In thisKing Arthur: Legends Rise Gameplay Featuresarticle we will be taking a look at the new free to play turn-based RPG title developed and published by Netmarble. The game is already out for PC and Mobile and you can download it from the link in the description.
What is King Arthur: Legends Rise?
King Arthur: Legends Rise is a new free to play turn-based RPG set in a beautiful and reimagined Arthurian World. The main campaign revolves around a young Arthur and his link to the Excalibur sword.
In this Arthurian World, the gods created mankind to serve as their slaves and were treated as mere playthings. A god named “Caliburn” took pity on mankind and secretly taught them magic. The other gods were furious, and imprisoned Caliburn inside Excalibur, but mankind fought bravely and managed to seal the Gods by an oath of the Round Table with their own blood.
The main campaign starts thousands of years later, with Arthur learning about his true lineage and assuming rulership over Camelot after a massive conflict. From here, he’ll travel to other Kingdoms, meet other Kings, knights and many memorable characters while trying to prevent the return of the old gods. During your travels, you’ll meet with iconic characters from the original tale such as Merlin, Lancelot, Tristan and many others.
During your playtime, you’ll create a team of heroes including Knights, Mages and Rogues and battle epic Bosses and mythical monsters in turn based combat. As you advance through the game, you’ll start rebuilding Camelot and unlock buildings and mechanics to increase the power of your Heroes, by improving their equipment, skills and abilities.
The game features cross-platform gaming experience, so you’ll be able to use the same account to play on both your PC and Mobile, allowing you to continue your adventure even when you are not home.
Gameplay and Mechanics
The thing that I like most about King Arthur Legends Rise is the amount of options and freedom that the game provides, but to understand that I first need to explain the core mechanics.
Heroes and Combat
Heroes are the main playable characters and you’ll need four of them in your party. You’ll acquire a couple of Heroes as you play through the main campaign (Including Legendary ones) and new ones can also be acquired by using the “Summon” mechanic at Lake Avalon.
Levels and Stats
Heroes start at level 1 and you’ll need to acquire experience to level them up. Every 10 levels you’ll have to “Advance” them to the next Star which will unlock their next 10 levels, as well as increase their overall stats. Experience can be acquired by winning combats, or by using XP potions that can be acquired through different means.
Vigor, Skills and Relics
During combat your party will share a resource that you can use to cast active skills. You start with 5, and the earn 1 for each turn of your party. Each hero has 3 active skills and each comes with a weapon which determines the “Element” of the hero and provides 3 different Active Skills. The element of the Hero defines how effective it is against other elements, so for example a Flame Hero will take less damage from, while also dealing more damage to Frost enemies, similar to Rock, Paper, Scissors. You can unlock different Relics for each hero, not only changing their element, but also providing a different set of active Skills.
It’s also worth mentioning that not all active skills are offensive. Some of them might be buffs, debuffs or healing, meaning that there’s an almost infinite number of combinations of not only heroes, but also sets of active skills depending on their weapon.
Hero Stats
Heroes have many different base stats and advanced stats. The main ones are:
Each hero also has a couple of fixed innate properties that determine their overall playstyle:
If assigned as the leader of your party, that hero will provide a bonus effect to all members. Each character has a different effect when assigned as leader.
Each character has a Main Role that increases a specific set of abilities such as Attack or Defense, dictating what they will prioritize.
Each character also has a secondary bonus to specific abilities, which can be the same or different than Main Role.
The game features whether conditions during combat such as Day/Night cycle, rain, etc, and each character will have preferred environments where they’ll get a buff to their abilities.
Additionally, each hero has up to 3 passive effects. These will be unlocked as you level up your character and usually provide bonuses that synergize with their playstyle.
Another way to enhance your heroes is with Equipment. Each piece of equipment will provide an increase to a couple of base stats, and will also be part of a set. If you have enough pieces of a set, you’ll get the set bonus on top of the regular stat bonus.
How it all blends together
In most games you’ll only focus on creating a single party of heroes with a specific strategy and use that to clear every type of content, but thanks to the wide variety of mechanics available in KALR, you are actually motivated to level up and keep a wide roaster of heroes and combine them for different situations.
For example, the “Plain of Beast” dungeon where you’re able to farm materials to Advance your heroes, pits you against a Boar type boss that buffs itself with multiple layers of a barrier. If you have a party that only focuses on heavy hitting single attacks you won’t be able to defeat it, as it requires multiple strikes to break the barrier and start doing damage. You can, instead, use a combination of heroes that deal low damage but hit multiple times, and other heroes that deal lot of damage in a single hit, allowing you to first break the barrier and then deal direct damage to the boss.
I personally love this approach, as it forces you to experiment with new strategies, and provides you an incentive to level up and keep up with other heroes, and also makes the game a lot less monotonous.
Camelot is your main hub and a key part of the game experience. When you are not fighting enemies, you’ll be checking the different buildings that provide you with tools to enhance your heroes.
The game does an fantastic job at slowly unlocking the buildings as you progress through the story and explain you what each one does. The market for example allows you to use gold that you acquire to buy materials or experience potions to level up your characters, while the Forge allows you to buy equipment or change the stats on equipment that you already own. The plaza fountain will slowly generate XP potions as time passes and the Mage’s tower will generate material.
you’re able to click on almost any material or equipment to learn where it can be obtained. To do so, click on the the item, click on the three dashes and then “Source Info”.
Many game mechanics can’t be accessed without unlocking its required building and some of these buildings are not unlocked until after you complete the main story. I personally like this, as I always felt that I was discovering something new, even after playing for many hours.
Game Modes, Stamina and Crystals
The game features many different play modes and most of them require “Stamina” to complete, but this mechanic is very forgiving in the sense that you’ll only consume stamina when completing the objective, meaning that you won’t lose stamina if you are defeated, or if you are disconnected from the battle. This is a very welcome mechanic, as it allows you to test with different strategies and Hero combinations without losing anything in the process.
I also want to mention that during your first playthrough of the main story you’ll constantly earn Stamina either through achievements or other game mechanics. I never ran out of Stamina during my playthrough, and this will only become a concern once you start farming dungeons for the Endgame.
Main Story
As previously mentioned, the main story is centered on Arthur and his link to both his lineage and Excalibur. The main story is pretty straightforward. You’ll arrive at a location, and navigate the map to predetermined points where you’ll interact with Story Elements, fight enemies and advance while defeating Bosses.
I really actually enjoyed the plot, and there’s a good combination between the individual motivation of each character (which are fully voice acted), and the greater plot in which all play a part of. There are many plot twists and memorable characters from the original Arthurian Tale, so if you are an Arthurian fan I highly encourage you to play it to see your favorite characters.
The main story has 10 Chapters, divided in 7 sections each. It will take you several hours to complete the main story, and you can replay it on two additional difficulties (Hard and Hell).
Once you progress enough you’ll unlock the “Adventure” mode. These are more like “Side Quests” and you’ll arrive at a location that you can explore freely. In each location you’ll need to find hidden chests, solve small puzzles, defeat enemies and find Lore elements.
This mode doesn’t require stamina and provides a lot of useful materials and currencies. The side stories allow you to learn more about the world, so I highly recommend you try them and uncover every little secret.
Dungeons (Restricted Area)
Another feature that I really enjoyed are the game’s Dungeons that you’re able to access from the “Restricted Area” section in Camelot. Here, you’ll find a variety of dungeons, each of them designed to farm a specific type of resource, also with a specific type of enemy to defeat.
For example, the “Power up Dungeon” allows you to farm resources related to upgrading heroes. As previously mentioned, in “the Plain of Beasts” dungeon you will face off against a boar that puts up a barrier that you need to destroy before dealing direct damage to the boss, and while in the “Burning Land” dungeon you will face off against a Boss that has very high HP and deals DOT damage, which requires your team to sustain a prolonged a fight.
The “Equipment Dungeon” allows you to farm for specific Equipment Set pieces, while pitting you against “Nest of Yskalhaig” a boss that constantly buffs itself and becomes more powerful as the fight prolongs.
You can click on each of the bosses to get additional information on their mechanics, and the recommended Heroes and Abilities that you can use to defeat them.
The reason why I enjoy this system is because it gives you the freedom to farm the content you like, while also providing many different activities. If you feel like you are getting tired of repeating the same combat style all the time, you just need to switch into a different dungeon to change it up. I also like to keep track of a couple of different hero teams for each situation.
Clan and PVP (Colosseum)
There are two main online features, one is the Clan and the other one is the Colosseum which acts as a PVP arena.
There are a couple of different clan activities, such as Clan missions that each clan member must complete on their own, like for example clearing a dungeon X amount of times, and also Clan Raids where you fight a Boss to accumulate damage until it’s defeated.
The PVP arena places you with a group of people on your same bracket. You can set up a “defense” team and then face another player Defense Team. If you win enough battles you’ll advance in rank and earn rewards.
Free to play and Crystals
The game is completely free to play, with no content restricted behind any type of paywall. You can access the complete length of the Main Story and Side Story and you’ll also earn a lot of Crystals (which are the premium currency of the game) by just playing and completing different tasks.
After a fixed period of time, you’ll earn a free Hero roll ranging from Common to Rare, and you’ll slowly regenerate stamina, as well as earning Experience and Materials from your city buildings.
New Heroes and Relics can be acquired in the summoning pool at Lake Avalon. You’ll often acquire “Summoning Tickets” by just playing the game, or you can also spend Crystals for the summon.
There are more methods to acquire specific rewards, such as the “Power up Guide” that provides you with Daily, Weekly and monthly missions that you’re able to complete to earn various rewards. The “Royal Road” gives you a lot of useful free items while also guiding you through the game’s mechanics, and there’s also plenty of free Events that provide you with free stuff for completing tasks, such as earning gold, completing Arena Events, completing story events, and more.
Visuals and Performance
The game was developed using Unreal Engine 5 with visually stunning graphics and 3d-characters. This can be appreciated during Boss Fights where you sometimes see huge enemy models that are very detailed and polished transforming it into an epic experience.
You can also inspect the Hero models from the hero screen and I must confess that I spent a good amount of time just appreciating how good some of they look (with my favorite being “Iweret”). The game runs very smooth on PC and I never experienced any type of crash or bug.
Closing Thoughts
King Arthur: Legends Rise is honestly a pretty engaging game that has something for both casual players that like to slowly progress while enjoying a chill experience, and for more advanced players that enjoy experimenting with different combinations and grind to create the ultimate Arthunian Roundtable party.
If you are a fan of the Arthurian world, or if you want to have something that you can dedicate a couple of hours at home, and then be able to keep grinding while you work or study away from your house, then King Arthur: Legends Rise might be worth your time.
Once again you can use our link download the game and try it now for free, it’s available on both PC and Mobile devices!
