Developed by Runes Studio and published by The Arcade Crew, Wardens of Avalon invites you into a grimdark version of the Arthurian legend. The premise is both bleak and simple. King Arthur is dead. The once glorious Knights of the Round Table have been corrupted by a mysterious darkness, turning former heroes into monstrous creatures. Camelot lies in ruin. And is it you, chosen by Morgan Pendragon to fight the darkness, defeat the fallen knights and rebuild Camelot.
At Gamescom 2026, we got the chance to play this wild mix of survival crafting, base-building and almost Soulslike combat for a good amount of time, to get an idea how it all works together.
First of all, the game already looks beautiful. The isometric world of Avalon is handcrafted, grim and has a gothic atmosphere. From the fallen city of Camelot, through lush yet foggy forests, into ruins of old. The game already oozes atmosphere.
The demo we were able to play started right after the tutorial and we had two different quests. One was to find iron and rebuild a district of the city, the other was finding a boss in the wild to fight it.
We were able to choose different weapons and spells from a chest in town, as those were the ones you would have gotten through the tutorial.
The game has classless character progression, and it is up to you to choose a playstyle that fits you. You are not locked into being a rogue, mage or warrior. Instead, your build is determined by the weapons, armor and magic you equip. Want to wield a massive hammer to stun enemies while wearing heavy armor? You can. Want to equip magic and a sword? No problem. The game encourages you to find your own style.
If you look at Wardens of Avalon, you immediately think of Action RPGs such as Diablo and Path of Exile. However, the combat is much slower and more deliberately paced. You can’t just hack and slay your way through enemies. While venturing out of town, even the first couple of wolves I engaged with a hammer, were tough enemies, dealing a lot of damage, if I didn’t dodge right and time my attacks. They already had elaborate attack patterns and were calling for help.
And if you die, you drop your items on the ground and can pick them up again.
During my demo time I not only fought wolves, however there was a boss as well, which took me a couple of tries to defeat with the right timing and precise hits with my hammer. Animations and timing were very important here.
On the way to the boss, I also looked for the iron to bring back to town. As said before, Wardens of Avalon isn’t just another Action RPG, but leans heavily into the survival crafting and base building genre as well, as you are tasked to rebuild Camelot. Each building and district brings back different kind of NPC such as blacksmiths, druids and more, who will unlock additional progression options, like upgrading your gear or new quests.
The switch from combat to gathering is easy. As in other survival crafting games, you select gathering tools and weapons from your HUD and switch between them. While in town yourbuildings show you what resources they need to be upgraded with and there is a district overview as well.
While talking to the developers, they also explained that we do not only have to rebuild Camelot, but we will also have to defend it from time to time from monsters and other creatures. Building and upgrading city walls and equipping our guards, will help with that.
While playing the Gamescom demo, there was always one thought in my mind. How much fun the game would be with friends. And luckily the game supports four player coop. I can easily see how much fun the gameplay loop will be with four people. Some venturing out to grind the materials to upgrade Camelot, while others are fighting monsters and bosses to get rare resources to upgrade a district and all together defending the town during attacks.
Having a server with friends to work on a shared Camelot will should be a no-brainer for players who seek coop action fun.
Though my time with the game was quite short, Wardens of Avalon showed a lot of potential already and I am looking forward to the next playtest scheduled for October 2026 and the release in 2027. If you are even remotely interested in a mix of Action RPG and base-building survival games, you should check it out on Steam!
