thunderball Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Review

In December of 2024, I played Pillars of Eternity for the first time, and it quickly became one of my most favorite games. I quickly gobbled up the second game; Deadfire and while I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first story wise (the gameplay was better in everything except weakening Barbarian ☹). Needless to say, I was a huge fan of the series and the world we bought. Because of this, I not only pre-ordered Avowed, but I was excited for it even taking a day off from work to play the game. Avowed ended up disappointing my in a lot of areas, and left me wanting something more from the game. I’m happy to say Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is exactly what I wished Avowed could have been. This game marriages its own, unique first-person fantasy fighting with a compelling main narrative, and a unique world that kept me mostly engaged throughout my time playing. The themes are a lovely marriage of different mythos that felt more grounded in Celtic traditions then like the Eastern European setting in the Witcher series with Giger-esque architecture when it comes to the Shamans. The three things dragging this down for me: A good number of bugs in the game, sometimes I had to reset my loads which is not fun in an Elder Scrolls type game. Unoptimized where I had occasional dips in FPS regardless of my settings. A confusing Act 3 map, where it was difficult to understand my path to certain areas (subjective). Overall I really enjoyed my time with the game, and wish this developer gets another shot to refine this in a sequel.