Songs Of Conquest was one of the prettiest games at E3 2021
Crisp, detailed and beautifully lit pixel art
Songs Of Conquest was one of the most exciting trailers I saw at E3 2021. It's a turn-based strategy game in which you stomp around a world map, triggering hexy battles against fantasy factions, and levelling up and expanding your kingdom in between. It also has lovely pixel art. Watch the trailer below.
It's a compelling structure for a game, isn't it? I want to level up my guy in fights, and level up my kingdom, and have it all feed into better tools with which to win more fights. It's also another game that seems to be volumetrically lighting its pixel art, so it looks sumptuous.
Whether it works in practice will depend a lot on its battles. You send troops into fights by first positioning them on the field, and then use their skills and magical abilities in tandem to defeat foes. I like that climbing to higher ground gives you an advantage, as seen in the video above, but it's too early to tell if the scraps are interesting enough for the long haul.
There's promise in its four planned factions. There are boring Arleon knights and intriguing capitalist Barya, but I'm mostly excited about the swamp dwelling Rana, who seem to have a big turtle, and the Barony Of Loth, who seem to have a scorpion made mostly out of skulls.
There's plenty else planned, including online multiplayer, an in-game level editor, and more mentioned on the Songs Of Conquest Steam page. It's also coming to GOG and EGS when it releases sometime early next year.
E3 2021 may be over but our memories live on - see everything on our E3 hub. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, leading up to Gamescom, so see our summer games stream schedule to stay up to date.