Last King marches onto Steam Early Access, promising a blend of Spartan army management, survival crafting, and sandbox strategy. Developed by newcomers Team Mango and Mayawi Software, this indie challenger clearly sets its sights on fans of Mount & Blade and Total War. But does it carve its place in history, or is it doomed to be another forgotten soldier on the battlefield?
Auto-save, Who Needs it?
Loading in for the first time we are greeted with a short cinematic setting the tone of the game’s narrative. I found myself in the middle of a cavern, a King, with no army and no clear instruction of what I had to do, you look around at the harsh cavern and bright rays of sunshine through the entrance, cluelessly I set off gradually harvesting some materials along the way to get my first craft bench setup in order to make myself some basic survival tools, a standard staple of any survival sandbox games out there.
After a short while of finally getting my bearings, I came across our first ruined city with a few old or injured soldiers for you to assist and or make them somewhere to rest before moving onto the next NPC, at this point i was testing various crafts and attempting to rebuild some of the houses that you could see in ruins around you. They required a lot of resources to build however it was possible with my now basic knowledge of the game mechanics and or the crafting benches now at my disposal, after making the first house my game sadly crashed and I was mortified to realise that soon after there was no autosave in sight and my progress had sadly been reverted back to the beginning forcing me to start again.
Army Management With a Breath of Life
The game as a whole does wonderfully with the troop management vibe, certainly a subtle nod to mount and blade it does maintain a similar dynamic with the way you can deploy and command your troops on the battlefield whilst joining them in a typical spartan style warfare against Persian adversaries, with the added difference of being able to deploy siege and barricades in more real time to help change the dynamic of the fight as it progresses. As time goes on you can promote your trusted Spartans, gear them up further and have them support you in commanding your growing army to all new heights for glory and fame.
Breathtaking visuals
The game itself does a fantastic job in the spartan aesthetic, from the environments to the buildings and overall troop design, it’s certainly something to look at and really does add the visual flair you would expect for sandbox games, and is backed up further with its appropriate themed music, occasional sounds from the local villagers or the sounds of battle off in the distance, my only main criticism was the audio for the NPC Spartans, if anything this was an absurdly loud scream any time i approached them to try and find another objective.
Overall I found the UI to be seriously lacklustre and missing a lot of features i would typically expect from a game of this style, there were 3 pages worth of character and army management, and a few minimal hot bars on your main screen, any further information, guides or tutorials were tucked away on one of those 3 pages, something that could do with an overhaul hopefully by the time the game releases into full launch as it seems like it is missing numerous features and or hindering the games potential of what should be amazing but falls short to deliver with some of the basic features.
A Promising Addition to the Genre
Overall, this game is a great start but just in need of a few more updates, thankfully the dev team seem to be paying attention to its player base constantly pushing for feedback and providing routine updates to address said problems. The gameplay is enjoyable, and despite my criticism, it should still have a brighter future. It’s a challenge, and fun, making it worth checking out at the very least. The game is available on Steam for the reasonable price of £12.79.