Seems to be the remaster of a PS3 / Xbox 360 title. The name rings a bell, but I never played it.

Some context on the remaster (not mine)

For those who never heard of the game, it’s a remaster(?) of an old PS3 Action RPG that apparently had a real rocky development. And you’re absolutely gonna notice some rough areas with quests that don’t really resolve, story wise, or choices that seem big having few(if any) consequences while others will turn a whole faction into your sworn enemy.

Despite all that, there is certainly fun to be had here. I’m playing a pure rogue build at the moment and the shit I can get up to is downright silly. In town I rob basically everyone. If the pockets can be picked or the chests/drawers/desks/etc can be looted, I’m taking a look. I’ve got a smoke bomb to drop the odds of being detected to near 0%(or literally 0% when not picking pockets), and I use alchemy to craft potions to turn me invisible when the smoke bomb is on cooldown. Most recently I hit up a gnomish capital, robbed everyone of note I could find, and used their stolen bank keys to burgle the local bank.

In combat, I’ve got a permanent poison application buff for my daggers and bow, and a permanent crit damage buff. I like to sneak up on enemies and assassinate them quietly, dealing absolutely absurd damage and often leaving a poisoned corpse that will likely explode and poison every enemy nearby. The smoke bomb I mentioned earlier? In a combat setting it stuns and poisons enemies while cloaking me. So often when I’m spotted I’ll let the enemy get close, drop this and get behind the stunned, dying enemies to start assassinating again.

When that’s not an option is typically when the bow and mines come out. I’ve got a pretty chill set up for most battles where I scatter a bunch of bleed inducing mines in front of me, then fire a scatter of arrows that inflict poison and can stack bleed. And because of another silly skill of mine I’ve a chance per hit to add a nice chunk of damage against bleeding foes.

But yeah, did I mention the game is fucking big? I think I’ve been at it for 50-60 hours and I’m still nowhere near the front lines.

  • @Zahille7
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    813 days ago

    I played the original in 360, and enjoyed it quite a bit more than I thought I would. It feels kinda like an MMO at times, but it’s still really fun.

    I bought the remaster a couple months ago on steam because it was on sale for cheap.

    • Rose Thorne(She/Her)
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      813 days ago

      It was supposed to be a part of one, until the studio went into bankruptcy and ended up being partially owned by New Jersey.

      The story behind KoA is absolutely nuts. They wanted to make an MMO sequel, with R.A Salvatore still on the writing, but due to bloat and mismanagement, ended up massively in debt and plans for a sequel got scrapped.