Our Steam tip of the week is only playable in English for the time being. If you like role-playing games with a great setting, give it a chance anyway.
We seek immortality. A mighty sky god we want to be! But first we trudge on foot through a world that looks as if it has sprung directly from ancient Chinese scrolls.
Green bamboo forests, tranquil villages, dark caves, mountains that scratch at the clouds – Tale of Immortal looks as if it had been painted directly onto our screen with a brush. But it offers more than a pretty look and an unusual setting. Much more.
This is what’s behind Tale of Immortal
To fully enjoy Tale of Immortal, you’ll have to consciously engage with it, because the game has little in common with Western gaming habits. Think of it as a mixture of Diablo, Bullet Hell, life simulation and Xianxia novel.
In the character editor you can let off steam and create your own character – face, hairstyle, jewellery and clothing can be adjusted as well as your fate and character values.
Character Editor
Character Values
Then your journey begins. First you choose an artefact that brings you certain bonuses, similar to the starting items in Dark Souls. Little by little, you explore the world map. Theoretically, your lifespan is limited before your character dies, but this will probably only become really important in the full version.
You increase your stats, learn new skills and collect equipment – so far, so role-playing. But don’t expect a typical loot spiral, your skills are much more important than items. You can shoot with deadly water jets, hurl fire at your enemies or raze them to the ground with falling rocks.
Speaking of enemies: An exciting excursion into the depths of Chinese mythology awaits you here. More precisely, into the ancient saga “Classics of the Mountains and Seas”, in which hundreds of demons, gods and mythical creatures are described. So you don’t have to fear hungry wolves, goblins or similarly chewed fantasy mush!
Early battles
Late battles
Some things about Tale of Immortal take some getting used to at first. For example:
– To learn new abilities, you browse through books and then click blue and red energy bubbles to break them – the faster you do it, the better the ability.
– The fights are a mix of Diablo and Bullet Hell. Especially later on, it often gets confusing with all the attacks whizzing around.
– Tale of Immortal is already damn complex. Attributes, skills, items, relationships, alchemy, different sects you can join… (Note: In German, sect sounds directly like brainwashing, but here it simply means different groups).
– In the beginning, the gameplay loop repeats itself very quickly, which can be especially boring as long as you only master a few skills. Gradually, Tale of Immortal then gains depth.
For the game you should take enough time and take it slowly, a tutorial guides you gently through the first quests. And if you (like me) get stuck from time to time, then the fandom or the very active forum will definitely help you! Already, Tale of Immortal has found a huge following.
Already a hit on Steam
The highly complex single-player role-playing game has been very successful on Steam, with almost 100,000 positive user reviews since January – even though it’s still in Early Access! So why has almost no one heard of it here?
This is mainly because it was only available in Chinese until now. Since 30 August, the English translation is finally here (there’s no dubbing in the original either). Before you ask – no, we don’t expect an official German version to appear.
But I have two pieces of good news for you: school English is easily enough to understand everything. And diligent fans had an English mod up and running after just a few weeks. It’s very possible that this will also happen for a German edition.
There is no final release date yet, but the roadmap for Early Access is already known. The actual main story and many mechanics are still to be added, but you can already easily spend 20 hours or more in Tale of Immortal. The finished version will probably come sometime in early 2022 – until then, the game will cost just 17 euros at Steam
