Rating
Sword Coast Legends
Set in the lush and vibrant world of the Forgotten Realms, Sword Coast Legends offers an all-new way to enjoy the time-tested magic of playing Dungeons & Dragons as a shared storytelling experience. With a deep narrative developed by a team of long-time industry veterans and a partnership with Wizards of the Coast, the single player campaign of Swo...
Details
- Released
- October 19, 2015
- Developer
- Digital Extremes, n-Space
- Genres
- Role-playing (RPG) · Adventure
- Publisher
- n-Space
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Sword Coast Legends Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
Graphically, Sword Coast Legends is pretty standard. This genre has never been known for its looks, and Sword Coast Legends is no exception, but it is presentable. Despite this, the game is incredibly difficult to run. You can blame this on its complex systems, unoptimized code or specific effects, but it’s hard to believe that a game that looks like it was created in 2010 has huge performance issues on a rig that is more powerful than a next-gen console. Aside from issues with performance, I only ran into one menu-loading bug that required a hard restart of the game but caused no issue with g...
With a proper DM, Sword Coast Legends feels every bit like the pen and paper game come to life. On the other hand, running modules or playing through the 40-hour single player game makes it feel like more of a standard fare dungeon crawler than a Dungeons & Dragons game. Multiplayer with a DM realizes the promise of Sword Coast Legends, conveying freedom of storytelling and imagination in real time. Come for the co-op and live-DM, but be patient with the tools as they evolve.
Sword Coast Legends offers up a solid version of Dungeons & Dragons, with a campaign and setting that were immediately appealing to me and plenty of user content already filling the community. This sort of content will be enormously valuable in giving Sword Coast Legends life beyond its campaign. However, limited tools hold this title back from greatness on the editing front, while its clear Diablo and Dragon Age influences may rub D&D purists the wrong way. It is still a fun experience worth having, but there is certainly room to grow and improve as well.
In fact, in a few more months (or even years), Sword Coast Legends‘ creation tools might be a powerhouse. If n-Space remains steadfast and keeps working on them, this might eventually be the digital Dungeons & Dragons many were hoping for. People won’t mind buying new adventures, classes, and races if they come out alongside new pen-and-paper releases! But don’t blow all of your goodwill with sectioned-off content. As a Dungeon Master, I’m selfishly rooting for you. Just no more gods-damned 3×3 light grid puzzles.
The Sword Coast faces many unseen adversities ahead. Band together with friends, or take the coast by storm with your AI-controlled companions, and make new folktales of legends in the realm. With an in-depth character customization and multiple game modes to play, the game offers interesting options for many RPG fans. Everything you need to know about this game can be found right here!
On the whole, Sword Coast Legends usually works, but that’s all I can say for it. There’s an obvious love for the lore on display, but there are no Minscs or Boos here; no thrilling battles where victory springs as much from brains as endurance. The great tragedy of Sword Coast Legends is that the last couple of years have all but paved the way for it to emerge as the best of the cRPG renaissance, but its dull cooldown-based combat, linear quests, and cookie-cutter user-made content ensure that it's likely to be among the first to be forgotten.
Sword Coast Legends sits uncomfortably in the shadows of the thriving cRPG genre.
Sword Coast Legends fails to deliver on its promises both as a solid RPG in it’s own right and as a digital Dungeon Master toolset. The limited options available to creators are unlikely to yield anything memorable and the single player story section is marred by poor pathfinding, limited scope and shoddy writing. Overall an immense disappointment.
It's definitely best to think of Sword Coast Legends not as Dungeons & Dragons (let alone AD&D) and more as a sort of low-key DIY Diablo. Even then, the core combat is too forgettable, and the DM mode too limited, to make a solid case for playing this instead of co-op Diablo or Torchlight or Titan Quest or Path of Exile if monster-bothering with chums is what you're after. It's not impossible that later updates will make fighting feel less underwhelming or expand the potential of dungeon-building, but I wouldn't want to bet on it.