TEST Gord: a tempting hybrid title on paper, a little less in play…

Gord, here is a curious word. No doubt he means camp or tribe in Slavic folklore. For those who discover it in any case, it is above all synonymous with strategy, survival, and even RPG. The title is what we could call an original and the Covenant studio is proactive when it comes to harmonizing all of this. We know, that’s not all, especially when a few imperfections prevent you from fully enjoying a title that has something to play for.

Gord is what we might call a very wise strategy game.

Imagine, Gord even has narrative ambitions. Its main campaign tells us about the (mis)adventures of the Dawn tribe, a people living in harmony with nature but recently responding to the Calanthian armies to ensure their survival. Their new imperialist masters are asking our tribe to be the vanguard in conquering the Forbidden Lands. The region has not usurped its name. It is filled with bloodthirsty savages, monstrous beasts as well as not very welcoming mystical creatures. And it is in the face of all these beautiful people that we are going to have to make our clan survive mission after mission. The first times, it does not look particularly difficult. Well sheltered in our famous Gord, a kind of village surrounded by palisades, we develop as in any strategy game.. Our villagers need food to survive, wood to build their buildings, but also gold to maintain their warriors. Mechanically speaking, Gord is what we might call a very wise strategy game. In his case, it’s all in the concept. Because indeed, it is not a question of developing your camp to survive another tribe but the surrounding nature. PvE title 100% assumed, Gord is not easier, quite the contrary. The objectives of the game generally ask us to rub shoulders with more enemies, sometimes even stronger than our troops. However, this is far from justifying all our problems.

To better understand them, we must talk about the more intimate aspect that we maintain with our settlers. These are not simple workers to recruit but many villagers with their own identity, their faults, their qualities but also more specific things such as family ties with other characters. To believe that we are in an authentic RPG. At the same time, the heroes of the day can carry up to three objects (to be discovered on the mission map) and amass experience (in combat by fighting, in harvest by harvesting, etc.) to become very versatile capable of changing the life of the Gord and its inhabitants. We must admit that we love this perspective. The idea of ​​making its characters evolve as if we were playing with role-playing heroes perfectly complements the strategy part which would otherwise have looked a little bland. The feeling is even stronger in the campaign mode since it is possible to select the villagers who survived in your previous missions to include them in the starting group of the next level. It’s no exaggeration to say that we grow attached to these little beasts, even if all is not well when it comes to them.

For quasi-heroes, the members of the Dawn tribe are sometimes quite difficult to satisfy. Along with the nifty resources and settings to manage we’ve already talked about, we need to consider their mental health. The data is particularly delicate because in the event of a psychological crack, the sanction can range from mental affliction to pure and simple desertion.. We don’t even know which is the worst because in the first case, the victim becomes useless for his community and can only be healed by an NPC to be found in the wild world, the galley to put it simply.

Gord doesn’t always play fair.

Desertion, on the other hand, is like death. The character has the delicacy to leave his objects behind before disappearing. And it’s not as if the inhabitants of the Gord were numerous enough to allow this kind of behavior. With groups composed on average of about fifteen individuals when the game is well launched, the deaths and the problems related to the mental health of your flock can quickly impact your community.. The snowball effect can even lead to the collapse of your economy and therefore lead to other public order problems. In short, it’s not fair that Gord is difficult is that it sometimes seems unnecessarily unfair when all our efforts are wasted at the slightest error in judgement. Covenant’s title isn’t always punitive for the right reasons, either. The proof of this is the darkness mechanic, which lowers the morale of your villagers when they are not near a source of light.

It gets awkward very quickly when your gatherers have to go further and further to collect resources. Unless they build braziers absolutely everywhere they go, which is obviously very expensive, it is almost impossible to keep their minds in good condition. Same injustice if you have the misfortune to lose one of yours in an isolated place. You only have a few seconds to collect his remains and bury him, otherwise the whole village will suffer a sanity penalty, even more for his family members. You have been warned, Gord don’t always play fair. And although this is a welcome source of challenge for the most patient among us, it seems to us that not everyone will find what they are looking for.

Naturally, it’s a matter of taste, unlike the mechanical faults that marred our experience. Gord’s gameplay suffers from some confusion. Granted, the environments are dark and the maps often made up of winding swamps, but that’s not even the problem. The world of Gord is simply very poorly developed. We really appreciate the didactic side of its menus and the many information bubbles that help us understand what is around us, but for us there is a real problem with the display.

We will remember those small moments of glory that make Gord worthy of interest.

The points of interest do not appear on the map and we are obliged in most cases to pass our cursor everywhere to find the slightest resource site as well as the treasures lying around on the whole map.. Without being prohibitive, this kind of defect is annoying in the long run because it is not very ergonomic. A bit like the fact that the statistics sheet of our inhabitants opens automatically as soon as we select one, hiding the mini-map in the process. And precisely, this mini-map could have saved the day except that it too is not the clearest there is. There are plenty of filters to play with but again it’s clutter at the icon level. Banal medicinal herbs are superimposed on valuables and other important treasures. The only way to get a clear view of what’s happening on the screen is to display the mini-map in full screen. Here again we will go back to ergonomics. The most criminal remains of course the fact that there is no mention of resources on this mini-map.

However, the fundamental criticism that we address to Gord concerns his pace, which is far too slow to be effective.. Watching your loggers or gatherers bring back their loot, it’s best not to be in a hurry. It’s no wonder that developing your base takes time in the game. Covenant thought it might be a good idea to eliminate dead time by adding an option to speed up time. But to be honest, it is permanently that this option should be activated so that the title keeps us in suspense. It seems to us that the frequency of births is the most annoying in this story. you already have to wait a while (depending on the morale of your entire community) to get a new member. However, this only comes in the form of a child unable to perform all the tasks of an adult. So you have to wait a while longer before it grows to really be able to help you in your development. At this point, we don’t think we’re being too harsh in calling Gord’s gameplay rough..

It’s a shame because this irregular gameplay in its success eclipses the singular ideas which give a little thickness to the whole. For example, we haven’t talked about the Horrors, kinds of very strong local bosses who can be hunted but who can also unleash wounds on your faction if you don’t carry out side missions for them. It is often a complex dilemma involving the sacrifice of a valuable object or even a child of your tribe. Video game racketeering, neither more nor less, but surprisingly it brings a new dynamic that does Gord good. We’ll remember those little moments of glory that make it newsworthy, but it’s hard to see the Covenant title as the little nugget it could have been.

You can buy Gord on Gamesplanet at €31.49.