I’ve always been enamoured by the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the RoundTable. I blame Disney. Ever since watching the animated classic ‘Sword in the Stone’ I was a full-on überfan. King Arthur T-shirts, a Guinevere action figure, Lancelot emblazoned underwear, a plastic Excalibur with light-up glow-in-the-dark action (AA batteries supplied separately), heck, I even wrote slightly questionable fanfiction. Well, no, not really. But I still really like the Arthurian Legends, so when the opportunity to review Sworn, a roguelite inspired by near-forgotten British legends, I leapt at the chance.
Sworn wears its devoted inspiration to Hades rather obviously on its armour-clad sleeve. Just like Supergiant’s genre defining classic, Sworn is an action-RPG played from an isometric perspective. In an attempt to differ itself, Sworn asks you to press slightly different button inputs to dodge, attack, and open doors to new areas, yet otherwise this is, to all intents and purposes, a near identical experience, just set in British mythology rather than that of Ancient Greece.
I also get the feeling that someone on the dev team might have read Amy Jeff’s brilliant book Storyland: A New Mythology of Britain at some point, as Sworn draws heavily upon the mythological characters and their stories depicted within it. The Fae Lords – modern interpretations of ancient Celtic gods – bestow powers and abilities on your nameless protagonists, giving you the standard assortment of roguelite powers – flame generating dashes, magical projectiles, elemental attacks, you know the drill – before you die and lose them all. You’ll take on a host of grotesque beasties, before ultimately battling several corrupted members of the Knights of the Round Table, on your way to face Arthur himself.
The game looks fantastic, offering chunky character art and bold visuals clearly inspired by the work of comic-book artist Mike Mignola. Animation is slick and the controls responsive, ensuring it plays well too. Enemies are delightfully varied but often dumb as a poorly educated brick, getting stuck on terrain or hanging out in the corner of a stage, just waiting to die. Still, with a focus on swarming the player, they do enough to offer a decent challenge, even though it’s usually the tougher than tough bosses who will end your run.
There are a few elements that aren’t taken directly from Hades. First and foremost is online co-op, where up to four players can team up to hack through the monster-filled rooms together. This is tremendous – if rather chaotic – fun, though its all too easy to lose sight of your avatar in the unfolding violence and discover you’ve lost a heavy chunk of health. One can only hope that a local co-op mode is in the works, as I certainly missed its inclusion here.
Secondly, there are unlockable player characters which, whilst sharing in the same run-to-run stat upgrades, each play significantly differently. Indeed, working with other players to ensure a rounded team is vital; someone attacking from afar with an archer, whilst another absorbs damage as a knight, until the axe-wielding warrior can get in close to deal out the big hits. The range of meaningful build options is particularly impressive, each character having access to a choice of four varied weapons and numerous additional support spells and abilities.
As such, no matter the seemingly unstoppable might of the boss you are facing, there is always a work around, always something new to try, tempting you with that ‘just one more run’ compulsion. When you gather together a band of four players, these build options across the team increase exponentially, offering some truly devious combos that can see heavyweight foes annihilated in seconds. Part of the satisfaction is the sense that you’re almost breaking the game, up until you reach the next boss and are brought promptly down to earth.
The game is built around co-op, which unfortunately means that in singleplayer, things feel flat and basic. This isn’t helped by the lack of characterisation amongst the NPCs. In Hades, you became increasingly fond of Achilles, Nyx, and Patroclus – and the rest – as their personalities and back story were developed run to run. Indeed, it was one of the reasons I felt compelled to give every nasty boss fight another go; just to further develop my relationship with the gang back in the hub. This element is oddly absent from Sworn.
The developers have some absolutely awesome mythological characters at their disposal, Merlin and Guinevere chief amongst them. But rather than lean into these fascinating figures and their incredible back stories, not to mention the narrative opportunities that would provide, each character you meet is essentially nothing more than a dull merchant, offering power-ups instead of a fully rounded personality and intriguing dialogue. When you have a mythological world as rich as the one provided by the legends of Camelot, this can’t help but feel like a waste.