Inkle teased their Arthurian adventure earlier this year, hinting at “swords, anguish, Britain, unrequited, forests, hope, and revenge.” Coming from the folks behind 80 Days and Heaven’s Vault, Pendragon will offer sprawling prose full of intrigue, politicking and romance. Whoever you choose to lead your rally across rural ancient Britain will bring their own baggage to the adventure. See, that no-good rascal Sir Mordred has taken hold of Camelot, and it’s up to Arthur “of King Arthur fame” Pendragon to road-trip his way across auld Britannia in a quest to set things right. But first, he’ll have to get the band back together.
Sir Gawaine is a heavy drinker. Morgana Le Fay loves her a bit of treachery. Sir Lancelot is French. Each character will have their own benefits and stumbling blocks in rallying others to their cause, and your choices through the story will determine whether you face the final fight with Mordred with friends or alone. Oh, and there’s fighting in this one. Actual, grid-mapped, turn-based fighting. It’s not like Inkle haven’t dabbled in the mechanical before - their catalogue abounds in resource management, pen-and-paper stat-tracking and linguistic archaeology - but as far as I can tell this is the first full-blown tactical combat system the team have built. Not even Arthur dons plot armour, and every fight in your path across the country risks losing one of your round table reservations for good. Between lethal tactics, various leads and an open map to quest through, Inkle reckon Pendragon is “infinitely replayable.” It’ll pay to see how well the tactics game pans out, but Inkle’s lineage should be enough to suggest that this story should have some serious narrative chops. More deets on Pendragon will drop as we approach a planned summer release date. Keep an eye on Pendragon’s Steam page for updates.
