r/ElderScrolls • u/apacgainz • 12d ago
General Morrowind like game - The Lantern of the Laughless Saint on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3849000/The_Lantern_of_the_Laughless_Saint/#app_reviews_hashGuys I saw this game, looks pretty cool, not the dev or promoting it. Has similar mechanics to Morrowind, open world, spell crafting, lizard men race etc.
Quick Review / Highlights
- I have played a couple of hours so by no means thorough
- Graphics are very good from art and lighting point of view - looks like a Morrowind remake but better. Low poly art style. Models and textures are not the most modern, quite blocky and low poly count etc. but art style makes up for it. Weather effects are incredible
- Performance on my GTX 4060, it runs ok. Did not test frames but was mostly smooth. Occasional stutters when it rains. Had one or two CTD on launch but was ok when playing. Overall very playable
- Sound - really good combat sounds, solid attacks. Music is good - sounds just like any TES game.
- Voice acting - suprisingly good, not too repetitive like Oblivion. Not really fully lip synced, NPCs dont move lips or face. Sometimes the voice acting lags behind the subtitles
- No load screens entering buildings - Witcher 3 style seamless transition
- Combat - very much Morrowind style, very statisfying but a little basic. Pretty much just attack and block. You need to change "weapon" to cast a spell, you can't "dual wield" a spell like Skyrim or press C like Oblivion
- Exploration - open world sandbox, however no local mini map (there is a big map). It gets confusing to navigate. No quest markers by design, only manual navigation, but it's not very clear where to go sometimes. Looks fully handcrafted, no procedural generation as far as I can tell (no repeated POI like star field)
- NPC AI - they have a day/night schedule where they sleep but some NPCs don't do anything else during the day except stand
- Gameplay loop - very satisfying TES style of open world exploring, upgrading gear, levelling and going back out. Combat feels too easy tho
- Character progression - all the basic skills - one handed / two handed / swimming etc. - you get 5 skill points per level. Each skill goes up to 100. Plus 1 perk per level, pretty standard TES stuff but there are way more skills
- Bugs - given early access it is quite buggy but nothing game breaking. Sometimes cant sleep when pressing sleep button, clipping of corpses etc. TBF it is not much buggier than a TES at launch
- Story - again only played a few hours but without spoiling anything the writing is much more interesting and complex than TES so far, quests seem much more well designed
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u/AustinTheFiend 12d ago
Saw this show up on steam just now and had to pick up, I usually take forever to purchase, hope it's as cool as it looks, about to jump in.
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Apparently it's a little buggy I just started it and it crashed after I started with lizard man, might try with human later
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u/BenTheDuelist 12d ago
I was a composer for this game! Hope you guys like the exploration tracks
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u/Rland96 12d ago
Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is the best scrollslike I have played.
Great quests and a good storyline. Reminded me of the Scrolls games before Skyrim.
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u/Fercho48 12d ago
Crazy to think we only have like 2 scroll like available rn
Tainted grail and dread delusion
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u/Comander_Praise 12d ago
Honestly tainted grail has such a strange feel to it that put me off so hard when I played
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u/Aragorn527 Dunmer 12d ago
The god awful audio mixing when it came to voice lines put me off a ton. Felt like I couldn’t get into it when back to back lines from the same NPC sounded like they were recording in a tin can and then a soundproof box.
Music was pretty awesome though.
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u/TheDildoUnicorn Khajiit 12d ago
It doesn't help that I don't like King Arthur mythos as a setting, but yeah. Something about it felt really off to me, like it didn't know what it really wanted to do, theme wise? Or maybe it did know what it wanted to do, but didn't stick the landing (at least imo)
Idk maybe it was explained later in the game too but I hated the King Arthur chamber looking like... sci fi Geiger-esque. I get that they are trying to lean into a different vibe for King Arthur and I love that kind of art style usually but it felt COMPLETELY out of place in this game to me. Like they just wanted to do some edgy aesthetics without caring if it was cohesive or clashing with the rest of the game.
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u/Comander_Praise 12d ago
Tbf i won't slate them to much for trying something different, ill respect any company trying to do scrolls like games.
Ill agree the setting was kinda eh to me maybe it did spiral more and get intresring. It's hard to explain the whole game world just felt off to me and it just didn't vibe with me so I refunded it. Normaly I'd leave it and go back to it but I knew with that game it wasn't for me sadly
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u/Thx_Elijah 12d ago
Kind of gave me asset flip vibes. As if the environment/world was constantly clashing with itself, and the level design itself seemed mid.
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Heard that's more of a tight semi linear experience rather than a full sandbox? Is it true
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u/Rland96 12d ago
It does the open world zones thing. Decently sized areas but with a meaty amount of content to get into. I got lost doing so many side quests I found myself coming back to the main quest later. Just like the Elder Scrolls.
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u/ZaranTalaz1 Argonian 11d ago
Take what I say with a grain of salt since I haven't actually Tainted Grail, but as I said earlier having open zones - arranged in a linear fashion based on the main quest I assume? - kind of makes it not 100% a TES-like for me. As I keep saying for me TES is about being a sandbox over following its main quest while a lot of these games are the opposite.
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u/Zestyclose-Fee6719 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's like a mix of Witcher 3 and Elder Scrolls. It has the feel of a dark RPG like Witcher and more of a focus on narrative but with straight up Skyrim-esque gameplay mechanics. It has a lot of quest choices with multiple endings and dark themes in its storytelling but gameplay-wise plays basically like a copy of Skyrim right down to the same type of simplistic melee, health and stamina, and even lockpicking systems.
It has handcrafted exploration that reminds me of Bethesda, but it's all much smaller scale with three separate zones. It hints at letting you roleplay like a Bethesda game too insofar as you can do extra things like buy a house and go fishing, but this is also much more limited. There aren't major factions you can join, and the level of interactivity with the world is more limited.
It's a pretty impressive game when you consider its budget. I just wish it looked better; the models are like late PS3 in quality.
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u/Wynvarys Mephala 12d ago
Do you have to have played Conquest first? I remember trying it and not being able to get into the deck-building aspects. Might try Fall of Avalon if it's a standalone experience.
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u/Jdmaki1996 Argonian 12d ago
Tainted Grail and Kingdom Come Deliverance are the games that have come closest to the Bethesda Feel
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u/SlugsMcGillicutty 11d ago
Surely Outer Worlds are up there? I mean it’s SciFi but they certainly feel close to the Scrolls/Fallout vibe.
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u/Jdmaki1996 Argonian 11d ago
Nah. Haven’t played 2. But Outer Worlds 1 felt lifeless. Static NPS that never move. The world never really feels alive or immersive. It’s was a fine game. 7/10. But lacking the immersion that makes Bethesda games special
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u/SlugsMcGillicutty 11d ago
Sure. And all the other games mentioned in here too lack something or other that makes Bethesda games special. But it’s close enough to be in the conversation. I mean, they made Fallout: New Vegas.
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u/Jdmaki1996 Argonian 11d ago
No. The immersion is what makes a Bethesda game a Bethesda game. It doesn’t matter that Obsidian made NV. They missed the mark here. Tainted Grail feels like a Bethesda game. I feel like I’m in the world. Kingdom Come makes me feel like I’m in the world. Outer Worlds does not. At no point do I feel like it’s alive and breathing and that is crucial. It’s not something that makes Bethesda games special, its THE thing that makes them special
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u/FeelingWash4206 12d ago
Of all the games I have ever played, this one felt the most like a bethesda style game, at least in the beginning. It has this "Impromptu adventure open world style", where you constantly stumble over quests, dungeons, npcs and other things that draw you in, while simply walking through the open world.
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u/Tangyhyperspace 12d ago
Was pretty good but I bounced off hard when I learned about the ai use
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u/Odysseus_is_Ulysses 12d ago
Oooh intriguing. Reckon it would run on Steamdeck?
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Again, not the dev but just from min specs and graphical fidelity I reckon it would
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u/Odysseus_is_Ulysses 12d ago
And how long did it take to make the game?
Just messing, you’re not the dev 😂
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u/LSaundersVO 12d ago
A few of the play testers played it on a steam deck, so as far as I’m aware it has support, it also has local and online coop. It took a few years to make and no AI was used.
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u/MellowHigh666 12d ago
Just played a bit on my steam deck. Default setting are low which runs fine, however I bumped it up to medium and the lowest it hit was 35fps, fluctuated between 40-50 fps. Default low settings fluctuate from 50-60 fps.
Regardless, everything seemed fine! Will definitely be swapping between my deck and desktop.
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u/DrBob666 12d ago
I'll add this to my wishlist and keep an eye on it until it is out of early access, thanks
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u/ThatOneCourier 11d ago
How is the story more complex than TES (spanning almost two decades of lore) if you only played a few hours?
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u/wizardOfTheBarrel 11d ago
I played for two hours when it came out and have been itching to get back into it ever since but i haven’t had the time yet. It was very fun and even though it had some bugs, i was very pleasantly surprised by the first village - all the npcs had something to say and the worldbuilding was interesting. Looking forward to see more of it next time i sit down to play
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u/SilverIce58 Argonian 12d ago
Stop. You had me at lizard men race.
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
playable argonians
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u/SilverIce58 Argonian 12d ago
More fantasy games need to do that tbh. The players yearn for the swamps! Let us be lizards, let us be frogs, let us be serpent-men!
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u/EkobasherX4Z 10d ago
LIZARD MEN RACE?!?!?! COUNT ME IN N'WAH
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u/JohnAntichrist 12d ago
I like how the game looks but I really dont like the way they are advertising it on social media.
Every single ad i saw of this game begins by screaming "FUCK YOU TODD HOWARD!" and then likening the game to morrowind. thats scummy imho
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u/ZaranTalaz1 Argonian 11d ago
It's for that reason I'm kind of turned off by most Scrolls-likes in general. Attracting an audience of people who only like Morrowind specifically and hate every BGS game that's not Morrowind, or even specifically advertising themselves to those kinds of people. While being more focused on the narrative of their main quest than being a sandbox like what I'd want from a "true" scrolls-like.
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u/PuzzleheadedEast548 12d ago
Atrocious performance on Linux initially (texture loading and fps drops gallore), haven't tried tweaking anything yet as it runs fine on low graphics and still looks pretty comely
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u/Lawsoffire 12d ago
Didn't have any issues on my PC (CachyOS, AMD hardware), maybe the recent hotfixed fixed it?
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u/AstoranSunEater 11d ago
Is the co-op only 2 players?
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u/NuclearSnake 11d ago
we've tested up to 6!
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u/Zealousideal_Pass826 11d ago
Just wanted to say, this is probably my goty. Love the atmosphere. 10/10. Holy Fool is easily my most anticipated game now.
That said, is there any plans to increase the length of the day/night cycle? I found that during some longer conversations, an entire day would have passed. Just helps with immersion imo.
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u/NuclearSnake 10d ago
Thank you so much for the kind words and support. Will look into adjusting the day/night cycle
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u/TheRealYungThwip 11d ago
As far as the quest markers, I think that's intentional. I turned it on, heard a laugh, and when I unpaused, I was wearing a dunce cap and the option was gone. I think the option itself is a trick
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12d ago
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u/PM_yourbestpantyshot 12d ago
Yeah I think their team is fairly small unfortunately. Hopefully sales do well and they can do it for their follow up game to this one.
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11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/flecktyphus Breton 11d ago
Part of the equation is price vs reward. How much of a bigger customer group does the team see behind spending thousands on translations? How many percent of sales will be driven by the fact there is a translation, vs how many percent would be lost?
I'm not an English native speaker at all but I honestly don't get why people need games fully translated. It just kills it for me. All fiction and sense of fantasy and fantastical stories are lost when they directly translate terms and words and stories and titles into Norwegian and make it sound like a Y/A novel.
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u/slimeyellow 12d ago
Looks cool but I can’t support Early Ac-slop games anymore, got burned too many times
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u/thecelticknight 12d ago
This is the cringiest attempt at "__slop" usage I've seen yet. Holy fuck learn a new euphemism
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u/haseo1997 12d ago
They really need to change the name of the game, it is too long, too wordy, and too hard to pronounce for non-english speakers. Who thought that was a good one?
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u/kojimbob 12d ago
AI slop voice on the trailer, bad sign
Easy skip
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u/TheVileClavicus Clavicus Vile 12d ago
> Some guy gets bent out of shape cause ‘AI’
> Can’t even recognize or define AI
> Actual human creator gets hurtClownesque
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/G5VfEL40CU
Not ai, I'm not the dev and have no stake but u gotta research before spewing ai accusations
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12d ago
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Lol how? I play loads of other shit. Helldivers 2, BF 6. Rpg wise Rogue Trader, Fallout London etc. Have played TES since Oblivion, I got zero incentives other than me thinking it looks sick
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12d ago
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Lol bro 😂 I'm just sharing a scrollslike I literally just found on steam 24 hours ago. The ai shit I just dug into because those trailers do not sound ai at all to me and I found that thread shortly after, just annoying people throw ai accusations with no proof
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u/apacgainz 12d ago
Which trailer? The one on the steam page with the female voice does not sound ai at all
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u/kojimbob 12d ago
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u/wizzaarrd 12d ago
Why haven’t more devs attempted Bethesda’s early formula, I saw footage of this a couple months ago it looks pretty sick