The handful of hours I’ve spent with Disciples Liberation so far have shown me an adventure not quite like anything I’ve seen before. Almost all of its pieces, from the tactical, turn-based combat to the voiced, RPG dialogue to the base management have existed in other games. But the way they’re combined here is fresh and interesting.
Like previous games in the Disciples series, the core of the action is a grid-based combat system to which you’ll bring a combination of heroes and regular troops with different stats and abilities. One interesting twist here is the ability to place any character or creature on your back line, where they won’t participate in combat directly, but will provide some kind of passive buff instead. Also, the main character Avyanna and her named companions are all fully voiced, along with all of the NPCs and quest-givers you’ll meet throughout the main story.
The way you navigate this story is different from any previous entry in the series, too. Each faction won’t have its own campaign, but rather, Avyanna can decide to align herself with the ones she prefers by making story choices that can increase or decrease your affinity with them. You’ll ultimately be able to field troops from all four factions if you want to, but units from a faction that worships the ground you walk on will fight a lot harder than ones that hate your guts.
The battles themselves feel pretty familiar for a tactical turn-based game. Units have a variable number of action points that can be used to move, attack, or in some cases, both. Special abilities include rogues going into stealth mode and dealing increased damage when they pop out. Terrain features can hinder or heal you, and setting up flanking attacks further increases your edge against the enemy. All the while, applying buffs to yourself and debuffs to your enemy is a reliable path to victory.
Recruiting and upgrading the nameless footsoldiers who make up the bulk of your battle line happens in Yllian, a mysterious floating city that comes to serve as Avyanna’s home base. Spending resources like gold, iron, and wood that you find throughout the world will allow you to place and upgrade structures associated with each faction, but only once you’ve gotten the blueprints from doing their quests. The Elven Alliance are woodland skirmishers that bring some elemental power to the field. The Empire are devout humans with a balanced roster. The Undead Hordes are exactly what they sound like. And the Legions of the Damned are hellions packing plenty of demonic magic. You won’t be able to keep them all happy, though, so it makes sense to pick one or two and stick with them.
While all recruitable troops and companions have limited equipment slots, Avyanna herself is fleshed out as a full-fledged RPG hero. She can equip armor and weapons, learn spells from five different schools, and has three expansive skill trees that focus on different styles of combat. While she starts out as a balanced Mercenary, it will eventually be possible to unlock a number of other classes for her as well.
There’s a fair bit of dungeon-crawling and open world exploration as well, including puzzles, traps, and side quests. It reminded me a fair bit of the Divinity: Original Sin games, except that combat takes place on a separate screen rather than out in the open world. And while I was told that my decisions regarding the various factions would eventually guide my story’s outcomes, I didn’t get to play long enough to really see how that plays out. Likewise, Avyanna usually gets the option between a “good”, “bad,” and “wild card” option in most dialogues, but this didn’t look like it had any effect either mechanically or story-wise just yet.
I’m looking forward to exploring more of Disciples Liberation after having gotten my boots dirty in its rich fantasy world. A story-driven RPG like this with a home base, army building, and sweeping tactical combat really strikes me as a natural combination, and it’s almost surprising no one has combined these ingredients quite like this before. You’ll be able to check it out for yourself on October 21st.
