Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon Video Review

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon reviewed by Will Borger on PC. Also available on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is a new take on a tale that has been around for centuries, and as a story and a world, it works. It certainly gives a new meaning to the phrase “The Once and Future King.” All of this has happened before, it claims, and all of it will happen again, unless we put an end to it, and perhaps not even then. The stories we tell ourselves are eternal, repeating, folding into and swirling around each other, mixing in the telling – and, sometimes, a myth and its impact on us is more powerful than the reality that spawned it. That’s just how stories are. That’s how I felt while I played The Fall of Avalon. It fails, sometimes, as a game you play – as a piece of technology, as a product. It is buggy, the quest design is rote, and it has the same flaws as every RPG of this style. But when it works, it really works, and I cannot deny that it compelled me. I think, sometimes, that matters more. I enjoyed spending time in this world, with these characters, exploring this story. I did not always like playing it, and its unfinished nature frustrated me. But I can’t stop thinking about it, either. Maybe that’s enough. Arthurian myth is a tragedy; it never ends well. But the idea is that, if it happened again, and we’re promised it will, it might end differently. That failure now does not mean failure forever. That sometimes, trying something ambitious and getting close is enough. That’s not to give Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon a pass for its flaws. But they don’t stop me from believing in its successes, too. Perhaps, like Arthur himself, the story here is not about what is or was, but what might have been, and could be again. And what could be is still pretty remarkable.