Tyranny

To my delight I discovered that Steam had a free weekend for the game Tyranny, so I jumped on it and had a blast.

What makes Tyranny a good bet to begin with is the fact that it's made by Obsidian Entertainment. Obsidian was founded by ex Black Isle Studios (Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment etc.) people and their games are well known amongst fans if good computer role playing games (crpg's).

In their catalog of games are hits like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2, Fallout New Vegas, South Park: the stick of truth, and Pillars of Eternity.

Tyranny is set in a fantasy world set between a bronze and an iron age, where Kyros the Overlord has conquered most of the world. Amongst his most powerful servants are the Archons, beings of immense power, and the oldest of them is Tunon the Adjudicator. You play as Tunon's servant, a fatebinder, tasked with helping take the last “free” parts of the world.

At the start of the game, you can play through a conquest mode consisting of a series of events that took place in the recent past. Each segment is broken down to a series of sieges, battles and invasions explaining how the two main armies, the Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus conquer the land. You job as an adjudicator was to help and settle arguments. You see, the two armies hate each other and no matter what you choose, you will anger someone while earning the gratitude of another.

This intro is so good because every choice you do affects the game from the start, which gives your character a place in the world. Too many games just drop your character fully formed and with no history right in the middle of everything.

I'm not going to spoil anything, partially because I don't want to, and partially because I didn't play too far since I wasn't sure I would be able to keep my save. So I have only played a bit, but I tried a couple of different builds.

The game itself has a cool art style, the game play is smooth and the general feel is really good. The gameplay itself is highly customizable, with lots of options for difficulty, how combat works and whether you want to play in iron man mode (perma death) or if you want the consequences of your choices to show up. I love the last feature, and here's why.

You can quite easily push your weight around, and some people like the Scarlet Chorus respond to physical threats, gaining you respect with the faction while others get angry if you, say, kill prisoners. As you make these choices, you see how they will affect things, which is great since I might not know, but my character definitely should. This gives a greater level of immersion to me, but if you don't want to know, you can turn it off.

I so wish more studios would learn the power of options.

So from this weekend I played nine hours, and I am definitely getting this game. It's a proper crpg but at the same time not as impenetrably dense as I found Pillars of Eternity to be. Gold stars all around.

Well, that is it for today, until next time, have a great week!