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Gord (PC/PS5/Xbox Series) - Slavic mythology-inspired "dark fantasy" city builder/survival RPG, update: reviews from OpenCritic posted


Commissar SFLUFAN

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Official website

 

Steam Store page:

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Gord is a single-player, adventure-strategy game featuring developing societies, eerie forbidden lands, and remarkable mythical creatures. Complete quests and manage a populace whose personal stories and well-being impact the fate of the settlement.

 

 

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology from ex-CDPR devs (202?), update: 16 minutes of gameplay
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Survival game from ex-Witcher and 11 bit studios devs seems impressively layered

 

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Three warriors return from an expedition that left with twice as many. They bathe to tend to their wounds, they drink mead to calm their nerves, and they return to their families to rest until morning. Physically and mentally rejuvenated, they congregate at the temple in the center of the gord, where they are joined by two new archers and a scout. They look toward the perpetual darkness that plagues the land around them, and together they venture into the unknown — once more unto the breach.

Gord, which was originally pitched as a horror-strategy game, but later revised to be an adventure-strategy title with survival and horror elements, is the systemically dense and highly intelligent debut project from Polish studio Covenant. The team includes veterans from many high-profile local outfits like CD Projekt Red, 11 bit studios, Flying Wild Hog, and elsewhere.

 

It shows; given what I saw at Gamescom 2022, there is definitely sufficient elbow room for Gord to not just make an entrance in the scene, but to barrel through competitors and cement itself as something truly great.

 

The events of Gord transpire in a world that is afflicted by eternal darkness. Your task is to lead the Tribe of Dawn south, uniting the lands you encounter on behalf of a shady monarch. In doing so, you will learn about your companions’ strengths, weaknesses, and personalities as you construct your own gord and build a society within it, which will grow as you improve its amenities, fortify its battlements, and support its inhabitants as they begin to have families of their own.

 

 

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology from ex-CDPR devs (202?), update: 16 minutes of gameplay with developer commentary
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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology from ex-CDPR devs (Summer 2023), update: "They Call It The Gord" gameplay trailer and "Into The Gord" developer diaries
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In Gord's wonderfully grim, Slavic style, sacrificing your children to an ancient swamp horror is par for the course.

 

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Gord sets out its stall pretty quickly. Within a few minutes, I'm building my first settlement, starting with the walls—to keep the dark things out. Within ten I'm fussing about which jobs I want to give each of my settlers, and already antsy for more wood and reeds to construct new buildings. Within half an hour, I'm sacrificing one of the colony's children to an ancient swamp horror. 

 

Combining elements of city builder, real-time strategy, survival, RPG, and horror, Gord is most easily understood as a game about what it would be like to try and keep a town full of villagers alive in the middle of one of those horrible, monster-infested forests from The Witcher. Beset on all sides by vicious beasts and deformed creatures, risking life and limb just to gather some mushrooms or a bundle of reeds, your small gang of townsfolk look to you to protect not just their lives, but their sanity.

 

Inspired by Slavic folklore, Gord's world is thick with atmosphere—all of it bleak and horrific. As I set up my first town (or "gord"—the game is named for a specific kind of medieval Slavic fort), I'm nervous even just sending villagers to chop down trees. Whenever they're outside the safety of the walls, it feels like they could fall into danger at any moment. Grim cutscenes setting up a story about a cruel imperial bureaucrat forcing the cautious locals into peril further adds to the sense of hopelessness, especially when bizarre creatures of myth—including a demonic dragon with an entourage of wailing ghosts—make their presence known.

 

 

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology from ex-CDPR devs (PC/PS5/Xbox Series, 08 August 2023), update: "Revenge of the Whisper" Release Date Announcement Trailer
  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology (PC/PS5/Xbox Series, 08 August 2023), update: "Revenge of the Whisper" Release Date Announcement Trailer
  • 1 month later...
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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord - city-builder survival RPG set in a dark-fantasy world inspired by Slavic mythology (PC/PS5/Xbox Series), update: reviews from OpenCritic posted


Game Information

Game Title: Gord

 

Platforms:

  • PC (Aug 17, 2023)
  • Xbox Series X/S (Aug 17, 2023)
  • PlayStation 5 (Aug 17, 2023)
  • Xbox One (Aug 17, 2023)
  • PlayStation 4 (Aug 17, 2023)

 

Developer: Covenant.dev
Publisher: Team 17

 

Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - 66 average - 50% recommended

 

Critic Reviews

COGconnected - Mark Steighner - 82 / 100

Gord is a richer and more complex game than it first appears. There are interesting layers of moral ambiguity and mental health to consider. Gord is a dark Slavic folk tale in survival/RTS-game disguise. Its mechanics and systems add up to an engaging gameplay experience. For a modest entry price, Gord provides a lot of entertainment, an engaging story and plenty of replay value via customizable scenarios.


God is a Geek - Mick Fraser - 8 / 10

As a dark, story-driven settlement sim, Gord offers a moderate amount of replayability and a pretty compelling central narrative.


PlayStation Universe - John-Paul Jones - 8 / 10

Gord is an impressive marriage of base building, adventuring and storytelling across a ruined world fraught with horrors from Slavic folklore. Though it's more than a little rough around the edges, such issues aren't enough to considerably tarnish the uniqueness of what developer Covenant.net has wrought here.


TechRaptor - William Worrall - 8 / 10

Gord won't be for everyone, but its dark tone and high difficulty are worth working through for the top-notch world-building on display here.


WayTooManyGames - Leonardo Faria - 7.5 / 10

It is quite punitive with its harsh sanity setbacks, tough enemies and slow-paced gameplay. Nevertheless, it covers a particular niche, and after waiting for it for what felt like an eternity, I’m pleased to see that the folks at Covenant.dev have successfully managed to come up with one of the most interesting strategy games in recent memory, even if it’s not one of the more entertaining ones.


SVG - Kimmi Haueter - 7 / 10

"Gord" is fast-paced with a bit of a learning curve that might deter a few players, but it's well-worth the challenge for the ones that stick it out.


TheSixthAxis - Adrian Burrows - 7 / 10

Personally, I found the 'grim' nature of Gord just too nasty, the developers often shocking for the sake of it, rather than doing so to support the story or gameplay. Still, there's a lot to admire about Covenant's creation, with the game offering a compelling and tense survival RTS experience. Only really worth picking up on PC, mind.


GRYOnline.pl - Zbigniew Woźnicki - Polish - 6.5 / 10

Gord is an alright game. But that’s it. Nothing more. I had more fun playing this than, say, the new Settlers, but there’s so much unused potential here that a hypothetical sequel could be infinitely more interesting.


Wccftech - Chris Wray - 6.5 / 10

Gord is an interesting and, at times, good, albeit flawed, survival city-builder mixed with action RPG and strategy elements. The atmosphere is excellently done, but this is countered by the sanity mechanics taking too much from the rest of the game. Almost every positive has a negative. The character development mechanics bring a fundamentally broken inventory system. The excellent monster development introduces a few that are just outright broken. The (sometimes) interesting campaign brings a near-opaque element of worldbuilding, requiring much side-reading as names are unceremoniously thrown at you. All in all, Gord isn't a bad game, and while I can have a decent time of it, there are too many flaws to recommend it universally; hardcore strategy fans may apply.


GamesRadar+ - Adam Barnes - 3 / 5

"It's all very grotty, and that's meant fully as a compliment."


AltChar - Semir Omerovic - 55 / 100

I really wanted to like Gord but sadly, despite an interesting concept and ideas, the execution comes off frustratingly disappointing and shallow.


GameGrin - Martin Heath - 5.5 / 10

Gord succeeds in painting a dark and gritty picture of a group of people surviving against the odds in a dangerous environment. The Horrors are fantastic, but small niggles and big frustrations dampen the enjoyment somewhat.


PC Gamer - Rick Lane - 48 / 100

Beyond the shock value of its demonic horrors, this survivalist city-builder has little to recommend it.


IGN - Jon Bolding - 4 / 10

Gord is, in its most outstanding moments, a mediocre colony sim/RTS/RPG hybrid. The rest is just boring.


Rock, Paper, Shotgun - Sin Vega - Unscored

A detailed and moody setting wasted on a dull and repetitive RTS/management hybrid with the strengths of neither genre.

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  • Commissar SFLUFAN changed the title to Gord (PC/PS5/Xbox Series) - Slavic mythology-inspired "dark fantasy" city builder/survival RPG, update: reviews from OpenCritic posted

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