The Adventurers Preview

I got the chance to check out The Adventurers, a turn-based tactical RPG developed and published by Eternal Vigilance Entertainment. Evoking classic tabletop RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons, this game is all about creating your own journey. How well that journey goes, however, is very much up to you. There isn’t really a set story to follow other than its set-up of a group of three future heroes/murder-hobos going out on their way to see new lands, help people, and make some gold. So, let’s see how well this will go.

Spoilers: Terribly.

After creating a party consisting of a Warrior, a Thief, and an Archer (those were the only classes available), I began my journey in a town with meagre equipment, supplies, and 250 gold. No tutorial or anything to teach me the ropes, you’re on your own. The most obvious thing I noted was… the AI narrator. It voiced the description of the events I encountered throughout my playthrough, including the intro. It did mention on the Steam page that it was temporary and it was going to be replaced with an actual voice actor on full release, but please take it with a grain of salt.

Anyways, I explored the town to see what it had to offer. It had a general store to stock up on supplies, a blacksmith for equipment, an alchemist for potions, a tavern to rest and hire mercenaries, and a town hall to get quests and earn some gold. Everything a fledgling group of heroes needed to get started. I used what little gold I had to purchase some equipment and supplies before I chose my first quest: eliminate a cave of goblins near the town. How easy! And so, my party set off.

Travelling isn’t as easy as clicking on your destination. You’ll need to maintain your party’s health, energy, and morale while also deciding on how to deal with various events and encounters along the way. You can set the pace of your travels from walking to running and even set up camp for short or long rests. Speaking of camp, you can assign your heroes various tasks while they are there, such as hunting for food, cooking meals, maintaining the equipment, or simply sharing stories to boost morale and friendship. You can’t just assign people at random though, as some characters are better at some tasks than others. Still, nothing too much to worry about.

After about a day of walking, I managed to reach the goblin cave where my party engaged them in honourable combat. Battles take place on a hexagonal grid, where you can move your heroes and choose what skill they may use in order to win the encounter. Each skill costs energy, and travelling does drain it so you better come into a fight well rested, or at least carrying a few potions. They’re usable in battle and are a bonus action. If you guard or just end your turn, you gain energy as well. You will need to think through how to approach battles, especially when you’re outnumbered.

Okay… maybe the goblins were a little tougher than expected, having my Thief nearly die, but it was mission accomplished and I earned enough XP to level up, learn new skills, and improve some stats. I headed back to town and turned in the quest. With the gold earned, I bought a round of drinks, a stay at the tavern, and some new equipment and items before getting a few more quests.

And that’s where things went wrong. The game can be pretty brutal as, at least for the demo, permadeath is on and there is no way to disable it. If you aren’t prepared, your party will suffer some pretty horrific deaths. You don’t even get to take their equipment if you manage to win the encounter, they’ll take it to the grave. You can recruit mercs to fill out your party, but they are pretty expensive with an upfront payment and a running cost. With what little I made, I decided to take several quests at once like I usually do in RPGs and try to do them all at once.

That was a big mistake as, after about a week of adventuring, my entire party died to a bunch of orcs. This was on Normal difficulty and I thoroughly got my butt kicked through my teeth. There’s an autosave so I could’ve loaded my game but I decided that was enough for me.

I actually do look forward to the full release of The Adventurers. From what I played, it was pretty fun even if it ended in a particularly terrible encounter. I wanted to try again with a fresh party so I could make better choices and make it further into the world and hope the full release has more options. This could be a nice way to play a simplified version of D&D by yourself.