The Valiant Review – A Simplistic, Beautifully Told War

The Valiant from THQ Nordic and KITE Games has been out since 19 October 2022, having launched on PC through Steam, Epic Games and GOG.  It spoke of giving a fresh take on the RTS genre, so does it live up to those claims?

If you’re unfamiliar with the title, here’s a brief overview:

Embark on a journey of brotherhood and redemption in The Valiant, a squad-based RTS set in 13th Century Europe and the Middle East. Command and level-up your medieval knights as you fight through an epic SP campaign, then take your skills online in both cooperative and competitive MP modes.

Since it offers a more casual experience, let’s take this game from a more beginner’s point of view.

CALLING UPON YOUR BROTHERS-IN-ARMS

We follow Theoderich von Akenburg’s story, a crusader knight in the 13th century. He’s forced out of retirement when his friend, Ulrich von Greval, discovered an ancient artifact known as the Rod of Aaron. Said rod is capable of unleashing a terrible evil should it be successfully pieced together, so Theoderich embarks on a journey across the Middle East and Europe in order to obtain the pieces ahead of anyone wishing to use its power for nefarious deeds.

The game won’t be winning awards for high graphical fidelity, not even utilizing CGI for cutscenes. It’s primarily through artwork that goes by similarly to a slideshow, but hats off to the audio design and the voice actors – in tandem, they have brought the game to life, their talent in expression making the story incredibly engaging to follow. This extends to the background music which changes dynamically to the battlefield’s conditions. There will be a moment of calm as you prep your strategy, then it all comes crashing together when troops collide, weapons ringing, soldiers barking, and buildings collapsing.

TAKE UP YOUR WEAPONS

The Valiant has a single-player campaign consisting of 16 chapters, each of which can be completed in 20-30 minutes depending on the difficulty. That’s an estimated 8 hours, which, depending on how you feel about it, might be a little on the short side. The campaign does not have any branching side quests, as it’s exclusively the main storyline. If you want extras, it’s mostly limited to looking for items, equipment or skins that can be used in the Skirmish / Multiplayer mode.

As mentioned, there’s multiplayer with Competitive PVP. You’ll be able to go up to 3 other players, each using a hero, building their respective armies and conquer. Alternatively, there’s Last Man Standing sees players work together with 2 others to protect your supplies from the enemy. Unfortunately, due to lack of players, perhaps because of the timezone, there was no opportunity to properly try out an online game.

All this is done in a top-down perspective. Have fun microing heroes, troops, buildings, palisades, traps, all that good stuff. As you might expect, Heroes are unique characters, while the troops have their respective classes in being Archers, Swordsmen, Spearmen, Cavalry and others. See which one suits your playstyle! Naturally, they have their respective skills: we have Theodorich who is capable of replenishing Vigor (akin to armour) to his troops so that they can fight longer. The troops themselves can have ‘traits’, like how Archers can slow down enemy movement, or Swordsmen who can Knockdown. Skill Trees work as a progression system to further upgrade your units.

While I did allude to micro, it’s a bit less complicated in that individual troops do not have to be controlled one by one, instead simply as a collective in a class. I do feel this is much more manageable, more so if you’re a beginner. This is important since most of the time, as while there are buildings in play, the focus is more on the units. Bad positioning or mistimed sills are far more devastating than the constructions themselves.

It’s an easy game to grasp despite the lack of a detailed tutorial after a little bit of play. This is helped by enemy prioritization being very simplistic e.g. Cavalry focusing on Archers, Archers targetting buildings, which means finding the counters will not be too difficult, even on Hard difficulty. The campaign missions are similarly straightforward and unfortunately, quite generic. The story is at least kept fresh thanks to the variety of environments and enemy types.

AND LAY THEM TO REST

As it stands, The Valiant feels much like an RTS catered to those who have basically have little to no experience in the RTS genre. Its simplicity, while welcoming, is unfortunately one of, if not its greatest, weakness. Things become repetitive quickly, and there isn’t even an active multiplayer scene that could help bolster its staying power.

It can offer a great story experience that is enhanced by its overall presentation, design and acting, so RTS newbies who are just looking for a tale to enjoy, can pick up The Valiant and cruise along. It has a solid foundation, which sorely needs to be built on.

Code provided by THQ Nordic. Reviewed on PC.

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