Martin drew his own ideas from The War of the Roses, Sir David's main brouhaha.
And with dimensional portals opening and closing throughout Rift Apart's many locales, the general idea is you can instantly travel between highly-detailed worlds.
An ambitious open-world action-RPG from a new studio that does a lot, but doesn’t do a lot very well.
The reasons for that are two-fold: it was the most up-to-date version of the game I ploughed through, and two: it represents Unknown Worlds' reinvigorated trust in its own console development chops, which was <i>choppy</i> at best in the first sink or swim release back in 2016.
Ireland may be a neighbouring stomping ground to <b>England</b>, but that doesn't mean they're like for like in the biome department.
Not to suggest your rendezvous with the Lady of the Castle isn't one to savour, or even tremble at, it's just that most of the released media and tone for Village has been centred around her and a bit of the village, but what they wholly amount for in the full product is essentially tutorial content, at best.
Enemies spawn in unpredictable ways, and for what it thinks it's worth, Returnal tries to keep you guessing, on your toes, and Eveready -- like the battery.
In many ways it's like an overblown action movie from the 1980s or early part of the 1990s, but even here it doles out the cheese without its own identity.
But looking past those things, and into the vale reveals a game bucking trends and showcasing what's truly capable in our medium. A bigger budget, more player-agency and a more expansive world are all that's holding this back from being groundbreaking. And a lot of learnings will be taken from this latest outing.
In that the look and feel isn't merely an exercise in style, but instead a vibrant emissive display of sights and sounds that leads to a world full of detail, silicon, and soul.