Gord | PS5 Review

Steeped in mythology, and presented in a character driven campaign Team17's "Gord" turns this civilization sim experience into a micro-management heavy undertaking centered around the morals, faith, and sanity of a people under the leadership of the king's second in command. As fate would have it the Tribe of the Dawn has bent the knee to the powers that be, doing their bidding in exchange for any mercy that might be bestowed upon them for their allegiance. An allegiance to a conquering King whose aim is to mine the riches and resources of the surrounding areas while controlling the lives of it's native inhabitants.

Through a miserly old sage, and the small in stature second hand man to the King we find a story rich in survival, conquest, and magic. Putting to use the native population, their abilities, and the incantations of a rogue witch. Ultimately facing off against the darkness of wilds, and the darkness of those using others to feed their insatiable greed. 

With the collective sum of the Campaign, Custom Scenarios, and discovered pages of lore within The Chronicles the story of "Gord" is told, and experienced in full. The Campaign itself is a main quest and side quest undertaking that involves the key characters, and their underlings as they do the bidding of their new master. Utilizing natural resources including food, wood, reeds, and other materials that are made possible by each of the laborers' farming efforts these key items enable the tribe to not only build their Gord home base, but branch out, scavenge, and fight off threats that they face along the way.

Using a point, click, and expand cursor via controller you are able to highlight, command, and commit to task anyone and everyone under your leadership. Making them build upon the Gord's infrastructure, harvest materials, and even go out on quest objectives that include everything from killing enemies to fighting monsters, and seeking out the riches for the king. All while maintaining health, sanity, and faith with buildings meant to cater to each need. Alongside side these norms of civilization you will meet, and be accompanied by a witch whose incantations, at the expense of worship, will enable you to better thrive, survive, and conquer those who stand in your way. 

The way the game is setup, in this regard, is user friendly. In the Campaign you'll find the DPad directions give quick access to things like the current quest objectives, the status of your population, and stats of each character under your beckon call. Beyond that the shoulder buttons act as a means to navigate, and operate the wheel-like display of Construction, Population, and Incantation options. Things of which will help you build, fight, and survive in given situations. 

By selecting individuals, or groups of characters after picking from the Construction wheel, and it's wedged and categorized options you can assign them to construction or deconstruction, and in doing so have them cater to that structure's function, afterwards. Be it harvesting materials, food, or resources in and outside of the Gord's palisade walls. Each built structure, and assigned individuals helps maintain the overall key survival status of the community tied to health, faith, and sanity, respectively. Avoiding afflictions, death, and insanity is also a huge part in meeting each Gord focused objective.

On the flipside, with the next door Population menu, you will be actively selecting participating tribe members to do your bidding. This including the busy work for the sustained progress of the Gord, and it's inhabitants. Of course the required tasks will have you assigning, and reassigning jobs to members who have skill expertise specific for the job at hand as laid out in their descriptive bio. A bio that includes everything from a job title to a name, and their affliction or health status. Over time your tribe members will also give birth to new members which can be put to work or sacrificed to the resident witch for her helpful incantations. Keeping characters alive for the long haul will be difficult, but if managed their traits, and trades will be passed down to new members borne into the tribe. Creating a legacy, and allowing for the passing on of inventory assigned to slots per character.

This brings me to the third option which is Incantations. Incantations are specific to the witch's role in the sordid affair. They can be offensive, or defensive spells that will help turn the tides of battle, especially against more formidable foes. Enemies you will face range from wildlings, and wildlife to mythological monsters of varying types. Each of which will be engaged in automated combat, and through a touchpad activated pause, unpause, or play feature. Enabling the player to better prepare before actual engagement.

Custom Scenarios ...

As with the main Campaign, the Custom Scenarios will allow you to build a preset mini-campaign from a menu of slider options enables the assignment of main quests, side quests, and the various things tied to that scenario. Things like map size, trade-off rarity, and quest themes are included. You'll be able to choose the all encompassing 'Free Reign', for example, to live out a a fully fledged survival mode to see how long you can last. That, or go for simpler runs with less time consuming objectives. You can, for example, face off against monsters or scavenge for set resources. Each parameter in the menu either limits or expands upon the intricacies of interaction within the customized experience. Custom tailored to the players' liking.

The Chronicles ...

Last, but certainly not least you'll be finding pages of lore within the Chronicles menu that will give further insight to the kingdom, it's involve persons of importance, and those outside of it's reign. Information that builds upon key characters, monsters, the mythology, and the Gord way of living. Things that could not easily be crammed into the game without bloating the experience with annoying speech or textual conversations.

The Verdict ...

Gord is easier to manage than I thought it would be. Everything in it is well explained through pop-up tutorials, and organized in such a streamlined and user friendly manner that even newcomers to the genre will find it accessible. Out of all the games that utilize this form of sim management I'd say Gord by far nails the formula. It's not nearly as stressful as some games in the genre, and the breaks of animated cutscenes give the player a break to reap the rewards of their hard earned efforts. 

The fact that the game has several difficulty settings that take in account the gods' generosity, or the lack thereof really adds to the replay value. You can go easy with a handheld experience or go for a Godless permadeath single auto-save difficulty that will truly test your mettle. Ramping up the enemy threat, and making resource management a grueling task. All in all, with all things considered, I can see what the fuss was all about with Gord. It is a game that earns it's price through a competent creative take. That being said it is very dark and mature. Dealing with things like suicide and child sacrifice. Something you may or may not be into, and understandably so.