In Renown, up to 100 players per server compete in a medieval world where every resource and stronghold is up for grabs. You’ll start with basic tools and scavenge materials to build everything from simple shelters to fortresses. You’ll also craft siege weapons like catapults and battering rams to break through enemy defenses. The game’s skill-based combat, inspired by titles like Chivalry 2, demands precision in both one-on-one duels and large battles.

Customization is a core part of Renown’s appeal, letting you personalize your experience down to the smallest details. You can modify everything from your weapons and armor to your strongholds with unique patterns, emblems, skins, and colors, crafting a distinct identity for yourself and your clan. This freedom also extends to combat, where an array of period-accurate weapons like swords, axes, and bows offer diverse playstyles.

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While the trailer revealed little about gameplay, the Steam page offers some insight into what to expect. You start as a humble peasant in a vast world spanning Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, where every choice matters. This setup feels reminiscent of Mount & Blade, suggesting a similar experience.

The game offers significant freedom, allowing you to become a merchant, a powerful ruler, or a seasoned general. Developers promise castle-building, massive battles, and stunning Unreal Engine 5 visuals. Chronicles: Medieval emphasizes realism, reportedly featuring real historical figures and authentic martial arts through collaboration with HEMA expert Björn Rüther.

The sandbox nature of Chronicles: Medieval delivers an endless story. You can explore cities, manage resources, form alliances or rivalries, and shape the economy and events through your actions. The game will also support mods, enabling players to create anything from new missions to whimsical fantasy additions.

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Growing up in a Croatian household and watching Turkish TV series like One Thousand and One Nights and Suleiman the Magnificent with my mother and grandmother made me realize the beauty of the language and the richness of Turkish culture. This connection is even deeper as Croatian has many words borrowed from Turkish, a legacy of our centuries-long history with the Ottoman Empire and its cultural influence. So when I heard about Ertugrul of Ulukayin, well, let’s just say I was intrigued.

Ertugrul of Ulukayin is a game that takes you back to 13th-century Anatolia, specifically the Ahlat region. It follows Ertugrul, Turgut, and Meryem, warriors of the Kayı tribe, as they defend their people against Mongol invasion, a secretive corrupt order, and mythical creatures. All while seeking Ertugrul’s missing brother and the “Key of the World”, an artifact tied to justice or ruination.

It aims to be a cinematic third-person action-adventure with RPG elements, but it didn’t convince me it’s worth getting right now. It feels very much like an Early Access title, perhaps too early. The game is plagued with bugs, stiff animations, and clunky combat and movement. After finishing the first chapter, I was dissapointed. While it looks good and genuinely tries to charm you with its cultural elements and full Turkish voice acting, it’s simply not a complete game yet. It’s a mess.

Intriguing concept, but the story feels confusing and unclear

The core gameplay and world of Ertugrul of Ulukayin are already in place, offering a glimpse of what to expect from the full release. Early Access will undoubtedly help the game grow through player feedback. It features a semi-open world, both melee and ranged combat, crafting, and cinematic cutscenes that blend folklore with reality. While this is clearly a passion project, having played a vast number of indie games, I believe this title is far too ambitious and broadly scoped for a smaller studio.

Honestly, the cinematic cutscenes are terrible. The mouth movements don’t match the spoken dialogue. While some voice acting is good, other parts, especially when multiple characters are screaming or singing, are not. The audio itself is poorly aligned, with some moments too quiet, others too loud, and sometimes the music drowns out the dialogue. The animations are incredibly stiff, lacking any dynamic movement; everything feels pre-coded and simply doesn’t look good. The same applies to optimization. A game running at 40 FPS on “Very High Settings” is a big red flag for me.

Furthermore, most in-game scenes make no sense whatsoever. One moment you’re riding a horse through a forest, collecting plants for healing (the crafting system, by the way, often fails to work or open), and then suddenly there’s a massive stone hill? Out of nowhere, Mongols appear on the other side, and despite seemingly sneaking up on them, there are no stealth moments – just instant, illogical fighting. In the end, the story feels disjointed and poorly paced.

“The animations are incredibly stiff, lacking any dynamic movement.”

Combat feels unmemorable

I’m not expecting an Assassin’s Creed-level open world, but the game’s obstacles, climbing, and movement feel purposeless. For example, you might encounter a stack of boxes you’re forced to destroy to proceed, even when a clear path through nearby blankets is inexplicably blocked. This game would be significantly better with more freedom, rather than forcing you to blindly follow a linear story. Adding to the frustration, nothing is properly explained; you’re just thrown in, expected to know characters and relationships without any context.

Ertugrul of Ulukayin features light and heavy attacks, blocks, and dodges, with each character having special abilities. However, these abilities feel pointless; it’s unclear when or how they’re charged. The combat, while functional, is forgettable. There’s a lack of dynamic interaction. Heavy attacks must be dodged, and light attacks can’t be properly parried. Despite facing human enemies, you can’t “stun” them out of attacking. Since attacks are color-coded, and even kicking them doesn’t stop their momentum, you don’t have much combat freedom.

To make matters worse, you often face scenarios with 100 Mongols attacking you while your allies stand idle. Combat could have been great if it were more fluid and dynamic, but it isn’t. You can simply spam light attacks to win, and once hit, it’s impossible to escape damage. Currently, it’s merely functional, with special final attack scenes that look flashy but are ultimately unsatisfying, as enemies are simply “ghosted” through rather than dismembered.

“Features light and heavy attacks, blocks, and dodges, with each character having special abilities.”

Needs more work to be truly enjoyable

Chapter One doesn’t do the game justice. There’s no emphasis on crafting or side quests; you’re simply pushed through the story. Some interesting ideas, like a precise button-press mechanic, are used only several times and then abandoned. Imagine how much better a complete cutscene built around that concept could have been.

I can see that the game is packed with historical, mythological, and cultural details, with authentic Turkish voiceovers and unique characters. However, these positives are overshadowed by numerous issues. Some Mongols are bald with no hair, text is missing in certain sequences, and there are huge blocks of text crammed into one space. The negative aspects far outweigh the positive ones.

Ultimately, I don’t think this title is worth your time right now. It’s very rough around the edges, more like a vertical slice than a proper Early Access title. While it clearly aims to secure income for development, it’s an incredibly ambitious project, and I’m concerned it may not reach the quality needed to compete with other games in its genre. It’s a great passion project, but right now, it’s simply too early.

“Packed with historical, mythological, and cultural details, with authentic Turkish voiceovers.”

Review copy provided by the publisher

2.5

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In 9 Kings, you start with a small village and build it into a powerful kingdom by playing cards to summon units like knights, warlocks, or imps. The game shines with its chaotic deck-building, letting you create wild combos, such as explosive wizards or necromantic sheep, to defeat enemy kings. Each of the nine kings has a unique deck, and looting enemies unlocks their cards, offering endless strategies.

Sad Socket was founded by childhood friends Andre Young and Rafael da Silva Melo. Young, a YouTube star with around 800k subscribers and creator of Latin America’s largest Game Jam, brought experience from games like Seraph’s Last Stand. Melo, a creative director with a background in film and advertising, shaped the project’s vision. They also shared on Steam: “We’re just two guys chasing a dream”, crediting the community’s 170,000 wishlists for their success.

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In this strategic game, you manage a kingdom by constructing buildings, planting and harvesting crops, and gathering key resources to strengthen and upgrade. The game offers dynamic gameplay where each run is different, forcing you to adapt your strategies while defending your kingdom from waves of enemies.

However, it features a rather complex system of production chains and strategies; you’ll trade resources with villages to craft rare materials or unlock ancient spells. Additionally, fortifying your castle with stone walls and tactically positioning various types of troops is crucial. Each biome you encounter brings new challenges, making the roguelite concept work perfectly in this game.

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One moment, you’re shooting enemies in third-person; the next, you’re issuing orders to your army, building fortifications, or planning attacks from a bird’s-eye view. Beyond conquering castles solo, Kingmakers offers cooperative multiplayer, allowing up to four players to team up and take down enemy strongholds. Vehicles like armored SUVs and motorcycles add a touch of absurdity, letting you mow down knights as if in a medieval GTA.

For four years, Redemption Road Games, a 20-person studio based in Atlanta and Los Angeles, has been working on this title, drawing inspiration from games like Mount & Blade, Chivalry, and Deep Rock Galactic. In their Steam dev blogs, they highlight the game’s artificial intelligence and how they’re pushing the Unreal Engine to its limits. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S are expected to follow once Kingmakers officially leaves Early Access.

The post We won’t have to wait long for Kingmakers, it’s coming to PC in Early Access this October first appeared on IndieGames.

The first update, dubbed the “Major Economy Update”, is just around the corner and overhauls the game’s core mechanics. Previously, players could dive into Pagonia’s world with a fully equipped settlement, ready to conquer the land. Now, there’s an option to start small: a handful of Pagonians, no supplies, and a whole lot of ambition. This new mode lets you slowly craft resources, goods, and buildings from the ground up, offering a more gradual and rewarding challenge.

Beyond the new starting options, the update tweaks and balances settlement development. Eight new buildings join the roster, giving players even more tools to shape their medieval hamlets. A shiny new economic overview screen keeps track of your progress, so you can see your village’s growth at a glance. The world itself is getting a visual glow-up, too, with optimized map generation that introduces dramatic, winding landscapes and steep cliffs.

Later in 2025, the second update will shift its focus to creativity and community. A map editor will let players design their very own worlds with extensive customization options, and you’ll even be able to share and play community-created maps directly in-game. While details on the story campaign are still under wraps, Envision promises it’s coming, and it’s sure to add a narrative depth that fans have been craving.

The post Pioneers of Pagonia to exit Early Access in 2025 first appeared on IndieGames.

You step into the shoes of Tobias, a young guy from a sleepy fishing village whose life gets turned upside down when he and his little brother discover a strange crystal. When his brother mysteriously falls ill, Tobias sets off on a desperate quest for answers, plunging into a world of shadowy forces. The story, which is expected to unfold over five to ten hours, is packed with twists and emotional weight, drawing inspiration from classics like Black Mirror and Kathy Rain.

What truly sets Two Realms apart is its dedication to making point-and-click adventures feel new and, more importantly, frustration-free. The developers Jaromír Janisch and Tomáš Létal have focused on puzzles that actually make sense, all rooted in logical character choices. Whether you’re solving a riddle or chatting with characters like Thaddeus, the law-obsessed mage, or Severin, the scruffy mystic who’s loyal to a fault, the gameplay feels intuitive yet still challenging.

The post Two Realms: Whispers from the Rift is a new emotional pixel-style game set in a medieval world, launching in 2026 first appeared on IndieGames.

You might remember playing this card game in Kingdom Come: Deliverance. It’s all about a mix of luck, thinking ahead, and knowing when to take a chance. You play as Queen Gwynevere in the world of King Arthur, but he’s been hit with some weird curse. Your job is to get the Knights of the Round Table back together and figure out what’s going on with the king.

The game is basically about rolling six dice and trying to get certain combinations that score points. Then you have to decide if you want to keep those points or roll again to try and get even more. But watch out, if you don’t score on a roll, you lose all the points you got in that turn. It’s a constant battle between being greedy and playing it safe.

Dicealot takes that classic Farkle game and spices it up with some cool ideas, like rules that can change as you play and some roguelike stuff that keeps things fresh. You can get special “power dice” and “quest dice” that work together to let you pull off some crazy combos and score a ton of points. here’s even a demo out on Steam that shows off the first part of the story, with some really nice-looking pixel art.

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The demo introduces the narrative through two biomes: The Deluge, a dilapidated capital outskirts, and The Snarl, a lush forest filled with dangerous creatures. It also highlights a new playable hero, Fletch, a defense-focused character rooted in his peasant origins, who builds structures to shield allies. You can also control the Doberknight, a sword-wielding fighter who repositions enemies with kicks or unlocks fire-spreading abilities for area control.

Combat unfolds on 3D grid-based maps, where elevation and angles are critical, demanding precise positioning. The demo includes one-third of the full game’s cards, charms, and relics, allowing you to craft synergistic strategies. Five sidekicks, each with unique abilities like healing, magic, or archery, join the fight, but you can choose only two per run, making team composition vital.

Four bosses, including two new ones, challenge you with randomized encounters per biomes. The roguelite design, with permadeath and unlockable content, offers high replayability, while medals for fastest runs, lowest damage taken, and highest attack damage appeal to competitive players.

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