Attention: you must play this game.
.
Do I use the word “magnificent” often? Almost never, but I’m using it here. King Arthur’s Gold is magnificent, to the point where I almost want it to stay a secret so that my impression can remain untainted by the filthy masses trying to make memes out of everything in it. I never want to find out what other people think about this game.
As for my own impression, I was sold on the game’s trailer alone. Maybe you should check it out on the game’s Steam page.
It is quite an informative trailer, that does an excellent job walking through the selling points. Do other people get excited about such things? I don’t care. Please don’t ruin this game for me, and I won’t ruin it for you, okay?
King Arthur’s Gold is a multiplayer game played with up to 32 players. Build castles and wage war on the enemy team as a knight, archer or builder in a fully destructible medieval world. It blends the best cooperative aspects of Lost Vikings, mashes them with Worms, with the visual style of Metal Slug, made by the creators of Soldat.
That last sentence is very important. I had no idea King Arthur’s Gold was made by the creators of Soldat until I got knee-deep into writing this impression, but it makes perfect sense now. Soldat has a special place in my heart, and it always will. It is the type of 100% pure gaming experience that is very rare, and we must do our best to support it.
Everything about the gameplay is solid, functional, and meaty. You will not have to spend 300 hours in the game to slowly unlock the interesting features, or build your own home with agonizing patience, like Call of Duty or Terraria. (Of course, there is plenty of building, but it is contained within each round as Builders race to collect material and create fortifications before the enemy stomps through. Also traps, tools, boats, catapults, and a dozen other highly useful things that shift the odds in your team’s favor!) It’s streamlined for the sake of competitive purity and pacing, so the menus and interactions are always at your fingertips, not buried in menus either.
The Knight slashes in the direction you click. But he does not simply slash; he has three levels of attack depending on how long you hold in the button. The third stage has a satisfying sound effect when it’s ready (and a twinkle), and allows you to take multiple powerful swings in a row if you click rapidly. That’s not an easy feat in the middle of a hectic multiplayer battle against real people, but it is satisfying when you plan it correctly. The shield is right-click, which must be aimed to block attacks from various angles. When you jump — often just after running up a wall, which is as gratifying as it ought to be! — you can aim your shield above you, then glide down to your destination using. Or, if you want to land with it under you, aim it downward. When you hit water like this, you will surf. The correct reaction to that information, is to feel like somebody just punched you in the face and you don’t even mind, because somehow you deserved it.*
This is just an impression article based on the tutorials and single-player mode, and I am very eager to jump back into the game and try to tame this wild beast with my own two hands. Please, please do not let me down now.
Go to King Arthur’s Gold, on Steam
[* Personal Note: I used to be the biggest fan of the Worms franchise before it started sucking, and, when I inevitably designed my own imaginary Worms ripoff, it featured riot police whose shields would function almost exactly this same way, functioning as a glider in the air, and a rowboat on the water. You would also be able to overturn the concave shield and float under the shield as it protected you from above. I therefore bought the 4-pack of King Arthur’s Gold on Steam and sent the extra copies to my friends, so that I could inform them about how I had that exact idea over 10 years ago. {P.S. I also came up with the idea of permadeath leading to control to your child/protege/apprentice long before Rogue Legacy and Massive Chalice decided to read my secret game design notes and steal the concept. I expect royalties from all these companies.}]