A dwarf fanatic, a randy mage, and a drugged-out half-elf walk into a bar. The bartender has information they need, but he's holding out on them. Since Blackguards is primarily a combat game with no exploration and only cursory dialogue choices, it’s no surprise that the punchline is a turn-based tactical brawl against several henchmen. But happily, that combat is very well done. The pace of battle, the balance between melee/ranged/magic fighting, and the level design work in harmony. It falls down slightly in its uneven metagame of character progression, but other than that, almost everything in this dark fantasy roleplaying game works.
Despite its combat focus, arguably Blackguards' biggest strength is that it takes place in the universe of The Dark Eye, a popular German tabletop role-playing system. It’s a “low-fantasy” world, a setting characterized by gritty, characters who aren't world-saving heroes, and often aren't heroes at all. (The Witcher games are the most famous with low fantasy in them, and Dragon Age—and Game Of Thrones—both include notable low-fantasy elements.) But what makes the setting so crucial for Blackguards is that it's not just the world and story that reflect the story genre, but game design and mechanics as well.
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