Hi, my name is Coldbeer and let’s start with the
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Recently I played it for several hours and I was really impressed. This indie dark fantasy
title follows The Elder Scrolls formula to the letter. And also it is the sponsor of
this video - because it is really new, so you might have missed it and the developers
wanted me to tell you about it a bit more.
Here you play from the first person perspective: you can use magic, shoot with bows or swing
mighty melee weapons - and the more you use one skill or another - the more powerful it
becomes. Literally the vibes from Morrowind are here
as well: if you jump a lot, you will train your jumping skill and later you can jump
higher. If you run a lot - you will start running faster. If you fight with a two-handed
sword - your two-handed damage will become higher. If you make a bowl of delicious potato
salad...
Well, you get the point, right?
No, only left.
Oh shut up. Also you can assign various perks and skill points when you level up and create
your unique character.
And the game really rewards exploration: you can find many hidden items, boss battles or
even entire huge areas if you go off the beaten path. I left the starting area with about
15 jars filled with brain and several tongues of a drowner - Tainted Grail: The Fall of
Avalon really delivers in the field of items and
various stuff in general.
Like in Elder Scrolls games you can take items directly from the world and put them into
your almost endless pocket. I did the calculations - if you really want you can carry more than
100 hats. You probably may even become a hat seller.
“From where did you get these fancy hats, boy?”
“Well, I kill people and take their belongings.”
“Alrighty then, will give you one gold for the fancy one.”
“That is a deal!”
Aaaanyway, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has started its Early Access form at the end
of March, so the game is really fresh and deserves your attention. Check it out, you
will find the link in the description below.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
If you take Skyrim and strip it of dragons, trolls, elves and magic, you might get a very
boring game. Not as boring as your sister, but really you may think that it would probably
suck. But these Czech developers who created Kingdom Come: Deliverance managed to make
a realistic medieval Skyrim-like game that is not only not boring, but is one of the
most famous Open World games in our days.
It has a great story, interesting missions and a really beautiful world set in the ancient
part of nowadays Czech Republic.
So grab your wooden sword and show everyone how to fight! Well, I’ll be honest - the
game is terribly hard at the beginning, a simple drunken peasant will destroy your dignity
at ease. The learning curve is not friendly at all. But you will learn. Everyone learns,
you are not worse everyone, right?
Although in general the harsh reality of a level 1 villager that decided to become a
warrior is not very pleasant. Like in any game.
And combat here is very realistic. I'm not kidding, some duels against stronger foes
can span 15 minutes or even more. Here you will really feel like a lone warrior
fighting for your life, immersion definitely over 9000.
Elden Ring
Yeah, I know, souls-like, yada yada, nothing like Skyrim and so on. Now listen. Listen.
A year ago I made a similar list with 20 games and I decided that Elden Ring doesn’t belong
there because of its souls-like nature.
From that time almost a year has passed and I realized one thing. Elden Ring is like Skyrim
not by its gameplay mechanics, god forbid, but by the feeling of the unknown, by the
immersion you get while exploring places. Honestly none of the games, except maybe Morrowind
a long time ago, gave me this strong emotion of not knowing what to expect next.
Elden Ring doesn’t guide you by your hand or penis at all - you have to explore this
huge world on your own and make amazing discoveries as you progress.
I can promise you one thing - you can’t foresee what this game will show you or where
it will take you next. And that is its overwhelming beauty.
The worst part, at least for me, when I played it on the release date, was its difficulty.
Yeah, I was dying non stop and that kinda killed the game for me, pun intended, after
playing about 12 hours.
But now Elden Ring's difficulty curve has been adjusted. By the help of mods. For example
there is one called Easy Mode For Elden Ring. You can find it on nexusmods dot com. And
if you are a console player I can only offer my condolences.
And for PC players there is no reason not to play it anymore. Well, except the price.
It’s really high and the game was on Steam sale only once since the release so far.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
This is probably the best Fantasy Open World RPG ever created. And I doubt that I could
find anyone who at least never heard of it. Well, at least inside the Western-influene
Hemisphere it is a true legend - on Steam it has more than 600 thousand reviews and
96% of these people recommend this game for you.
I don’t know who are the 4% who didn’t like the game - I scrolled for like 5 minutes
through hundreds of reviews and failed to find any explaining why.
Although I finally found one: dude said that he doesn’t like developers anymore after
the flop of Cyberpunk 2077, which is, honestly, a good game by now, and that’s why he gave
a negative review for Witcher 3. That is not serious.
And my friendship with witcher Geralt started way before any of the games were released.
I read the book when I was a teenager and after many years I even got Andzej Sapkowski
to sign it for me, when he was visiting Lithuania for some book fair or something. And we also
spoke for like 20 seconds as well. Never washed my mouth and ears after that.
Anyway, the game has an incredible story, super fun gameplay and a huge dark fantasy
open world to explore. The coolest thing is, of course, your profession - you kill monsters
for money.
So you can just travel around the map and fulfill contracts ignoring the main story
as long as you want or as long as you can get a new contract. And every single monster
hunt is a handcrafted mission with different outcomes and sometimes hard moral choices.
Third Witcher is probably the best game I have ever played.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen
This is a massive, challenging action-RPG that drops you into a vast open world full
of interesting creatures and characters. The game is made by Capcom, a Japanese company,
but the whole setting of Dragon’s Dogma is European.
So you may think, maybe because of that this game features some ridiculous moments, but
Capcom was really serious about the job. They went all around Europe to actually get a lot
of information, especially for the backgrounds and environments in the Dragon’s Dogma.
They looked at architecture and buildings and things of that nature and also just natural
environments as well. Also took many pictures and tried to recreate those as closely as
possible. Well, a bunch of Japanese people in Europe taking pictures? Who could have
thought. Anyway, developers actually did a lot of research
in Europe that helped recreate stuff in game and that level of dedication is truly admirable.
Dragon’s Dogma has more strategy and more dynamic fights than usual action RPG games.
You know, you can climb monsters here, and that is super cool. Also it’s a tougher
game in general. But if you like to explore the open world and love fantasy games, you
can’t ignore it.
Gamers are talking that this is an underrated gem that is a must play for every open world
RPG fan.
Gedonia
This is an open world roleplaying game, inspired by oldschool classics. Here you will become
a simple traveler and adventure seeker. Explore a huge world, progress your character
in any way you want, discover hidden treasures, mysteries and fight a vast array of enemies.
You can become a powerful mage, strong warrior or a charismatic leader.
Also in Gedonia you will be able to own a house, where you can grow plants and farm
animals. They sort-of implemented Stardew Valley inside this fighting and exploration
RPG game. That is great, we all need some relaxation after a tiring dungeon exploration
and grow some eggplants in our spare time.
Game is created mostly by one man and it has very positive reviews on Steam.
Fallout 4
Along with Fall of Avalon and Kingdom Come, this is probably the closest thing to Skyrim
if you look at it from the technical side of the gameplay. You can play from first or
third person, you can take items that lie around and roam across a big open world in
search of adventure, absolutely ignoring the main quest and story.
So basically it evokes, at least for me it really did, the same feeling of freedom and
exploration as the Elder Scrolls games.
The main difference is of course the setting, Fallout 4 is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi game.
Yeah, it’s filled with mutants and creepy facilities, but also, just like in Skyrim,
you can join various factions and that will immensely influence the outcome of the story.
Sadly they don’t have a potato salad faction you could join.
The game, along with the third Fallout game, has one really annoying feature. In both cases
I finished the game thinking that I have like 10 or more hours of gameplay left and it ended
absolutely unexpectedly and way too fast.
So if you decide to play Fallout 4 - keep that in mind, roam around, do some side quests,
do not rush the story. All three games, I mean third Fallout, Fallout New Vegas and
Fallout 4 are great games. Also you can throw in Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds as well.
You have all my recommendations.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning
The game was released in 2012 but ten years later it was remastered and sold... you know
the drill, as a new game with a price of a new game. Everyone was raging - but now it’s
not a problem anymore. On various sales you can get it with 60% or 70% discount.
The game itself is designed by the Elder Scrolls Oblivion lead designer Ken Rolston and set
in a world with a lore of 10 000 years of fiction created by New York Times bestselling
author R. A. Salvatore. Or however his name is pronounced, I don't
know him, but he's obviously very good.
So this is a huge Open World game. Although be warned that some players sometimes encounter
game-breaking bugs. I literally read that in a comment that was
written a few months ago. It’s not old news or something keeping the age of the game in
mind. Anyway, the game itself is good so you may
want to risk it.
Greedfall Gold Edition
Here you will have complete freedom in character progression – play as a male or female,
customize your appearance, and freely choose your abilities, spells and skills.
But do not expect miracles, this is not a highest level RPG, although it looks like
one.
Greedfall was created in 3 years and its budget was about 5 million dollars - for a triple
A open world game like this it’s the bare minimum for it to be decent. So treat it more
like a very expensive indie game instead.
Somewhat similar budget had the Kingdom Come: Deliverance team. And Skyrim’s budget was
about 100 million. For it you can literally create 20 games like Greedfall. So keep that
in mind before you start comparing Greedfall with the giants of the genre.
And this version, Greedfall Gold edition, includes a DLC so this is a better version
of the game if you compare it with just the basic Greedfall.
It is a decent game, and as I’ve said many times - I would give it about 7 cold beers
out of 10.
Shadow of War
This is Lord of the Rings themed orc killing simulator. I don’t even know how else to
name it, because all you do here is orc killing. Even orcs kill other orcs here.
You will go behind enemy lines to forge your army, conquer Fortresses and dominate Mordor
from within. Experience how the award winning Nemesis System creates unique personal stories
with every enemy and follower, and confront the full power of the Dark Lord Sauron and
his Ringwraiths in this epic Middle-earth story.
By the way - quick off topic question: Have you seen Amazon’s Rings of Power? What is
your opinion, what do you think? For example I think that the show was too sterile, acting
was a bit off, but in general I liked the Dwarfs very much and the ending was a true
blast, I wasn’t expecting anything like that. For me the ending practically saved
the show.
Anyway keep in mind that Shadow of War participates in every sale, and it’s really cheap by
then. Also you can try a demo version of it for free on Steam if you want.
And now don’t forget to check out Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - you will find
my safe affiliate link in the description below.
Also I will release a bigger updated version of this list someday towards the end of the
year, because there are so many great games that I couldn't fit in the Best 10 list right
now, starting with Gothic series, Hogwarts Legacy and many games that are not released
yet. But they will be!
Thank you for watching, have a nice day and I’ll see you next time, bye!