Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come

I went in expecting a compact, focused alternative to the sprawling Total War formula, and for about two hours Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come delivered exactly that. NeocoreGames built something structurally interesting here: a linear 15-mission campaign set during the First Crusade, with no base-building, no tech trees, and no map-layer grand strategy. What you get instead is a tight cycle of tactical battle, then management screen, then battle again, with your veteran soldiers carrying scars and skill points from one fight to the next. That persistent-army hook is the game's strongest card, and if you have ever lost sleep over a Panzer Corps unit getting wiped out you will understand the specific anxiety it creates. The management phase between missions is where the design earns its keep. You visit a camp screen to spend ducats on new troops, equip relics at the altar, distribute gear from the armory, and track your standing with the five crusader factions: the French, the Holy German Empire, the Normans, and Provence, each offering different unit rosters and bonuses depending on where you funnel your fame points. The faction alignment system forces real choices because siding hard with one group slowly closes off the others, which means your second playthrough with a different hero, say Roberto of Naples with his heavy infantry focus and strong starting Faith versus Godfrey of Toulouse's cavalry-heavy starting roster and political connections, genuinely plays differently. The Faith and Relics system adds another variable: keep your hero's Faith score high and those collected religious artifacts punch well above their weight in morale and combat buffs. It is a small system, but it is coherent, and coherent systems age better than bloated ones. On the battlefield, terrain and formation matter more than unit counts. Holding high ground gives archers extended range and extra damage, marching heavy infantry through scrub burns their stamina before they even reach the enemy line, and forests genuinely hide ambushes in a way that will punish you if your attention drifts. Spearmen shred cavalry, shield-wall formations soak archer fire, and the physics engine adds the occasional satisfying moment when a boulder comes down a slope into a packed formation. The problems start with the camera, which is stiff and limits vertical angle in a way that makes tracking a chaotic melee frustrating. Battles also run slow, even at double speed, and the AI shows real cracks under pressure, sometimes standing idle when it should be flanking. These are not minor polish issues; they are structural, and they were noted at launch with no patches materialising to fix them. The multiplayer option exists but online lobbies have been empty for years. Who is this for, then? Honest answer: a narrow slice of player. If you are drawn to the First Crusade as a historical setting, want a shorter commitment than a full Total War campaign, and can tolerate dated controls in exchange for a meaningful permadeath-adjacent army-management loop, there is a weekend's worth of genuine decision-making here. The Steam review split sitting around 52 percent positive reflects the real tension: players who came looking for tactical depth found just enough of it, while those who wanted polished RTS combat found the execution disappointing. The mod ecosystem is essentially nonexistent, the tutorial does a passable job of explaining mechanics but leaves faction diplomacy underexplained, and the 15 missions, while not varied enough structurally, do march through recognisable historical engagements from Constantinople to Jerusalem with reasonable authenticity. Diego, Scout Team

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