvements
- Balance adjustments
- Quest-related fixes
- Map collision (falling through the ground) and stability improvements
- Fixes for the display of Devil’s Snareand Mandrake
- Various misc fixes and improvements

We’ll post the full changelogs in our https://discord.com/channels/644877829791809566/1355285981858763033 channel once they’re ready.

We don’t have an ETA for these below yet, but they're on our radar as well:
- Crash issues on consoles, including Xbox crashes in ||the Cuanacht Farmlands||
- Allowing you to select higher screen resolution on PS5

**Thank you for playing Tainted Grail and for your patience. We're doing our best to fix the issues ASAP!**

New message on Discord.

 

[GtehMVP]

New message on Discord.

Hopefully the patch does the trick. Normally it's PC with the bigger issues like this.

The game is a total gem, you can feel the passion from the devs at every encounter. It reminds me of KCD1, in that they are punching well above their weight.


There's so much lore you can read up on if you want to, and It's crazy how much unique and well acted voice dialogue there is. While NPC's don't have a 24 hour day/night cycle, they do enough like sleep in a bed, patrol, or shut down stores depending on the time, to name a few. I've had some surprisingly, and varied branching quest lines, that wouldn't have occurred had I not gone out of my way to speak with that NPC. They'll remember the choices you made. All these elements make the world feel alive.

After 15-ish hours, I haven't seen a bug or crash. The only glitch I get is the random frame spike, and dead enemies flopping back down after reloading a quick save.

For those who don't know, It's broken down into three chapters, each in its own location as its own smaller open world. It feels like pocket Skyrim, with far more serious tone thanks to the art direction.

 

[Wrath of Foamy]

Got a feeling that it'll get good reviews, but it'll also be buggy at launch.

It's coming to Xbox, so I'll keep an eye out. I'd like to play it.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Huh I totally missed this one. I really like the look of the world being so dreary. It definitely looks like it was made on a budget though.

I’ll try to check it out on steam when I get home

 

[Valhoven]

Just downloaded the demo. Excited to check out. I’m thinking of buying this or KCDII, which is on sale right now.

 

[GtehMVP]

Just downloaded the demo. Excited to check out. I’m thinking of buying this or KCDII, which is on sale right now.

KCD2 is the better game for sure, but this is really good.

If you havent played it already, I'd really recommend playing KCD1 first. You can always get it dirt cheap with all the DLC's.

I'm 20 hours into Avalon now, still on the first map. It has some jank, but once you start leveling up, combat is really fun. The power fantasy hits hard.

This is more of a Scrolls Souls-like, than just the scrolls-like it's billed as.

Stamjna managment and dodging are paramount. Equip weight affects your dodge, so instead of fat rolling you could be fat dodging lol.

There's a bonfire mechanic you can level up at/rest, but enemies don't respawn. You also chat with your companion (no spoilers), much like ER.

It has the Souls and Scrolls environmental story telling nailed, with tons of lore you can read up on if you wish.

It has that tattered Civilization Souls games always have, but with far more NPC's you can interact with.

Like Skyrim and ER, there are so many things you can miss if you don't actively explore. It's incredibly rewarding, and super addictive once you get your levels up.

One aspect I really like is how they handle items. Everything you put in your stash can be accessed at every cooking, potion crafting and smithing station, letting you loot at will.

Speaking of cooking and potion crafting, you find tons of recipes. However, you can also experiment much like Zelda breath of the wild's system.


One big warning though. When you cook expensive dishes/potions, selling too much crafted dishes/potions to vendors can hammer your framerates. It's an easy way to make money, but don't do that until the devs patch it.

Eventually tje items you sell will leave the vendor's inventory, and your frames will return to normal, but I think it takes 72 hours in-game time.


Anyway, I've babbled enough.

If you're choosing between this and KCD2, go with the latter, but don't sleep on this gem. This game is excellent and deserves all the praise it's getting.

I'm an ADHD case, prob jumped between 3 or 4 games before picking this up. Its all I want to play now. That's probably the highest praise I can give to a game lol.

 

[Lovestorm]

Today's update is pretty good. Might get back to playing now,

**A new patch has just landed on Steam (coming to consoles later today):**

**UI:**
- Fixed the quest section displaying when there was no active quest in the quest log.
- Fixed an issue where quest or item notifications were sometimes missing.
- Fixed item list and gamepad navigation after consuming food or potions in the Bag.
- Fixed tooltip refresh for currently hovered items in Hero Storage.
- Tooltips in Equipment now update correctly after equipping an item.
- Fixed blinking UI graphics.
- Fixed incorrect state of the Large UI option on the Cloud Conflict popup.
- Fixed displaying journal graphics.
- Fixed displaying fishing rod tutorial on gamepad.
- Fixed saving fishing entries in the journal.

**Gameplay:**
- Fixed Dal Riata Berserkers and Galahads freezing in place after running away from them during combat.
- Fixed Hero Summons attacking friendly Red Priests.
- Devil's Snare and Mandrake plants are now respawning correctly.
- Filling Beor's heart with player's energy now costs 30 Max HP instead of 40.
- Changed Arcanist's Sword Damage Gain per upgrade level: 21 → 1.
- If you have only one hand at your disposal, you will get the one-handed variant of Giant’s Grudge.
- Fixed Bromhar No Face's attacks being unblockable and unparryable.
- Fixed having item encumbrance debuffs even when within the limit after save/load.
- Wyrdstalker will now stalk you more—he was a bit too eager for a fight. He is now much slower outside of combat.
- Fixed Unnatural Focus Talent not slowing down time correctly.

**Technical:**
- Fixed frequent crash on Xbox in Cuanacht Farmlands area.
- Enabled QHD (2560x1440) on PS5.
- Improved performance on PS5 Pro.
- When saving fails for any reason, the failed save will now be removed. Previously, you could load it and play on a corrupted save.
- Buyback in shops will now store a maximum of 50 items, which will prevent them from downgrading performance.
- Optimized vegetation in Cuanacht.
- Some people were killing enemies a bit too enthusiastically. If you find yourself falling through the world, load a save — it should now fix it.
- Fixed visual artifacts of wyrd barriers.
- Removed headbob that persisted after changing loadout when sprinting with two-handed weapons.
- Caradoc and other NPCs should no longer blur when the player camera was not moved for some time in dark conditions. As wyrd as that was, it was not intended.
- Blood Transfusion and Life Transfusion spells optimization and fixes.
- [Steam] There will now be a warning popup when the game fails to detect Steam. We are still working on a migration feature for people who played without Steam.

**Localization & VO:**
- Added LOTS of missing Japanese localization (Cuanacht, main story, quests, items, etc.).
- A lot of VO added and fixed.
- Fixed Executioner's Axe's description.
- Fixed Big Bonk's description.

**Quests:**
- Raspberries needed for the Maggot's quest will now be correctly counted.
- You will now be able to exit Deirdre's basement correctly.
- Fixed quest "Forked Path" if the player collected Matron’s Insignia before getting the quest.
- "The Trial" quest will no longer break if you kill the target before starting the quest. We will add a retroactive fix in the next hotfix.
- Fixed quest "Forked Path" where you couldn't continue the quest after finding the novice's body.
- Added missing rewards to a few quests.
- Fixed Neante questlines being impossible to continue. This should fix retroactively; she should have the correct dialogues now.

 

[method115]

Just downloaded the demo. Excited to check out. I’m thinking of buying this or KCDII, which is on sale right now.

I think KCD2 just recently added a trial version for PS+ premiums subs not sure if you are on that tier or not.

 

[Valhoven]

I think KCD2 just recently added a trial version for PS+ premiums subs not sure if you are on that tier or not.

Just my luck, I downgraded to Extra last year. Ended up playing Grail for about an hour last night (mostly in the starter dungeon/prison with one priest guard and an undead) and really liked it.

I see what Gteh means re: environmental storytelling because some of the flavour text for items I'm picking up are very well written, immediately reminiscent of the Miyazakian. I found this one sketchwork of a scantly-clad woman and the accompanying text was a devilishly well done erotica excerpt.

This game appears to have the figure-it-out friction I like in my journeys + FOV slider for bonus points.

Appreciate Lovestorm and all putting this on my radar.