Game of Thrones Kingsroad is inherently a mobile game. But you can also play it on PC — it’s available on Steam — which is where I’ve been spending most of my time. It has mixed reviews, and most PC gamers are going to hate it — they hate anything mobile-like.
But it’s a relatively fun game overall and you can explore Westeros in pretty-much open world fashion. The world and scenery are quite beautiful, too, but as I’ve said, I’m playing on PC.
What are the basics?
You start at the wall and work your way through the world of Westeros, even meeting some of the main characters like Jon Snow, Petyr Baelish, Jaime Lannister, and so on. The story involves your own, dedicated family, the White Walkers, and a bunch of political nonsense. It’s passable but not particularly engaging.
The game itself is an action RPG where you hack and slash and activate skills you’ve unlocked and leveled up. Activities include bandit camps, bases, memory trials (quick battles), dungeons, and beast hunts. They’re all pretty self-explanatory.
I will say some of my favorite experiences in the game are the side quests. Not every side quest is enthralling, so keep that in mind. We’re not talking Witcher 3 level of stories here. But there are some interesting events, characters, and things you have to do.
A hop, skip and a jump to travel
As you travel the world, you unlock fast travel points, which are travel signs spaced throughout the map.
The in-game or in-app purchases, for the most part, are dirt cheap. There are some primitive ideas behind it, though. For example, you can buy a $3 pack that allows you to fast travel from anywhere, at no cost. Without the pack, you have to move to an actual fast-travel signpost and it costs in-game coins. I grabbed the pack using Google Play points, and it’s a real game-changer, especially for moving around the world quickly. It still feels scummy as cheap as it is. You’re paying extra for a feature that should be in the regular game.
Another similarly priced pack allows you to send ravens back to your home base to manage the various elements from anywhere in the world. Without it, you have to travel back to your home each time. You can launch expeditions, start production and sell to merchants in your home base, but you don’t ever have to go back if you have the paid pack. It’s super helpful when your inventory fills up with junk because you don’t have to fast travel to a castle or settlement either. Instead, you can just bring up the management menu and sell your goods to merchants in your home base.
By the way, there is no storage or stash in this game. Absolutely everything is carried in your inventory, although it does separate basic inventory and equipment inventories. You can level them up as you play increasing capacity, but it never feels like enough, as is the case with most games like this.
The combat is pretty fun
The combat, for the most part, is pretty fun. It’s a button mash-style with combos, but as you unlock skills and level them up it becomes a bit more complex. It’s a shame the enemies aren’t ever that complex and they cheat, like a real bastard. Even when you dodge, you get hit. Even when you use a skill with stopping power, they keep coming. You can dodge and weave and slash all you want and avoid their attacks most of the time, but not every time. They always seem to hit you with no hesitation when you’re on your last leg.
Healing is done with “tinctures” which is basically heal pots and they are limited while you’re exploring. You can level up the capacity as you play to carry more at a time. The game annoyingly and illogically spaces out tincture refills. Some areas have a shit ton, other areas have virtually none. You’ll find yourself fast traveling all over the place when you run out, unless you’re on a story mission — they’re always around for those.
For instance, there’s a dungeon in the north where you go through rounds of battles that get increasingly more difficult. You start with whatever tinctures you have available, even if you’ve used some. They don’t refill after each round. Even when you exit the dungeon, they don’t refill. There are no refill stations nearby either. You have to fast travel away and go find them. I understand they want to keep this limited so it’s a challenge. I have nothing wrong with that. But when you exit the dungeon or stop the current round, you should have a refill option nearby.
Kingsroad classes
I chose Assassin, but there are three classes total — two others. The others are Knight and Sellsword, both melee focused. Knight is your average warrior-type with a sword while Sellsword is a barbarian or brute-type class with heavy weapons like an axe. I feel like those names should be swapped, but whatever.
You can go back and create multiple characters if you want to try out the other classes. That’s a plus I suppose.
Assassin is agile, and lots of fun, but if I had to do it all over, I would probably choose Sellsword for the AOE attacks. Enemies tend to group up on you and swing while you’re in the middle of attacking another, which is better than just standing around waiting their turn, but it can make fights unbalanced, especially in the later parts of the game. That’s right around the time when leveling up slows to a crawl and increasing your battle power is a slog.
I have had several occasions where I was fighting a tough enemy, chiseling their health down for nearly fifteen minutes, only to be attacked by a random asshat NPC who appeared from offscreen and killed me instantly. It’s frustrating to say the least. The same happens in dungeons. When you and other players wipe, the bosses just instantly refill their health but the timer stays the same, meaning you have less time to chisel down their health. If you join a dungeon with a bad team, which happens a lot, you’re basically fucked and wasting your time.
Some of the main missions suddenly ramp up difficulty, which is nothing more than just requiring a much higher battle power to be effective in that particular area or mission. The funny part is, you can skill your way through some of those harder missions, but the enemies are just straight up a damage sponge. It takes so long to kill them when you’re a level much lower and even increasing your battle power by a hundred or so points puts you at a place to take them out faster. I know that explanation seems obvious, but trust me, the current battle power range is nominal at best. It’s just a numbers game for the sake of monetization.
There’s co-op play, too. But I won’t even bother talking about it. Most of it is playing with others in dungeons, which is fighting high-level beasts or enemies, or taking down the world boss Drogon for supplies. The world boss fight is fucking awesome even just to watch. Drogon moves, attacks, and interacts with players in ways I have never seen in a game like this before.
Clicking shiny buttons
There are other elements like a base management system with workers, which you can send on expeditions and order to make shit. It’s really not engaging at all. You press buttons and level up as you use the functions more. You also earn supplies to level up your home base as you play the game. That is also about pressing buttons when you have the right resources.
The cross-platform support is a bonus. I can start on PC, swap to mobile, or even play on my Steam Deck. It doesn’t run that great on Steam Deck unless you turn all the graphics settings down, but it’s playable. Come to think of it, sometimes it doesn’t run very well, even on my beefy PC.
There hasn’t really been a game like this in the world of Westeros before, so I’ll probably keep playing it begrudgingly. It’s not bad, but it’s not everything it could be either. It has a lot of potential, so we’ll see what happens from here.
There is a legitimately fun game hidden somewhere deep and I think the developers could coax it out if they play their cards right.
