Disciples: Liberation, developed by Frima Studios and published by Kalypso, is a dark fantasy strategy RPG with an expansive story and detailed combat. Following the adventures of a mercenary turned ruler of an ancient city, Avyanna, Disciples: Liberation takes players across the world of Nevendaar with a fascinating mix of narrative roleplaying, base building, and tactical grid based combat. What might sound like an overcrowded game is actually a marvel of concise, digestible pieces of what makes each genre entertaining, with enough depth to justify the 80 hour playtime.
Disciples: Liberation's gameplay is a hybrid strategy roleplaying game along the lines of the once classic Heroes of Might and Magic. Players alternate between an overworld where they explore regions, confront characters and enemies, delve dungeons, and capture production buildings. Combat, when it occurs, sees Avy, her companions, and a player-recruited army face off against the varied denizens of Nevendaar. The different aspects of gameplay in Disciples interact well, making each part feel compelling in its own way.
Combat is deep, with a system of multiple activation point types accenting the usual mix of buffs, debuffs, positioning, and magic, is easy to learn but hard to master. Fans of Fire Emblem will be familiar with the basics. Players spend action points to move, attack, and use skills. The environment, special backline units, and positioning all factor in to fighting a successful battle. The UI helps tremendously here to keep things clear. Right-clicking on any unit will give their full stat breakdown including actions and current status effects. Combat is fun, thoughtful, and varied as units from different regions provide unique challenges. To top it off, there are a handful of quality of life improvements like speeding up actions and auto-defeating weak armies.
There is a little bit of base building in Disciples as Avy works to reclaim an ancient lost city. There are the usual facets here like buildings used to recruit and train units, marketplaces to buy and sell items and resources, and blacksmiths to improve weapons and armor. What makes Liberation stand out here is how liberally the game allows players to experiment. There is no wrong build, as players can phase buildings in and out of spaces, allowing for different base set ups. This really opens the gates to allow players to feel their way through what might otherwise be a difficult feature. While base building is not as core a feature as other recent games like Loop Hero, the ability to freely experiment elevates it.
Narratively, Disciples: Liberation is an excellent example of world building done right. From the first moment players enter Nevendaar, it is clear that Disciples has quite the pedigree, and players are greeted with tons of lore to explore and digest. Thankfully, the way Liberation handles branching narratives and conversations allows players to extract as much information as they wish throughout the game. Dialogue choices will have a massive impact on how the main story, companion quests, and the fate of regions progresses, but Liberation includes a handy system of symbols to ensure that players won't make mistakes when selecting how to react to a situation.
The 'dark fantasy' aspect of Liberation is also handled well. Nevendaar is a grim world with grim occupants, but the story felt relatively grounded as characters struggled with religion, their place in the world, and right and wrong. The story is genuinely interesting and there are enough twists and turns to make embarking on the next steps of Avy's journey exciting.
The bottom line is that Disciples: Liberation is a fantastic experience. From the engaging story to the deep but approachable Strategy RPG combat, this is the type of game to suck players in until the wee hours of the morning. There aren't many games like Disciples: Liberation on the market these days, especially when the old champion, Might and Magic, has become an autobattler. Disciples: Liberation a welcome breath of fresh air that delivers hope for the future of the Strategy RPG genre.
Disciples: Liberation is launching October 21 for Playstation, Xbox, and PC. A Steam key was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.