Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Perhaps you're familiar with Pathfinder. It's a well-known property in the realms of analogue role-playing games, and now it's made the leap across to a digital format with the Kingmaker suffix. It's being developed by Owlcat Games and published by Deep Silver. Right, that's the basics out of the way.

To begin with, as is often the way with these things, we get to create our hero, either based on a couple of pre-defined models or entirely after our own whims. We pick gender, looks, race, speciality, weapon, and finally the attributes that will set us apart from the masses. Once this is done we pick a name (in our case the more or less punny "Lockliar") and set out on our journey. Straight out of the gate Owlcat needs to be commended for the ample assistance given to us during the character creation process.

An RPG whose tabletop original has taken inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons does imply that it's going to be a complicated affair. Therefore the detailed descriptions that constantly pop up are much appreciated. If you want more of a challenge you can, of course, turn these tips off.

Why the game is called Kingmaker is made clear early on. You've been summoned, along with the rest of the population to a palace where a lady called Jamadi Aldori demands our attention. Time has come to expand the kingdom by conquering what she refers to as the Stolen Lands. This area is, to begin with, controlled by an evil fellow called the Stag Lord, and we're sent on our way by Aldori. The one who manages to take on Stag and his underlings (no one has been able to do so in the past) earns the title of regent of, let's call it a "province" in Golarian (the Pathfinder universe).

Right from the get-go, we're joined by a fiery girl named Linzi (who has author ambitions and sees you as the hero in the biography she aims to write), and a very annoying fellow called Tartuccio, who is extremely self-centred. This takes us to one of the key features - companions. While companions are something we're well used to, these ones come with proper background stories and the idea is that as players we need to consider this, whether it ends up in sympathy, loyalty, love, irritation, distancing, or hatred.

Truth be told the developers have pulled this off really well. Particularly if one of your crew meets an untimely death. During one night, we've decided to make camp on what was clearly a haunted area, we were surprised by a magical, hovering skull. A battle ensued, and as the hovering skull was immensely powerful, one of our heroes fell. With his last breath, he utters "avenge me!", and it hit us so hard we had to reload an earlier save.

Without revealing too much it soon becomes apparent that some characters have hidden agendas and opinions about your personality and choices. We played as a neutral good (there are also law-abiding, neutral, neutral evil, and chaotic), and some of our companions soon switched sides. Much like they do in games of a similar ilk, your actions will determine how your surrounding regards you. Luckily your character will say exactly what the dialogue option says (we're looking at you Fallout 4), which makes things easier to judge. Apart from the classic conversations, there's another element that increases that sense of being in a fantasy version of 13th century England (we need to stop thinking of Robin Hood now), and that is text-based episodes presented in storybook format.

These sections offer a written account of what takes place, and how your group acts. You get a description followed by different choices (some require a certain skill level to succeed, others will affect your alignment). Depending on your choices the events will get different endings and your companions might see you in a different light. During our time with the game, these moments were some of our favourites and we found ourselves holding our breath as we found out what impact our choice would have on our hero status and our ability to hold onto and recruit followers.

Your companions are not merely there for company, they are also key to combat. The combat system offers turn-based battles akin to what you've no doubt seen in a lot of similar titles, but the element of dice roll is higher here than what is normal. You can position your characters (all equipable with various weapons) and plan your strategy. Archers in the back and swordsmen up front, as an example. However, you have to keep in mind a range of spells to make sure the strength of each companion comes into play.

With the exception of the emphasis on characters, the game does things much like its peers - you collect various items you then trade, you take on quests from various sides and balance your own morals with the benefits of the loyalty of others. Business as usual. For the initiated role-playing games offer the opportunity to lose hours, days, weeks, months, and even years... and naturally they're pretty expansive and come with a relatively steep learning curve. Even if this isn't the most elaborate RPG on the market, we still need to make you aware that this may not be the most gentle introduction.

It's a classic RPG in the sense that pretty much every action has consequences and that you always need to consider your options as they may aid or hinder your character. With that in mind, if you want to dive into this as a something of a newcomer you're in for a challenge.

A positive note is the game controls. No matter how well mapped a controller may be, it can't beat the keyboard and mouse combo for this sort of game. You simply send your characters to where they need to go using the mouse, control the camera with the mouse wheel (or WASD), switch weapons and other things with the numerical keys (assigned in the inventory), and pick your target with the left mouse button. Elegant and intuitive.

To sum things up Pathfinder: Kingmaker is an ambitious game (particularly as it was originally funded via Kickstarter). The visuals remind us of romantic fairy tales under the starlight, where good and evil face off. The music is what could have been heard at the inns or as background to the narrator as he spoke of our heroic deeds. The story is as if taken from tales of old, from folklore, classic, but engaging enough to allow for deep dives and it grabs a hold of you until the very end.

For veteran role players this is certainly something to take a closer look at, while for newcomers it may be a nice challenge that, if you grow to like it, could well get you hooked on the genre. And given there are few major bugs or complaints we'd say it's a very solid product.