The First Templar (Steam Special Edition)

I went into The First Templar expecting the 57 Metacritic score to tell the whole story. It mostly does, but not entirely. This is a third-person action-adventure built around a two-character co-op structure: Templar knight Celian d'Arestide and his unlikely companion Marie d'Ibelin, a noblewoman branded a heretic by the Inquisition, chase the Holy Grail across 20 historically inspired locations spanning Cyprus, the Holy Land, and France in the late 13th century. The period setting is genuinely underused in games, and the conspiratorial story, with King Philip IV and the Inquisition as antagonists, delivers enough twists to keep you curious, even if the voice acting and anachronistic dialogue undercut it regularly. Combat is hack-and-slash at its most fundamental: light and heavy attacks, a block-and-parry, an evasive roll, and a zeal meter that fuels the more damaging special moves. Each character has a separate skill tree where XP is spent unlocking new combos and moves, Celian swings wide with versatile melee while Marie favors twin daggers and more mobile, evasive play. The systems work, but they reveal their ceiling fast. By the midpoint of the campaign's 20 levels, Normal difficulty stops demanding anything creative from you, and the combat starts looping. Bumping it to Hard at least forces you to actually use the parry and zeal mechanics instead of mashing through. The trap-and-lever puzzle sections break things up, but the loose controls make precision platforming more frustrating than it should be, and the camera has a habit of flipping orientation right when you need to navigate. Where the game earns its modest cult following is co-op. Drop-in local or online play lets a second player take over whichever companion the AI is running, and the character synergies actually shine here, Celian holding enemies at close range while Marie dashes in for flanking hits, or both players coordinating simultaneous lever pulls across a puzzle room. The Steam Special Edition includes the Arena bonus mission, a gladiatorial survival mode that is co-op compatible and adds a bit of replayability beyond the main campaign. Solo play is functional, with free character switching and reasonable AI, but it is a noticeably lesser experience. The entire structure was built for two. The technical side shows its age and its budget. Animations are stiff, facial models in cutscenes look a generation behind, and collision detection misfires often enough to notice, enemies connecting with attacks that clearly should have missed. The checkpoint-only autosave punishes missed collectibles, and the Kalypso account login required at startup is a legacy friction point that still irritates players today. Armor and weapon pickups across the 10-to-14-hour campaign are mostly cosmetic rather than stat-relevant, which removes a layer of motivation for completionists. Exploration does have its own small reward loop through hidden Templar Chronicles collectibles and bonus objectives in each level, with the option to replay individual missions post-game while keeping your unlocked abilities. The First Templar is not a game that competes with bigger-budget action titles from any era. It is, however, a game that does one thing well enough to justify its existence: it gives two friends a historically flavored, low-friction co-op brawler with enough story momentum to carry them through a weekend. Come in solo expecting polish and variety, and it will disappoint. Come in with a friend and adjusted expectations, and the rough edges become part of the charm. Alex, Scout Team