Tainted Grail, Skyrim ve Souls hayranları için bir sonraki büyük şey

If you're looking for your next RPG fix after burning through Oblivion Remastered, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon might be what you're after. It just hit full release on May 23 and is already sitting comfortably near the top of Steam’s best-selling and most-played charts. Priced at $45 and available on Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, this is one of those “came out of nowhere” titles that ends up eating 70 hours of your life.

It’s got all the ingredients: massive open world, dark Arthurian legend vibes, flexible character builds, and, yes, a combat system that’ll punish you if you play like you're in a power fantasy. It’s not breaking new ground, but it doesn’t need to. It’s simply doing the old-school formula well, with a splash of Soulslike challenge and atmosphere.

“Playable but far from perfect.” That’s how the developers describe third-person mode. And that’s all you really need to know about the vibe here. First-person is the default and the intended experience. You’re meant to feel the hits, see the swing, and live the mud-covered misery.

Built by a team of 50 at Polish studio Questline, Tainted Grail is a gritty first-person RPG steeped in decayed Arthurian myth. The world is bleak, massive, and fully explorable. Think Skyrim, but the tone leans more toward Dark Souls—ruined kingdoms, cursed lands, moral ambiguity, and nothing resembling hope unless you claw it out with a blade or fireball.

You’re thrown into a broken land once ruled by King Arthur, now reduced to warring factions and twisted horrors. Dialogue is choice-driven, quests branch often, and almost everything has a consequence—even if you don’t know what it is yet. The game drops you in and expects you to figure things out, survive, and pick your own path through the mess.

And yes, it’s got loot—a lot of it.

Soulslike Meets Classic RPG

So, how does this mix of genres work?

Tainted Grail borrows a page from FromSoftware’s book with its methodical combat. Every swing matters. Stamina, weapon speed, and enemy tracking are real concerns. The game also gives you rolls, blocks, parries, and plenty of death if you ignore those tools. There’s no button-mashing here, and the magic system isn’t just fireballs on cooldown—it’s more like building a playstyle around risk, resources, and synergy.

But the RPG layer is where the flexibility really kicks in. You're not locked into a class. Want to be a stealth archer who also brews poisons and occasionally tosses a fire spell? Done. Prefer to play a battle-mage who also forges their own enchanted gear? That works too. The crafting system includes blacksmithing, alchemy, cooking, and even farming and journaling if you’re into side-life simulator territory.

There’s a real effort here to blend the open-ended exploration and lifestyle systems of classic Elder Scrolls with the brutal pacing and mood of Soulslikes—and it mostly works. You feel fragile, but free. The result isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s satisfying.

Over 200 Quests, 70 Hours of Content

The size of the game isn’t just marketing fluff. According to the Steam description, Tainted Grail offers 50–70 hours of content, including 200+ side quests spread across three major zones. These aren’t just checklist fetch quests either—many come with branching paths and narrative implications.

It’s the kind of game where exploration rewards you constantly. Stumble into a shack in the woods, and you might find a cursed item or a hidden NPC offering a morally grey bargain. It scratches the same itch as Skyrim, but without the same handholding or heroic tone.

You’re not the Dragonborn. You’re someone trying to survive in a world that couldn’t care less.

Technical Stuff and Post-Launch Plans

The game runs best in first-person on a decent PC or next-gen console. Third-person mode exists, but as mentioned, Questline themselves say it’s “playable but far from perfect.” It’s nice they included it, but this isn’t a photo-mode showcase—it’s a gritty RPG with systems built for immersion, not style points.

On the roadmap: mod support, bug fixes, performance improvements for Steam Deck, and new content. The developers seem actively engaged with feedback, and their early access period helped them tune a lot of the rough edges before the official launch.

Also worth noting: there’s a free demo available on both Steam and consoles. That’s your ticket if you’re not sure this is for you.

If you’re coming off Oblivion Remastered or you’re sick of waiting for Avowed, this is a strong interim choice. It’s not a genre-defining release, but it knows exactly what it’s doing and does it well. Dark world? Check. Deep builds? Check. Combat that kills you if you aren’t careful? Absolutely.

And the best part is, you don’t have to mod it for 30 hours to enjoy it out of the box.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon doesn’t reinvent anything. It just gives you a good, dense, brutal RPG world to lose yourself in—and sometimes that’s more than enough.