RATING:
Pros: An interesting take to let players witness and participate in key events from the show, decent graphics accompanied by the TV shows music score.
Cons: Buggy when you refresh your browser, bit too niche for the target audience, too many spoilers for those who haven't watched/read the series.
Graphics: 6
Gameplay: 7
Performance: 7
Overall: 6.5
We had an extended play test during this weekend of Game of Thrones: Ascent, the game is an interesting combination of empire building, meets RPG, meets strategy, meets Choose Your Own Adventure; honestly, we've never really played a game like it. Check out our first look video first.
Set in the Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire continent of Westeros (and later Essos) we begin life as a recently risen noble during the reign of King Robert Baratheon at the beginning of the events that happen in the first book/season one of the TV show. Through the game players as the Lord of their new House face their own trials and tribulations trying to grow their House, construct various buildings and rebuild the remnants of the old keep that they have been given, recruiting key NPCs as advisors from traders to spymasters and a host of Sworn Swords to complete various tasks and missions in your stead.
[WARNING: There are spoilers for season one of the TV show and book one within this article]
In the game players get to name their character, their surname instantly naming their House, as well as choosing their main keep name and designing their Houses banner. Progressing a few levels players can also pledge their allegiance to one of the nine major houses (Stark, Lannister, Greyjoy, Baratheon, Targaryen, Martell, Tyrell, Tully and Arryn), as the sneaky power mongers that we are we of course went for the Lannisters! At your choice it opens up different talent trees that you can explore later down the line, focusing mostly on increasing our wealth, it also gave us quests involving key Lannister characters such as Tyrion, and actually join the train from Kings Landing to Winterfell to seek out Ned Stark and name him the new Hand of the King. Whilst as our own Lord we craft our own story-line by completing quests and choosing how to interact with different Houses and characters, everything progresses through the storyline from the series with the main events still taking place (presumably which can’t be avoided) and we get to determine how we react to them.
The core of the game is the multiple choice missions that we get to help guide our House, constantly given problems such as a King’s request to handle a disloyal noble, or what actions to take with a caught runaway member of the Nights Watch. Typically we get three options to choose from with every problem, and for each there is usually the same reward of silver and an item, as well as a boost to one of your six different House/Character Alignments. When facing your three options not all of your actions are fully revealed and encourage the players to ask the task giver more questions, uncovering a little more of the storyline (kind of like in an RPG where you have options that serve no purpose other than to find out more lore), which is required if you want to get an option that offers a more preferred alignment shift.
The Alignments fall into three different levels, each having two opposing sides that will shift your alignment one way or the others; either those that follow the Old Ways and follow tradition and the Old Gods or the New Ways that focus on the Faith of the Seven and more modernistic thinking, players can shift between loyalty to their Family above all and your own personal interests or to that of the Realm and the needs of the Kingdom and the Iron Throne, finally whether your character is Cunning and secretive and choosing to keep themselves private or being Truthful avoiding deception and building open loyalties. Alignment mostly plays a roleplaying element to the game so you can be the type of character you like or loath in the show/book, it also lets you see what other players decision may have been in similar situations as you see their alignment focus. On a more mechanical level, though not always, Alignment can also offer up different quests from time to time, or different options simply due to the choice you made, as well as leading to different rewards.
Story aside we had to work towards building up resources, mainly silver that would allow us to purchase different buildings when they were unlocked as we levelled up, silver also allowed us to buy Sworn Swords and equipment for them to improve their abilities. Every building had different types of produce that it could create, typically the Blacksmith could make armour and weapons to be used by Sworn Swords or traded on the market, the Village Centre could produce basic resources such as Storm, Iron, Fish and Horses, which were used by other buildings in the creation of items.
Sworn Swords play an important part in the game, players can control three Sworn Swords by default, each of them with their own skills, abilities and stats they are continuously sent off to conduct your business using their skills in espionage, combat and trade to try and yield favourable results for your House. Sworn Swords are purchased with silver and gold and will gain rank as they successfully complete missions for you. Fortunately for us, as with everybody who has registered recently, we gained a Dragon Figurine item; a Legendary item that essentially allowed us to rough shod over most of the quests using espionage and trade as our primary options. When we started exploring the system with the other Sworn Swords it was clear how underpowered and they are and how expensive they were. Sworn Swords can be sent out on one machine at a time, which can take hours and even days to complete, either completing Adventures, completing missions or tasks against other players. It should be noted that Sworn Swords can fail in their duties and can take wounds, take enough wounds and you’re Sworn Sword will in fact die!
The endgame is pretty much PVP focused, players rising in Power to climb the rankings, making Alliances with other players and Houses and working together in Alliance versus Alliance battles. The game has an extensive story arc for players to complete, which will progress them through many of the key events in the series as well as giving them their own place in the world is a rising political figure.
The game is surprisingly entertaining, whilst the systems are a bit basic they are at least plentiful, though they do focus primarily around creating resources to improve your Sworn Swords. The artwork suits the theme of the game and the original music score from the TV show playing in the background will give viewers of the show a lot more immersion in the world and its ongoing story. The only real issue we can see is that the game caters to a very particular type of player; as the missions talk about many of the key events that happen in the series it will literally spoil the TV show or books for anyone playing; that said we’re not sure that anybody who hasn’t read the books or watched the show would be even interested in playing anyway... but then the story isn’t quite as interesting as players already know what to expect. It is a niche target audience of players that want to be immersed in the Game of Thrones world, those who want to get a feeling of what it is like to be a House in that world and getting to see the key events play out from a different perspective than the series would present.
All in all the game is worth trying out if you’re happy to play casually, picking up the game every so often and progressing your House and the story arc, though if you’re not familiar with the Game of Thrones series then you probably won’t get the same enjoyment visiting places like Winterfell to meet the Starks or conquering Astapor with Daenery’s Targaryen, or even unlocking an achievement if you slap Joffrey (oh yes...).
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