Pendragon review – an Arthurian legend of its own

I only really understood Pendragon after I nearly lost it all. All the heroes I banked my hopes on had died. Lancelot, Morgana le Fey, Aonghas, Gawaine: all dead. How would I save King Arthur now? My story had fallen apart. But instead of giving up, I carried on.

Pendragon reviewDeveloper: inklePublisher: inklePlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 22nd September on PC and Mac (Steam and GOG) for £13.49 / $16.99 (with 10 per cent discount for the first week). No concrete plans for other platforms at this point

And in doing so the story changed. It became about someone else, an unremarkable villager who survived through it all. Aida “the nervous lady”, as the game called her. She made it to Arthur’s side against great odds and although she didn’t ultimately prevail against Mordred, Arthur’s evil son, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter because as her epilogue played out before me in a series of milestone events, I realised what mattered was the story I told.

Pendragon is the new game from inkle, the small studio behind 80 Days and Heaven’s Vault and the Sorcery! adaptations – games which offer playful, nuanced spins on interactive fiction. Pendragon, in essence, is a roguelike in which you’re riding to help King Arthur as he prepares for a climactic battle, and you play it on a series of tiled boards strung across a series of maps, each taking place in a different location and moving the narrative onwards.

You start by selecting a character from Arthurian legend to play as. Guinevere and Lancelot are available from the outset, and every hero has their own starting place and motivation for riding to Arthur’s aid. Who you can choose to kick off with depends not on XP gained or shop upgrades, but on who you have met in previous playthroughs. Like the myths it builds on, Pendragon’s stories get richer in the retelling.