Upcoming strategy title Band of Crusaders suddenly got its demo, even before the final release date was revealed. That’s why we went to medieval France and resisted the demonic forces with our order of knights.
Here’s a game with a real satarash of interesting ingredients. We have a map of France from the 14th century, the Crusaders, but not campaigning in the Middle East, but defending their own borders against the invasion of demonic beings. We have a mix of grand strategy-like map transparency, RTS-style combat, and management of an elite group of knights in the style of an RPG title. Band of Crusaders caught my eye at the end of last year, and at the beginning of this month it surprised me with an unexpected demo version, which you can still try on Steam.
So, at the beginning of the 14th century, the French king Philip IV disgraces and destroys the Templar order in France, and while his men plunder their castles, the neglected dungeons are soon abandoned by a mysterious evil. An evil that will change both flora and fauna, spreading unstoppably across the French kingdom. While the people are in disarray and barely making ends meet, a new order of knights is formed under your control.
![Band of Crusaders | Demo Release Trailer [GOG]](https://i0.wp.com/i.ytimg.com/vi/9qB978FlQUs/hqdefault.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
Combat in Band of Crusaders mostly takes place on small maps, and is performed in real time with the option to pause as needed. The key to success is to equip and prepare your knights well. Because in good old role-playing fashion, each weapon in Band of Crusaders has its own amount of damage and critical strike chance, and each shield has a chance to block.
Once you’ve finished the battle, you’re returned to the map view where you decide where you’re going. And there the movement is identical, so in real time with the possibility of pausing. Bandits and enemy hordes move freely on the map, but also the local “police” with whom you can cooperate if you happen to be in the same place. Basically, this will be familiar to anyone who has played the Mount & Blade games or maybe Wartales.
It’s great that the map is not just a flat board on which some figures move, but a swamp, for example, will slow you down a lot if you decide to step over it. Otherwise, those stinking swamps and creepy forests are a bad place in themselves, and you also have to take into account the time of day you find yourself there. Because that can also work in the opponent’s favor.
Don’t think that this is an easy game. It very easily happens that one of your knights dies because the opponent is often more numerous, but also stronger. It is therefore difficult to connect with your knights if you too often get stuck in battles you are not ready for.
At this point, we don’t know how important the story will be to Band of Crusaders. We know only one thing – that there is always work to do, even without following the story. In towns and villages on the bulletin board, opportunities await you to earn money by hunting specific monsters in the style of the Witcher. In settlements, you also need to buy food and medicine for your troops, as well as tools to repair equipment. Healing and healing happens in real time as you travel around the map, and you can camp at any time and see the status of your gang.
All in all, this sounds like a good trip and I hope that we will be able to go beyond France in the full version of Band of Crusaders. The game’s main drawback right now is the lack of voice acting. Namely, with the main missions before the start, you will usually have a small narrative part and dialogues of individual characters, and reading may become tiring after a while. But who knows, maybe in the end they will manage to add that too. Especially since the release of the game is not yet in sight, at least as far as a specific date is concerned.