The action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was originally released in February 2012, and its DLC Fatesworn is scheduled to drop on December 14, 2021, close to ten years later. The expansion adds content to the remastered version of Amalur, Re-Reckoning, which is available for PC, Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. There is good reason for genre fans to be excited about DLC for a nearly decade-old game in this case. Amalur’s smooth combat has aged well, and its story and world-building from fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and art from comic artist Todd McFarlane gave the game a fully realized setting with memorable aesthetics. Possibly most intriguing for fans of the original is the idea that the DLC could be testing the waters for a potential Amalur sequel, as the world of one of the PS3/Xbox 360-era’s best western RPGs clearly has more stories to tell.
Details released on Amalur’s Fatesworn DLC promise a roughly six-hour addition to the original campaign, as well as an increased level cap, new gear and skills, and new gameplay mechanics. The new expansion will feature procedurally generated “chaos dungeons,” and a story that pits the Fabled Fatesworn against an awakened god of chaos. This appears to follow along with the themes of the original game’s campaign, where the player took on the role of the Fateless One, a customizable hero who was resurrected after meeting their fated demise and was able to alter the course of fate and achieve the impossible.
Although the game was largely well-received by critics at the time of its original release, Kingdoms of Amalur’s biggest mistake was in timing, as it was released shortly after Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, a landmark western RPG that has maintained its relevance, given the recent release of Skyrim’s Anniversary Edition. Though the world of Amalur was large and included a generous number of side quests, it was still a more focused experience than the sprawling open world of Skyrim. A sixth entry in the Elder Scrolls series is in development, but Amalur is another fantasy worth that also deserves to see a belated sequel.
Amalur Can Rise Above The Controversies Of Its Original Release With A Sequel
The tumultuous issues surrounding the development of Amalur sadly overshadowed the game itself, for many. Despite the involvement of an author famous for his D&D novels featuring the iconic character Drizzt, art from the creator of comic book hero Spawn, and the backing of major league baseball star Curt Schilling, the planned MMORPG follow up to Amalur, Copernicus, was never completed. The Re-Reckoning version, published by THQ Nordic, provided some polish to the game’s presentation but more importantly maintained the solid writing and gameplay that made the original a cult classic.
Any success achieved by the remaster of Amalur is a testament to the quality of the original game, but the Fatesworn DLC may be a better metric of whether there is interest in more Amalur content, in the future. A short, six-hour mini-campaign is far from the more than 30-hour main campaign and certainly falls short of the true sequel that many fans have waited more than nine years for already. The Re-Reckoning version has given Amalur a new lease on life, exposing the title to a larger audience who might have missed it two gaming generations ago, as well as many more players due to its addition to the PlayStation Plus game roster in November 2021. The Fatesworn DLC appears to be the only planned DLC addition for Amalur Re-Reckoning, but it could serve the dual purpose of testing interest in a new Amalur game, and possibly laying down some story threads that could connect to a true Kingdoms of Amalur sequel.
An older game receiving a long-belated sequel is not unprecedented in gaming, as Psychonauts 2 released more than 15 years after the original. Long-delayed DLC is rarer, but the Enhanced Editions of the Baldur's Gate games received the expansion Siege of Dragonspear roughly 18 years after its initial release. Now separate from the controversies surrounding its development, and 38 Studios, Amalur has an opportunity to stand on the strength of its gameplay and writing, and hopefully the Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning: Fatesworn DLC will pave the way for an Amalur 2.