Gord Embraces Dark Fantasy Strategy

A new Polish game development studio, Covenant, is launching a dark fantasy strategy title called Gord in 2022. At the helm of the project is Covenant founder Stan Just, formerly of CD Projekt Red and 11 bit studios. Gord combines city-building, survival, questing, and a number of other elements such as tapping into procedural generation to explore its dark themes and dire fantasy. All worlds find their inspiration somewhere, and Gord’s is rooted in Slavic folklore. Gord is a single-player affair and is headed to PC. For a quick look into the darkness, check out the trailer below:

As you can see, your little crew of adventurers and townsfolk are at extreme risk of being slaughtered in grisly ways, whether that’s simply being eaten by wildlife or falling prey to demons, insects, giant spiders, or worse. I guess those that get gnawed on by wolves are the lucky ones, eh? Surviving in Gord while building up your city is a key element of the game as you lead the Tribe of the Dawn to greatness or doom. Probably doom, for most of your attempts.

At the heart of your adventures is the city-building or simulation component, but it’s tempered with many other mechanics and features that task you with taking on legendary monsters and setting off into the wilds on quests.  Managing your city includes elements that go beyond keeping your crew fed and physically healthy, you’ll also have to manage their sanity as things go awry. Random elements weave into this to create a varied play experience for each time you have a crack at weathering the wilderness. Things are grim, but they’re not impossible, as you are able to employ powerful magic to augment your adventures as you set off to battle. Before you play, you can customize elements of the game including environment, enemy types, resources, weather, and more. A sort of meta progression system appears to be part of the experience as well, as you collect torn pages from a mysterious lorebook.

City survival games are always interesting, and I’m eager to see where this dark fantasy tale takes us as we attempt to beat back the malignant evils that surround the settlement. While we are going to have to wait a while to play, we’ll be sure to keep an eye on this one. What do you think about Gord? Let us know in the comments!