New Polish studio, Covenant, formed by ex-CD Projekt Red producer Stan Just, lifted the lid on its freshman project today, the ‘adventure strategy’ game Gord. It’s a single-player title that taps into Slavic folklore to bring to life a bleak, dark fantasy world teeming with otherworldly beasts.
Blending elements of The Witcher, Don’t Starve, Frostpunk, and RimWorld, Gord tasks players with developing their settlement, known as a gord. Alongside city-builder staples such as transforming your humble gord into a formidable fortress, players will also take on AI-driven quests, best vicious mythological creatures, explore grim lands, head out on raids, and, more interestingly, manage the sanity and burden levels of the populace as they take on a world seemingly out to make life as miserable as possible. Mismanage these, and things go wrong, fast. As Covenant explains:
“The game is unique in its fresh gameplay experience that comes from emphasizing the importance of your unit’s mental state while managing a small populace. In Gord, your choices will be driven not only by economic efficiency and moral choices, but they will also be affected by tension and fear brought about by the atmosphere.”
Gord Key Features
Here the key features in Gord as penned by Covenant.
- Adventure strategy in a dark fantasy setting – Lead the people of the Tribe of the Dawn as they venture deep into forbidden lands and ensure the survival of your populace in a grim fantasy world inspired by Slavic folklore.
- A unique city-builder with survival elements – Grow your gord from a humble settlement to a formidable fortress while your population is constantly at risk from enemy tribes, gruesome monsters, and mysterious powers that lurk in the surrounding woods.
- AI-driven quest system to ensure lots of variety – Side quests and random encounters will send you off into the wilderness to hunt down legendary creatures, uncover secrets about the Ancients, or vanquish a nasty scourge.
- Custom scenarios with procedural level generation – Choose from a variety of primary objectives, select the level size, the intensity of raids, the environment you’ll play in, the types of enemies you’ll face, starting resources, and even the severity of the weather.
- Impactful Sanity and Burden systems – Every aspect of your settlers’ lives – from illness and hunger to the death of their kin – can impact your villagers’ psychological state.
- Unleash powerful Incantations – Spells vary in nature – some are offensive while others are defensive – but they all help to tip the battlefield in your favor.
- Uncover the world’s mysteries in The Chronicle – Pages torn from The Chronicle will be scattered throughout the game’s landscapes, giving dedicated players an additional challenge of discovering lore that explains the Gord universe.
As it stands, Covenant aims to release Gord for PC via Steam sometime in 2022, but the studio is also weighing up an Early Access run with a decision on this planned for later this year.