Thronefall

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• DEVELOPER: Grizzly Games
• PUBLISHER: Grizzly Games
• PLATFORMS: PC
• GENRE: Tower-defense
• RELEASE DATE: August 2, 2023
• STARTING PRICE: 6,89€
• REVIEWED VERSION: PC

What should be highlighted first is that Thronefall is still in Early Access and doesn’t contain a lot of content. Currently, the game only features five playable levels, more than 40 perks, a dozen unlockable weapons, and 3 to 4 hours of core gameplay without adding extra difficulty or adjusting the level settings to your preference. It brings with it a unique gameplay experience with beautiful minimalist graphics and feels like a breath of fresh air in the Tower Defense genre. Besides defending and building our kingdom, we will also strategically plan the positions of our army and which building to construct first, all set within a fantastical medieval world.

Gameplay and Core Mechanics

At the very beginning, a tutorial introduces us to the game’s fundamentals. We have a Day phase for preparing our defenses and a Night phase for fighting off hordes of enemies. Each level has about 14 waves of diverse enemies, whether they are standard foot soldiers, flying creatures, or siege equipment. Naturally, some enemies in the game will be stronger than others. In Thronefall, you will need to pay the most attention to money, as you can’t build or upgrade anything without it. Money is acquired from farms, housing, your castle, and enemies; essentially, you receive a certain amount of gold each day.

For defense, we will build watchtowers, barracks, and walls, all of which can be upgraded later. From the soldiers, we can choose between swordsmen, regular archers, crossbowmen, spearmen, and so on, with each having its own strengths and weaknesses. To be honest, Thronefall is very simple to play; it doesn’t have complex features, but it is very important that you know how to plan ahead: how to position your army and which side of the level to focus on first.

We play as the King who rides a horse and moves around to attack enemies, whether with a bow and arrow, a spear, a sword, or magic. Our King also has a special ability, which depends on the weapon they are holding. For example, if they have a spear, they can attack very quickly and heal themselves. One ability lasts only a few seconds before going on cooldown until we can use it again. We can also command our army, which will be very useful if the enemy decides to attack only one side of the level.

Regarding the level difficulty selection, the normal playthrough is not hard to beat, but the second-to-last level, which features a boss, will be a bit tougher and will require all your knowledge of the game. On the other hand, if you choose different difficulty modifiers, called Mutators, for example, enemies having more health or hitting harder, you will struggle quite a bit, but you will also earn a large number of points with which you then unlock different perks and weapons through the level system.

Areas for Improvement

However, what bothered me a bit too much is the fact that our King isn’t that useful. I agree that this is very difficult to balance, but if it takes me 50 spear hits to kill one ordinary creature, then one has to wonder if that weapon is any good at all. This also raises the question of which upgrades to pursue during gameplay: should we focus solely on our King so he has more health and hits harder, or is it perhaps better to take general upgrades for the towers? This all depends on your playing style. I’m currently in the phase of testing different approaches, but it seems that focusing on the buildings around you might be more profitable.

Also, we have too few upgrades at the start, and it will take a long time to unlock them all, as it depends on your level and the points you’ve earned. Additionally, I would like the game to have more interactive elements within a single level. For instance, in the desert, we could pass through mines and emerge on another part of the level. 

Maybe that’s specific to just that one level, but it needs to offer more buildings to construct, such as a blacksmith on the ice level, because otherwise, everything becomes repetitive,you’ll always be building the exact same things. Furthermore, the game doesn’t have major bugs, but I find it very strange that when you replay a level, the enemies reappear in the same spots. I think this game is missing randomized enemy spawn locations.

Conclusion and Future Potential

The game also doesn’t allow us to deviate much in terms of building strategy; there’s always one specific pattern that works best. You can really complicate the situation if you play with harder settings, as you’ll otherwise lose very quickly. I believe that more content will be added over time, and I’d like to see more bosses and the ability to upgrade different bonuses, as it never felt like every perk was a direct upgrade to the previous one. All in all, considering that Thronefall was released in Early Access and still has a lot of work ahead, it has already managed to gather a certain player base. My only real question is how long it can maintain player interest. Imagine if we had a cooperative mode, this game would be even more popular.

Ultimately, Thronefall is simple, addictive, and creative, and we’ll have a chance to return to this game from time to time when new updates and content are released. The developers are constantly working on fixing and balancing the game, and they recently added an Endless mode where you can play for a very long time and survive a large number of enemy waves.

Review copy provided by the publisher