Chronicles: Medieval promised me Tom Hardy, but gave me something much more: a nerdy historical epic with Crusader Kings diplomacy and Mount & Blade combat where you can do ‘whatever you want in the world’ | Daily Reports Online
In the run-up to a show like Gamescom, my inbox becomes a blazing trash fire. Inundated with requests to see everything from phenomenal-looking indies to Barbie Horse Ride and Rescue, literally thousands of game demo invitations charge into my mailbox, waving their banners and blowing their trumpets in a bid to attract attention.
One game that successfully breached my email defences was Chronicles: Medieval. Revealed during Summer Games Fest, this impressive real-time strategy (RTS) not only promised massive, strategic top-down battles blended with third-person combat – but narration from beloved homegrown actor Tom Hardy. And who was I to turn down battering virtual knights with Tom Hardy?
Tom? Hardly
“So, unfortunately, as much as we love him, Tom is not a part of the game.” Sam Millen, lead producer at Raw Power Games, tells me, sheepishly, as I ask him about the Bane actor’s involvement, “We do have the incredible Lars Mikkelsen in the game, acting in a chronicler role – taking a voiceover role during character creation and during parts of the game. Sadly, Tom Hardy was only part of the trailer.”
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After ten emails and two press releases mentioning the BAFTA-winning actor, it turns out it was all a Trojan Horse-esque ruse to get me in the room. While hardly an auspicious start to my behind-closed-doors preview, thankfully for its Danish developers, Chronicles: Medieval‘s absurdly ambitious gameplay soon wins me over in spite of its misleading marketing, breaching my defences and ensuring a total coverage victory.
Chronicles: Medieval is an impressively nerdy history epic. What I didn’t expect, however, was just how deep the game’s roleplaying elements go. Slated for an Early Access launch in 2027, Raw Power Game’s debut mixes gargantuan troop battles that would make an eight-year-old blush with a vast, explorable world map. In this rags-to-riches tale, players start out as a lowly peasant and build their standing through questing, diplomacy, and, of course, combat.
From campsites to castles
“You start off without owning any land. You’re just out in the wild.” Explains Millen, “Maybe you have a couple of men you grew up with in the town who walked together and decided to join you as you embark into the world.”
Drawing equal inspiration from Civilization, Heroes of Might and Magic, and Mount & Blade, the game’s 1313 AD map spans from the Pyrenees to Poland, and the British Isles down to Northern Italy. Yet while this could have been a broad Age of Empires-esque offering, Chronicles: Medieval revels in the specificities. Players can zoom all the way down to inspect individual sub-regions and see the individual lords that rule them.
“Each culture – England, France, HRE [Holy Roman Empire] – has different army trees: levies, household troops,” says Millen. “You’re going to be able to upgrade your troops as they get experience…then you’ll potentially take troops from being levied infantry to being cavalry, progressing up those paths.”
There’s a heavy dose of Crusader Kings here, too. You can buy tavern intelligence to reveal the map, recruit mercenaries, or bypass combat entirely if you’d rather play that way. Despite its trailer’s combat focus, the pair sell me Chronicles as a true sandbox. Whether you want to become a wealthy peaceful merchant, a feared bandit, or even claim the English crown through political backstabbing, the choice is yours.
“It’s a sandbox, so you can do whatever you want to do in the world.” says Millen, “There’s no linear narrative that you’re set off on. If you want to become the best merchant in the world and become incredibly rich from just selling goods, you can absolutely do that.”
Boots on the ground
As a sea of hundreds of troops forms up along a hillside of gently swaying grass, Millen zooms in on each soldier individually, explaining the historical significance of their crests, weapons, and surroundings. In other words, this is a game built by massive history nerds, people who are deeply knowledgeable about the time period they’re depicting and passionate about getting it right.
Supporting up to 2,000 total troops on the battlefield, forces are drawn from three distinct unit categories: household troops, peasantry, and mercenaries. The pre-battle prep begins in classic top-down fashion, as Millen manoeuvres his various units, placing archers at the rear, pikemen at the front, and sending a troupe of covert cavalry up around the tree-shaded hillside to flank the French forces on the other side of the plain.
Once the battle commences, you drop straight into a third-person action-role-playing game (RPG) perspective, sending your commander charging into battle. As if he’s in a fully fledged action RPG. As Millen’s militia gallops towards the advancing enemy horde, he sends four of them flying with his poleaxe. Dismounting and unsheathing his blade, he parries sword blow after sword blow with impressive fluidity. Here, enemies have posture meters, parries require precise timing, and every weapon swing carries weight.
“When you start out, you have low proficiency, so your attacks are slower, and you don’t have combos,” says Senior Game Designer Gareth Bourn, “But over time, you unlock a lot of these skills — including leadership skills.”
While cleaving heads on the battlefield will rile up and inspire your troops, if the tide of combat starts to turn in the enemy’s favour — or you take a particularly nasty hit from an enemy – your leadership skills will determine whether they leave you high and dry.
Mace swings and morale
“The troops have their own minds.” says Millen, “You take morale hits if you die — but they’re going to keep fighting for their lives until the point where their morale dips, either because they’re losing or because they’ve already taken a hit from seeing their commander die. If you’re a great leader. They want to stay with you and fight to the death longer… They can pick up your injured body, take you back to a settlement, and you can recover, rest, get your health back, replenish your troops, and fight another day.”
As commander, you can still tell units to advance, hold, etc. In the thick of combat, keeping a hands-on tactical element amidst the manic melee. Yet as if to prove that this game’s show-stealing battles aren’t its only parlour trick, players can choose to bypass them entirely. “You can even auto-resolve battles if you want,” says Bourn, “But every time somebody clicks auto-resolve, I shed a small tear.”
While Chronicles: Medieval’s ambitions are impressive, these aren’t just lofty 1.0 goals. I’m surprised to learn that when it hits Early Access, Chronicles: Medieval will also include a four-player co-op campaign map alongside custom battle modes. The duo tells me that full sieges — complete with trebuchets, crumbling walls, and battering rams – are slated to follow shortly after, with full console support and robust modding tools planned for the official 1.0 release.
Part intricately detailed Total War-esque historical battle simulator, part player-choice-driven RPG, much like a ragtag group of bannermen holding off a king’s army, Chronicles Medieval punches far above its weight. Developed by a hundred people in Copenhagen, this ambitious RTS could well give Microsoft and 2K’s Age of Empires and Civilization a run for their money.
While it might have been a false Hollywood bluster that got me in the door, it’s the admirable ambition, detail, and potential that have kept me thinking about Chronicles: Medieval since. If Raw Power Games can deliver even half of the features they’ve promised, this could be a very special RTS indeed.
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