Whether you’re an ambitious indie dev or a triple-A studio with a mammoth budget, making a new fantasy RPG stick the landing in the current climate is a tall order. Fairly recently, Avowed gave it a good crack, but if it let you down, then maybe Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon could pick up the pieces. Having been in early access for around two years now, it’s just received a huge new update that will be its final stepping stone towards 1.0 later this year. Oh, and you can now see exactly what’s changed for yourself thanks to Tainted Grail’s new Steam demo.
For the unaware, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a first-person RPG that certainly gives Skyrim energy, and also walks a similar path to Obsidian’s Avowed. It’s had a fairly long stint in early access, but when you’re trying to craft a huge, deep RPG of this nature as an independent studio, that’s to be expected. However, with its sizable patch 0.9 dropping today, it’s now on the home stretch towards its full release.
This new update brings a wealth of new content to Tainted Grail, including the “almost final” version of its prologue and the entirety of Act 1, which developer Questline says will give you around 20 hours of gameplay. Across this early portion of the game, plenty of new bosses, NPCs, narrative content, and loot items have been added.
Some key features that you’d hope to find in top RPGs have also been introduced. There’s now a romance system, a photo mode, farming and housing, and a new character creation tool. There are also new additions to the soundtrack, brutal finisher moves can now be performed, and there are now “mini cutscenes” for boss encounters.
Elsewhere, there have been overhauls and improvements made to (inhales) combat balance, spell summoning, weather effects, lighting, the UI, the attributes and skills system, and crafting (exhales). If you haven’t realized by now, this is a pretty meaty update.
And it needs to be if it really is the final big step towards 1.0. Questline is aiming for Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon to fully launch at some point in Q2 2025, so expect it to arrive within the next three months or so.
You can still buy the game in early access right now and play through all the content it has to offer, but if you’re not willing to part ways with your cash until 1.0, fear not. A new demo has gone live on Steam, letting you try the newly improved RPG out for free. You can learn more about Tainted Grail and download the demo from its Steam page here.
For more, be sure to head to our lists of the best fantasy games and our favorite games like Skyrim.
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