Sworn is a brand-new game from Windwalk Games. Although the game has been in early access for several months, it has finally reached its 1.0 release, and with that, the game is now complete – at least for now. There’s plenty to do in Sworn, but it’ll be a while before you really feel like you’re gaining ground in the game.
After the first few hours, you can find your groove, but mostly because at a certain point, you’re tickling the enemies with minor damage. On my first couple of runs, I had gotten to the third area, and it became pretty obvious that without more meta-progression upgrades, there was no way for me to get past that point.
If the game looks familiar, that’s likely because it was inspired greatly by Hades. Sworn is an action Roguelite with the ability for co-op play, as you and your friends blast through the enemies of Merlin in an effort to free Camelot from the tyranny of King Arthur. It’s basically exactly like Hades minus a handful of changes, and that isn’t necessarily a problem, since it’s still an enjoyable time.
The art style, in particular, was fairly nice, but I really couldn’t wrap my head around using 3D models for the Fae. This was extra confusing when they had 2D artwork that looked significantly better than the 3D models.
While the developers are new, the publisher has put forth games like Date Everything, Dredge, and Hell Let Loose. I really enjoyed Date Everything and Dredge, so I had some faith going into Sworn that it would be able to deliver just based on the pedigree of what Team17 typically choose to back. It gave me much of what I expected, but it couldn’t reach beyond that very often.
It’s still a solid game with some fun fights and mechanics, but there’s nothing that really has a big punch. This game is really just meant for people who enjoy these types of games and want to play one with their friends. While solo play is possible, it’s clear that the primary focus of this game is the co-op experience.
What is Sworn?
In simple terms, Sworn is an action Roguelite where you clear rooms, or chambers in this case, and get power-ups that help you clear more chambers up until a final boss fight. It basically works like you’d imagine. There’s some meta-progression, some weapons to unlock, and a bunch of boss fights to do.
One of the neat things about Sworn is that it’s actually got multiplayer and the opportunity to play four different heroes. Each of these heroes has their own weapons, spells, and stats, making it so in multiplayer, you can each sort of fill a niche.
You go through chambers killing everything in sight until you receive your reward, which is usually an upgrade of some kind. About halfway through each of the first three levels, you’ll fight a mini-boss. Beating these mini-bosses is incredibly important as they’ll unlock a new passive ability tree for meta-progression.
You’ll take down the Knights of the Roundtable until you come upon the King himself. Defeating Arthur unlocks the next highest difficulty. As difficulties increase, the rewards increase as well.
Camelot Looks Good
The game looks pretty good for the most part. The environments are fairly interesting, and the sort of blocky texturing lends itself well to the design and viewpoint of the game. Most of the title looks good with the combination of muted walkways and vibrant accouterments.
Each level is a pleasant mix of colors and some interesting game design. Using the environment to your advantage can be a big help, but not in the way you might think. From small rivers to half walls, each chamber has some kind of divider that you can fire ranged attacks over.
All of [the characters] have actual 2D art where they look significantly better, so it isn’t a real issue, but certainly something I noticed.
It adds another layer to how you engage with enemies and their attacks. If you aren’t careful, you might find your run ended by a stray bullet that managed to get over one of these obstacles. When used correctly, you can dodge and weave your way through the various chambers.
The enemies stand out against the background, although their designs are relatively simple for the most part. I did genuinely like some of the bosses, and really enjoyed a few of their mechanics. Attacks make sense and look fairly good, though the King Arthur fight is particularly entertaining.
One big problem I had was with the 3D character models that appear for the Fae Blessings. They aren’t bad, but they do come across a bit odd due to some weird texturing. All of them have actual 2D art where they look significantly better, so it isn’t a real issue, but certainly something I noticed.
Cutting Down the Forces of Evil
Combat in Sworn will feel very familiar, so it’s relatively easy to pick up. Every weapon has a heavy and a light attack that operate pretty significantly differently from each other. On top of having four weapons per character, there are four spells that you can unlock per character too.
There are a lot of things to unlock and do in Sworn, but most of the time, you’ll be cutting down foes as you move through the chambers of Camelot. Combat feels good and flows nicely, though I did feel like the pace was a bit slow. Obviously, some weapons are designed to be slower than others, but this is a bit deeper than that.
Enemy attacks, player attacks, and even some boss attacks all seem to just be sluggish. If you’re hoping for something super fast-paced here, you’ll be a little disappointed, but there are some upsides to this slower pace as well. Most of the ability upgrades are incredibly strong damage-wise, since they can’t be activated as often and have cooldowns.
There are also some really fun upgrades, like the one that summons an urn with legs after gathering enough souls, which will hunt enemies until it explodes. Some certainly stand out more than others, but overall, there are a ton of these upgrades spread across weapons, spells, and passives.
This variety means you’ll rarely get the same set of upgrades in one run. One run, I was dismantling everything in my way, while during another run, I felt like I was hitting the enemies with wet tissue paper. Getting a good understanding of what works best with your setup is important, or you’ll find yourself struggling to put enemies down.
One of the pitfalls I think the game ends up falling into is that meta-progression feels more like an absolute necessity rather than a nice boost to your skills. You really need a bunch of the damage upgrades to make anything viable beyond that second area. It isn’t difficult to get the materials needed to reach that threshold, but it does create a pain point.
No matter how good you are, it’ll end up taking you forever to just put down regular foes on the later levels, even with a pretty good setup. Weapons and passives have different materials they use to upgrade. Although it’s relatively easy to get the materials for passives, the materials for weapons are a bit more difficult.
Holy Grail Water only comes from a few places, the most definitive being the major boss battles at the end of each area. You can get it as a room reward, but that’s not likely to pop up often. There are special room events that reward it as well, which makes it a bit better.
I do wish there were some more meaningful upgrades to get early on, but there’s plenty to look forward to unlocking.
Most of the weapon upgrades are incremental and only meaningful when stacked with the rest of the weapon upgrades in their little tree. Interestingly, there are almost always two larger abilities on weapons that can be flipped between two versions depending on how you want to use them.
This mechanic can be found in every single meta-progression upgrade for weapons and passives. It’s an interesting way to make players choose which they want for each run, and since these passives are persistent between characters, minus weapon passives, you can really change how each of your runs works.
I do wish there were some more meaningful upgrades to get early on, but there’s plenty to look forward to unlocking. It isn’t a problem beyond my own desire for some early game fun stuff. Though most upgrades will feel negligible until you get them stacked with more upgrades of the same kind.
An Arthurian Legend
There is a bit of a story here to enjoy, and if you’re an Arthurian nerd like me, you’ll have a lot of fun little tidbits waiting for you. From Guinevere to Sir Gawain, there are many memorable figures incorporated into this game that many people will know.
The story isn’t incredibly complex and basically boils down to a way to give players a reason to stop Arthur over simply telling you that’s what you must do. You’re summoned by Merlin to help stop the corruption spreading through Camelot that has caused Arthur to kill any Fae beings he can find.
He and his knights have grown powerful but also insane. You must put an end to his reign as you also grab several “friends” of Merlin along your quest to aid you in defeating the King. It isn’t terribly complex, but it at least gives a reason beyond the most basic ones to push players forward.
Game Design Done Right
The most interesting aspects of Sworn are all built into the game design, which is a nice way to mix up the usual formula. At a certain point, you can unlock “challenges” that show up in various rooms. There are things like time trials or collection events that make rooms a bit more varied and interesting.
It helps to break up the monotony of just murdering everything in sight. There seems to be a good number of challenge events, like gathering water droplets and placing them in a collector, or survival events where you can collect additional materials for each enemy you slay.
While other bosses can’t live up to the king, there’s still a lot of enjoyment in fighting almost every boss and mini-boss.
Once you’ve gotten to higher difficulties, you also unlock corruptions for rooms that do various things, like slowing the cooldown rate of your dodge or summoning lightning almost consistently across the battlefield. It makes the choices for which chamber to enter much more difficult, but also much more fun.
Even more than that, some of the boss fights are actually really fun. The absolute most fun fight is definitely King Arthur, and that’s where the game really shines. It feels like a true battle of wills as you carefully dash between his attacks to find the small windows you have to do damage.
While other bosses can’t live up to the king, there’s still a lot of enjoyment in fighting almost every boss and mini-boss. It takes a lot of focus to dodge the onslaught of attacks, and while some are rather simple, like Sir Gawain’s attacks, others are designed rather interestingly, like Lady Belvidere and her fishy friends.
Closing Comments:
Sworn is an incredibly fun action Roguelite to jump into, especially if you have friends to play with. While it certainly isn’t perfect, there’s enough here to at least give it a shot. Sworn in its best moments is a game that engages you on several levels and forces you to make difficult decisions while rewarding your hard work. In its worst moments, it’s a bit of a slog that will have you questioning your strategy and build. If you like Arthurian legend and thoroughly enjoy Roguelite action with meta-progression, you’ll find yourself very pleased with your time in Sworn.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
