Please understand that Gordian Quest, developed by Mixed Realms, is still in early access on Steam. It is also on sale until September 3rd, 2020. As always I will give my recommendation right now.

Recommendation

Buy this game, buy it if you have ever enjoyed deck building, Dungeons & Dragons, RPG’s, making choices, rogue-likes, narrative, high fantasy, turn-based combat, or mowing down hordes of enemies. Gordian Quest is everything you would want in terms of a deck-building, rogue-like, RPG adventure. Not without its flaws, Gordian Quest drops you into the world of Westmire to start your humble beginnings as one of seven different characters. Every rope you would expect is here including Clerics, Rangers, and Bards. And as you enter the darkening forests, amongst the trees and upturned graves you get sucked into the duty of destroying a Rift Lord.  

Gameplay

Much like deck-building hit Slay the Spire, this game’s core loop revolves around a starter deck that you can enhance, manipulate, and develop at will. Where it diverts from the traditional deck-building archetype is just how you can manipulate your deck and how many decks you can have active at a time. Gordian Quest is an RPG, it allows you to develop your skills and attributes through trees, obtain, equip and modify gear, and recruit party members. Every single one of these options edits your deck in some way. Equipping a sword will add a card attributed to that sword to your deck. Boots will add a card that allows your character to move easier to the deck. Your skill tree allows you to add cards, and even remove cards based on what you spend your points on. And once you build your team, up to three members, you now have 3 different decks to use and manipulate at any time.

Each character also can pull cards from their own three unique class sub-types. Your cleric can pull buff spells, healing spells, and even magic spells. While your ranger can build turrets, kill enemies from afar, and lay deadly traps. The game gets extremely fun, and a bit more complicated as you progress through your journey. And your journey is littered with choices and options. You choose the paths you take, and how you interact with objects. You will constantly run into little non-enemy based encounters that allow you to use your party members to handle a situation. Say you’re like me, rocking a Scoundrel, Cleric, Ranger comp and you come across a barrel floating down the river. You know damn well I’ll be using my dexterity heavy character to jump into the river and obtain whatever is in that barrel. These small RPG moments really add to the pace of the game while also allowing you to literally roll your d20 and influence the roll with your stats. 

Feel?

I find that a large selling point for any game is the feel. Does the game feel like an adventure, am I immersed? Do I feel like I am powerful, or weak based on the choices I make? For Gordian Quest, the answer is emphatically yes. The world, although pretty generic fantasy, is immersive in it’s characters and the over-hanging gloom of the unseen enemy. The music and sound design are clean making each action and reaction visceral. Traveling is a large proponent of the game as time will pass and have an affect on what options you have available. Your characters will get exhausted and you may ruin out of supplies on the road. Make sure to find a campsite to replenish health, develop relationships, and forage for food. It may not be a focal point but the traveling system does feel rewarding. You can plan your movements and get rewarded or punished depending on how risky you feel. Definitely feels like your apart of the world in Gordian Quest.

Difficulty

Throughout the first act of Gordian Quest I found the difficulty to be.. Lacking. I was playing on normal, standard mode and after my first few encounters I rolled through enemies with relative ease. I didn’t have a single character in my party die throughout the entire campaign including the final boss. And the more I think about, maybe that is exactly what normal difficulty should be. You should be able to ace it with a general knowledge of the game.I’ve seen quite a few other reviews highlighting that the game is easy and I generally agree with them. But once I hit the second act, still on normal/standard, there was difficulty increase and I ended up losing my Bard. I am currently working through a nightmare run on Rouge-Like mode (there are a ton of options and I’ll cover them in the next section) and it is a challenge so I’ve been really enjoying it. I just felt compelled to at least acknowledge the difficulty concerns and I’ve firmly decided that they aren’t really concerns, just some lite-whining. 

An Abundance of Choice

The amount of choices this game offers you is incredible. From classes, to stats, to gear, to cards, and runes, and enchants, and stat buffs, and on and on and on. Hell even choosing a difficulty setting can be daunting as they offer four different difficulties and three different modes. I love games that offer players an absurd amount of options in how they want to handle an encounter. Factor in the events that you can either pass or fail which enhances a nearby combat node or changes the pathways available to you and you can be a tad overwhelmed in Gordian. Plus the entire deck-building and RPG genres are chock full of random number generation so no two people will make their way through the campaigns the same.

Of Note

Just wanted to note that each campaign zone is connected. Once you complete act 1 and move to act 2 with your character, you can change if you want to, you will be awarded bonuses and buffs based on how you performed in the previous campaign. These “renown” points can be converted into extra stats, skills, items, and more. It really compliments the player’s journey and the progression you experience through the overarching story. Top marks.

What I’d like to see in the future

One of the most admirable things about Gordian Quest early access, is how open the developers seem to be about communicating with the player base. The Steam review page is littered with little notes from the Devs acknowledging the players good and not-so-good reviews. Also the title screen is literally begging players to reach out which I love. And since this game is in early access I made a short list of what I think the game would truly benefit from. If you would so indulge me: 

• Characters sporting the gear we equip them with, especially the legendaries. Would do wonders for character progression and how the game looks 
• Achievements would be a welcomed addition to Steam 
• I’m not sure how I feel about the ability to see Enemy Cards and the moves they plan to make. Maybe add a buff for INT based characters to perceive incoming moves but having them available at will seems too easy. There are de-buffs throughout the game that take your ability to see enemy cards away so it does work. 
• Ability to have multiple campaigns active at once. Your dedication to an overarching story line is incredible but I would like to be able to start a new campaign without losing progress on my current one 

Just a small wish list.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t think I’d like this game as much as I do upon purchasing. It was recommended to me from a friend and the sale on Steam really pushed me to pull the trigger. I’m really glad I did, as I’ve enjoyed my time building a story within the well-crafted and vast lands that Mixed Realms has offered. The fact that Gordian Quest is this enjoyable at Early Access is a promising notion for the future. Only two of the listed four total acts are out and the game lends itself to large content expansions which I can’t wait to see. Bravo, Mixed Realms, you’ve captured elements of so many different genres and blended them to a point where it seems like they’re made for each other. I’m looking forward to what you do next and you have earned every single ounce of praise you’ve gotten.