The Iron Oath is a RPG that appears simple on the surface, but becomes much more complicated once your party is betrayed and you’re forced to hit the road in search of revenge. When I played the game during its early access launch, I was impressed with what content was there. Developer Curious Panda Games has released the final release date, and 1.0 is set to be released on Nov. 2.
The core gameplay of The Iron Oath is centered around keeping your mercenaries happy and healthy, and leading them into dungeons and castles to fight all manner of bad guys, from brigands to shadow beasts. As you may notice, those two goals are essentially opposed to one another. A good leader will have to juggle their top-tier mercenaries, and build up replacements in the unfortunate event that their original MVP dies, is injured, or just retires.
Curious Panda Games has been releasing incremental updates to The Iron Oath over the last year, including the Friends and Foes, Tales by the Fire, and Expeditions updates. The 1.0 release will conclude the main campaign, add a Vanguard campaign, a new region, new combat environment, and new unique quests.
I was impressed with The Iron Oath when I played its original iteration, so I’m very curious to see how it works as a final product. There’s a little bit of Darkest Dungeon in there, mixed with some XCOM. The price will be raised at launch, but you can purchase it at its early access price now — with a 10% discount to boot.